Plenty of buck, but no bang?

We think it’s interesting to note that most of the acquisitions consulting firms have made since the start of 2018 appear to be aimed at building up firms’ existing strengths, instead of helping them speed up their diversification into new services.

We examined around 100 acquisitions involving consulting firms since the start of this year, and estimate that almost half of these were driven by the desire to consolidate existing capabilities, with a further 23% to increase geographic reach. Another 11% of deals were for very specialised firms, deepening the firms’ expertise rather than broadening it.