Tuesday 21st Jun, 2011
Over the last three months, we’ve interviewed around 250 people in 150 consulting firms across 35 different countries, asking them how their local market is performing, how and why that may change in the future, and what the key challenges are that they face.
Thursday 3rd Mar, 2011
As part of the research for our forthcoming report on the European consulting market, we’re in the process of interviewing literally hundreds of consulting firms across the region, from the biggest strategy firms to local specialists. And one thing that has struck me so far is the relentless rise of body-shopping, where clients define their requirements in terms of the skills they need rather than projects, and buy individuals rather than teams.
Thursday 14th Oct, 2010
Our latest survey of quarterly buying trends gives an idea of just how fast public sector consulting is changing.
It’s a point we’ll be exploring further in a report to be published later in the autumn, but we included a few extra questions in our standard quarterly survey, just to test the water, with interesting results.
Monday 6th Sep, 2010
“The 20th century was about sorting out supply. The 21st is going to be about sorting out demand. The internet makes everything available, but mere availability is meaningless if the products remain unknown to potential buyers.”
Monday 9th Aug, 2010
A very good friend of mine recently admitted to a rather strange affliction. She calls it shopping bulimia, and it manifests itself as a desire to buy items (particularly shoes) and then return them. The idea is that she gets to enjoy all the pleasures of retail therapy without the lasting guilt of having spent her money. For those of us of a saner disposition – or, dare I say it, for those of us who are men – this seems singularly ridiculous.
Thursday 24th Jun, 2010
The art of “and” is the title of an article by the Boston Consulting Group on how organisations, post-recession, need to grow revenue while simultaneously cutting costs. It’s not a question of one or the other, the article suggests: you have to do both.
Monday 1st Feb, 2010
If we look for a moment at the UK consulting industry (every country is a bit different), we can divide it into three parts. On one side of the scales is the market in financial services; on the other is that in the public sector. Each of these markets is similar in size: in the middle and a little bigger than both is everything else: telecoms, utilities, manufacturing, media companies, etc.
Saturday 23rd Jan, 2010
January is one of the high points of the consultant's year so far as business planning is concerned. For the firms whose financial year starts in the summer, the New Year is a good time to check progress against assumptions; for those whose financial years start in the next couple of months, it is the last chance to take stock.
Two things are striking this year.
Saturday 30th May, 2009
V-shaped, U-shaped, W-shaped or L-shaped? The debate about the overall trajectory of the recession in the wider economy has been growing in recent days. But what of the consulting industry?
Saturday 18th Apr, 2009
One of the ways in which this recession is proving to be different from the last one is that demand for freelance consultants appears to have shrunk. Although there’s no hard data on the shift, anecdotal evidence from clients, consulting firms and even freelance consultants confirms it.
There are several possible explanations for this.
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