Strategic planning

The UK consulting market, still the biggest in Europe, grew by just over two per cent between 2011 and 2012.

Recovery (if you can call it that) came in the form of a surprisingly resurgent financial services sector and a public sector which, though greatly reduced from its size a few years ago, was nevertheless fairly bouyant and...yadda yadda yadda. Up a bit, down a bit. A few per cent here, a few per cent there.

Every now and then we talk to someone who, in the course of a single interview, perfectly encapsulates the opportunities and challenges of an entire market.

Segmenting the consulting market is a bit like skinning a cat: there are many ways to do it. Size is a useful way of thinking about it: small and medium-sized businesses don’t buy much consulting and, when they do, they buy it from their auditor or from freelance consultants.  Sector is much less reliable as an indicator of difference: at the moment, you can take two banks of a broadly similar profile and find that one is buying a lot of consulting services while the other is buying virtually none.