Information Market

Facts & Trends. The business of consulting is large. In last year, over 150,000 consultants sold over $80 billion of advices. Today, technology planning, strategic services and enterprise consulting represent 35 percent, 20 percent and 15 percent roughly of the worldwide consulting spending.

The pursuit of specialized knowledge is rising rapidly. Firms are looking for consultants with very specific knowledge in areas like logistics management, knowledge management, data warehousing, multimedia, client-server development, sales force automation, electronic commerce, brand management and value management.

One important explanation of the rapid growth in consulting is change and a tumultuous business environment. The Nineties have challenged corporations with unprecedented new global competition, breathtaking technological advances and important new ideas about organization. The upshot of all of this is that advice from consultants has been in high demand.

Important reason to expect growth in consulting is the expanding demand for consulting services in other countries. This growth in foreign business will be particularly significant in developing countries. The reason is simple. There is a narrowing gap between developing and developed economies. Consultants are helping to bridge that gap by bringing solutions and ideas to firms in economies as diverse as Europe and Asia. Because these ideas are creating huge amounts of value, the demand for consultants' services is skyrocketing and should continue to do so for the next several decades.

Another nice thing about consulting is that it is recession-proof. When the economy gets unstable, the first thing many firms do is call in consultants. This means that your job should be stable.