Pricing

By Edward Haigh

Most consulting firms give fairly short shift to marketing at the best of times. Seen by many as a function whose remit extends as far as producing shiny brochures and organising events, the average marketing department is under-funded, under-staffed and - by my reckoning - misunderstood.

By Fiona Czerniawska

Sounds impossible.  Germany boasts – if that’s the right word – the highest consulting rates in the world.  Executives we speak to in the region regularly complain about the amount they have to pay, especially to the big strategy firms which are so strongly represented in this market.  “Their fee rates aren’t just high, they’re immoral,” is how one senior manager memorably put it when we spoke to him a couple of years ago.

As part of the research for our latest UK consulting market report we asked clients (senior end-users of consulting services) about the factors that would have a "significant impact" on the volume of consulting services they bought.

Top of the list - chosen by a little more than half (53%) of respondents to our survey - was consulting firms lowering their fees by 50%. Fat chance. But also good news for consulting firms, as we discussed in a recent blog.