Buoyancy confirmed - consulting market on a roll

I've just stepped out of the Management Consultancies Association's annual conference to pen a short blog update on the healthy state of the market - as reported by the keynote speakers.

Having attended (indeed sponsored) the Institute of Management Consultancy's annual conference a couple of weeks back, it's been interesting today to hear many of the same messages emerging:

* Consultancies are experiencing robust growth in client demand - and double-digit growth is again expected in the next year

* Attracting and retaining talent is now the number 1 challenge facing consulting Partners

* Having to get deals approved by Procurement departments as well as by client decision-makers is a more and more prevalent requirement. A successful deal agreed over lunch with the CEO is now only half the battle. Getting over the procurement hurdle is at least as difficult

* Experience rather than talent is what clients are demanding in today's market. They want consultants on the team that have detailed experience in their sector - and are less interested in the "bright young things" with an MBA but no sector-specific insights they can bring to the project

Overall the mood at both events has been buoyant, with consultants quietly confident about business prospects and expecting that 2006 will be a vintage year.

Glad we're back in a market where everyone's cheery again... :-) Tony

Feedback please

Earlier this year we introduced a new Jobs-by-email service for Top-Consultant readers. You specify the types of jobs you are interested in and then once a week you'll get an alert of all the new jobs that have been posted that match these criteria. If you haven't registered for this yet, you can do so here for free.

Anyway, following our acquisition by DMGT / Jobsite we're just looking to upgrade various parts of the site and we'd appreciate feedback from readers who are subscribed to this jobs alert - what do you like about it & what would you change? Please do post your comments below, thanks Tony

Indian firms in push to gain consulting share

Just seen a sterling in-depth analysis of how the Indian IT giants (Tata, Wipro, etc.) are making a big push to raise consulting revenues - and why, from a strategic point of view, this is critical for them to achieve in the next years. You can find the full article here. Will be fascinating to see this battle unfold... Anyone any thoughts on who the winners will be? Tony