Consulting Blog for Business Consultants

I just got my hands on a copy of AICPA’s 2Q 2008 Economic Outlook Survey. This is a survey that the AICPA conducts on a quarterly basis to poll how decision makers in various industries feel about the economic outlook in their own organization, the industry, and the economy as a whole.

I really like the information these guys produce…

It can give you an idea of how your clients are feeling about business in general, which in turn helps you forecast (with more certainty than guesswork) how easy or difficult it is going to be to find new consulting projects.

Here’s one very interesting piece of intel I gleaned from this report.

Business Expansion Across The Board

It looks like most everyone they surveyed said that they’re expecting their businesses to expand in the coming months (see image below)

This is a bit counterintuitive… especially given all the gloom-and-doom news we’ve all be hearing from every media outlet.

If you look at the graph in the image carefully, you’ll see that the survey respondents think that the most expansion in business will be in the following industries:

• Finance & Insurance
• Healthcare
• Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services
• Technology

What this could mean is that if you are consulting in any one of these industries, you may not be affected by the downturn as much as other industries that are expecting slower/smaller expansion or higher contraction.

Industries Expecting Contraction

The survey respondents identified several industries where they expect business to contract:

• Construction
• Manufacturing
• Real Estate
• Retail
• Wholesale

What this could mean to you is that If you are a consultant in any of these industries, you may want to mount an aggressive new business marketing campaign in one or more of the other industries we highlighted in the previous section.

(P.S.  Check out this blog entry on consulting in a recession - it talks about mounting a new marketing campaign)

Your Turn

So how is the economic downturn affecting your industry?

Are you seeing a contraction or an expansion in consulting business?

Post your comments below…

This entry was posted on Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 10:02 pm and is filed under Consulting, Consulting Strategies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.