MCA warns of consulting slowdown

MCA warns of consulting slowdown

The Management Consultancies Association has warned of a slowdown in growth for consulting firms during 2001, but remains confident healthy figures can be maintained.

Declining share prices are continuing to affect the hi-tech sector, while the dotcom bubble has well and truly burst. Leading companies including Cisco have been announcing large-scale job cuts – with an impact on consultancy spend expected to felt during the year.

Member firms of the MCA generally enjoy 30% plus revenue growth year on year but that is not expected to be the case when the 2001 results are released next year.

But the results are not expected to be anywhere near as bad as in 1991 – the only year since the MCA began that figures fell.

A spokesman for the MCA, said: ‘We are genuinely upbeat about the figures for this year. Consultants are very good at spotting gaps in the market and developing new products.

‘Order books are healthy and areas such as the public sector, manufacturing and leisure will produce an upturn. We may see some flattening off in the telecoms sector though. Our firms will continue to grow but not at the rate seen in the last three or four years.’

The warning comes just weeks before the release of the MCA full-year 2000 figures and follows the fourth quarterly revenues for 2000 – which showed fee income over £1bn for the first time ever.

This represented a rise of 10% on Q3 2000 and a 22% increase on the comparable quarter in 1999.

Revenues were up in areas such as strategy, IT consulting and outsourcing consulting. Members also reported future prospects in general for the industry in 2001, including the recruitment of consultants, remained good, if not spectacular.

Meanwhile, at their AGM earlier this month, members of the MCA elected John Tiner of Andersen as their president for 2001/02. Tony Smith of Kurt Salmon Associates was elected vice president. Tiner will replace outgoing president, Brian Tash of PKF.

Links

MCA website

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