Market conditions

I was recently on a plane with a big group of Italian tourists. We all duly read our magazines, ate our peanuts and landed safely – to a huge round of applause and whooping for joy from the Italian tour party. It is perhaps this delight in simply staying alive which explains the sanguine nature of the Italian response to yet another year of a consulting market which is not growing at all.

What on Earth were they thinking?

By Margaret Cameron-Waller

Over the past couple of years, we’ve been actively tracking M&A amongst consulting firms – and there’s been plenty to track.

In the US alone, we estimate there’s been an average of 5.5 deals every month for the last 2+ years. In some deals, the aim is to acquire a specific technical capability – digital being particularly popular right now. In others, it’s to build scale and extend reach, fuelled by globalisation.