Pricing

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.

As part of our research with clients this year, we asked them to choose which things, from a long list, would encourage them to buy more consulting services. They could have chosen from things like the ability of a consulting firm to implement as well as advise,  the availability of highly-specialised skills in a particular field or a willingness to listen and tailor services to their needs. Guess what came top of list. Yep, lower fees.

If there’s one theme coming through loud and clear from our conversations with consulting firms at the moment, it’s price competition.  Whatever kind of work you do, wherever you work, it’s an issue; and for some firms in some countries the only question is whether prices have now been driven down to such an extent that they’re financially unsustainable.