Historic news headlines from Management Consultancy magazine

The main news items that appeared in Management Consultancy magazine month by month were as follows:

September 1993

• Cray Electronics acquires P-E International after the company announces half-year losses of £622,000. P-E retains its name and independence as a management consultancy, but its IT operations are folded into Cray’s.
• Deloitte & Touche becomes the largest professional services group in Hungary following a merger with Idom Consultancy, a Swiss-based firm with 750 staff and partners in Eastern Europe.
• The company also announced a £400,000 contract to restructure Pakistan energy company Sui Southern Gas, and that it would be providing IT support for the Ministry of Defence.
• The MCA publishes guidance note on the European Council Directive on Public Service Contracts.  The directive created a Europe-wide Single Market for the supply of services to public bodies from July 1 1993.
• Lloyd Masters Consulting launches a subscription-based service offering unlimited access to its consultants for a monthly fee.
• Bain announces its 11th project with the Polish government’s privatization programme.
• Ws Atkins joins with US company Burns & McDonnell to form Atkins. Burns & McDonnell to target power and aviation projects.

November 1994

• A report by The City Research Group finds the Big Six have failed to exploit their position as auditors to the world’s largest companies.  According to the report, the auditors have lost out to established management consultancies and merchant banks, forcing them to concentrate their consultancy efforts on second-rank companies.   The report notes that the Big Six have achieved their greatest success in IT, but were not considered competitors to McKinsey and Boston Consulting.
• Andersen Consulting announces it will open a development centre in the North East of England, with plans to expand to a headcount of 300.
• Parity Consulting follows its acquisition of LBMS and Class with purchases of ACT Business Systems and BIS Training, but says future growth will be organic.
• IT company Unisys relaunches itself as a services organisation, under the leadership of Malcolm Coster, the former head of Coopers & Lybrand’s management consultancy practice.   The company has recruited over 100 consultancy partners and says it now has a service offering to parallel the Big Six.
• Having wound up the Enterprise Initiative Scheme in March the DTI announces the Consultancy Brokerage Scheme, with plans to launch in January 1994 with a database of 10,000 consultants. The IMC is skeptical about the success of such a database.
• Coopers & Lybrand wins a two year contract to develop IT systems for the Hungarian Credit Bank. Coopers & Lybrand consultants publish Beyond Business Process Reengineering which claims the next stage is the creation of the “Holonic Enterprise”.
• Arthur D Little opens an office in Colombia.
• Dr Adrian Lucas of Scientific Generics announces the development of a video-on-demand (VOD) service and predicts it will have a major impact on viewing habits.  He also predicts that the high street will lose out to home shopping in areas such as travel.
• Strategy firms report a 33% increase in fee income.

January 1995

• The IMC introduces the Certified Management Consultant designation for its qualified consultants, following a decision by the ICMCI to make CMC the worldwide designation for all qualified institute members. The Institute also issues a revised code of practice.
• KPMG announces plans to grow the consultancy practice by 50% and reach 1500 consultants by 2000.  Head of UK consultancy Alan Reid also says the firm will narrow its focus to concentrate on business transformation, closing is marketing practice and other minor service lines. The firm sees a increase of 10% in fee income, following a 12% drop the previous year.  The firm also incorporates its Dutch office, but says this is not the start of a global initiative.
• The new edition of the European Management Consultants Director has 27% more firms listed. Half the firms listed employ less than 10 staff
• Roland Berger predicts 7% growth in fee income in 1994 to £130m and claims to be the sixth largest consultancy in the world, and the second largest in Europe after McKinsey.
• Search and Selection firm West Petty reports that advertising agencies are recruiting management consultants
• A British Telecom report finds that 28% of consultancy firms have staff that work from home (or plan to do so) and that 31% of individual consultants are now teleworkers.
• Logica says it plans to increase its consultancy headcount by 50% to 150.
• George Cox leaves P-E International to become chief executive of Unisys UK, reporting to Malcolm Coster, president of Unisys Europe/North Africa

June 1997

• Management consultancy is the 5tth most popular career among university finalists according to the Sunday Times Graduate Careers Survey attracting 11.3% of applicants.
• Paul Lynch becomes IMC president succeeding Geoff Kitt (1994) Dr Peter Tomkins (1995) and Barry Curnow (1996) and vows to continue the change programme initiated by Kitt.
• Following a successful partnership with the Hungarian Association of Management Consultants (VTMSZ) to develop the association and the Hungarian consultancy industry, The British Council funds an MCA project to work with the Bulgarian MCA,
• PwC forms a global alliance with IT services firm Origin sparking rumours of a merger
• KPMG sets up “rapid deployment force” of SAP consultants, KPMG Implementation Services based in Luxembourg) with ambitions to expand the offering to PeopleSoft and Baan.
• George Shaheen is nominated for the CEO role at Andersen Worldwide with a mandate to combine the consulting operations of Arthur Andersen and Andersen Consulting
• Firms in the financial sector report fee growth of 20%

May 1998

• Arthur D Little’s global practice leader Werner Knetsch predicts a boom in eCommerce but warns many firms are ignoring it or fail to understand it.
• The British Consultants Bureau attacks the “SpIce Girls tax” which removes the Foreign Earnings Deduction for expat workers
• KPMG’s new senior partner Mike Rake announces a new governance structure, bringing non-executive directors from outside the firm onto the board.  A new bonus system for consultants aims to help expansion after merger plans with EY were shelved.  KPMG UK consultancy revenues increase by 25% worldwide and 35% in the UK
• Price Waterhouse spends $53m on a professional development centre in Florida.
• The MCA holds a farewell dinner for retiring executive director Brian O’Rorke.   O-Rorke calls on consultants to become “the leadership of the country” and says he will spend his retirement sculpting ballerinas.

July/August 1998

• After the merger of Coopers & Lybrand and Price Waterhouse, PwC announces that former PW director of management consultancy Peter Davis will lead the integration of the consultancy practices.  He is joined as deputy global leader by C&L’s John Jacobs, reporting into managing partner Scott Hartz.   The new global entity claims to be hiring 1,000 people a week.
• Feaco, the European Confederation of Consulting firms, says that members increased fee income by 28% compared to 2017.
• The Institute of Management Consultants renames itself as The Institute of Management Consultancy, to signal a more inclusive approach embracing all stakeholders in consultancy.
• KPMG’s Scott Parker says that the vast majority of finance functions can be automated, and this will lead to the elimination of finance departments within a decade as finance professionals integrate with the business.
• Law firm Eversheds launches a management consultancy service aimed at local authorities and other public sector organizations.
• Deloitte & Touche predicts a 300% increase in ecommerce in two years, led by banking, energy, retailing and the public sector.
• Management Consultancy’s annual survey sees fee income rise by 24%
• Research by NOP finds that 64% of projects were completed on time and to budget, 60% of clients said they would work with their consultants again. But 20% said they would work with different ones and 20% said they would never use consultants again.  Clients rated consultants much more highly for technical expertise than business skills.  While 40% of consultants said business expertise was essential, only 20%of clients agreed.