Market conditions

There's always a danger, in writing reports about the consulting industry (or anything else, for that matter), that, in the time between the words being written and the report being published, something might happen which invalidates the arguments the report makes. It's why we use the phrase 'at the time of writing'.

It is 20 years since the philosopher Francis Fukuyama announced the end of history.  Buoyed by the end of the Cold War, he argued that the dominance of Western liberal democracy marked the end of man’s socio-cultural evolution.

Demand for consulting in the countries of the Gulf Co-Operation Council (GCC) has been growing fast since the recession, but for most consulting firms in the region this hasn’t meant a return to business as usual.

That’s been confirmed by our recent round of client research, this time focusing exclusively on the views of almost 150 senior executives in the region.  The impression they give is of a market that’s undergoing significant change.