Recession

Recessions are supposedly great times for innovation. Companies, their backs against the economic wall, are forced to be creative; those that rise to this challenge emerge stronger once the recovery comes.

Is the same true of consulting?

It should be. Long and deep recessions like this one create the need for new ways of managing. Post-recession, buyers of consulting want different services: the recession has changed them and they want it to have changed their suppliers as well.

So why does innovation always seem to be such a challenge for consulting firms?

V-shaped, U-shaped, W-shaped or L-shaped? The debate about the overall trajectory of the recession in the wider economy has been growing in recent days. But what of the consulting industry?

One of the ways in which this recession is proving to be different from the last one is that demand for freelance consultants appears to have shrunk. Although there’s no hard data on the shift, anecdotal evidence from clients, consulting firms and even freelance consultants confirms it.

There are several possible explanations for this.