At the time of writing

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'.

As we put the finishing touches to our 2012 Management Consulting Market Report (due for publication at the end of July) it strikes me that 'at the time of writing' is a phrase we've used a lot more than normal. That's because there's so much uncertainty about the political and economic backdrop to the consulting industry at the moment that you can't escape the nagging feeling that everything's about to change.

What we try to do is to see through those changes: to use our skill and judgement to marshal arguments in such a way that they will be impacted as little as possible by the mischievous turn of events, and to focus on the trends and themes in consulting industry that are likely to remain constant no matter what happens. Judging by what we've heard from the 250-or-so consulting leaders we've talked to in the course of researching our report, ours is an experience shared by most. Nobody really knows exactly what's going to happen, when, and what the impact of it happening will be. All they know is that the market - on the whole - doesn't feel quite as bad at the moment as they feared it might. So rather that waiting for the skies to clear they thank their lucky stars that it isn't raining and make hay in the fog.

Knowing that there's likely to be a delay in the publication of this blog, I'll finish by taking a punt and thanking you all for your kind messages: my incredibly cheap Greek holiday was fabulous, thank you, and just the respite I needed after my exertions winning the Tour de France.