Earlier this month, the Labor Department issued what most pundits considered to be a better-than-expected jobs report. More than 200,000 new jobs in December means the unemployment rate dropped to 8.5 percent, its lowest level since January 2009. Remember those days? We all do but for all the wrong reasons. It's been a long and painful trip back to here—wherever "here" is.
Most economists agree that some sort of recovery is taking hold, and all concur it's happening painfully slow, with the emphasis on "painfully." And while there's no reason to expect the U.S. is headed for boom times, it sure seems like we've got something here that we haven't had in a long time—momentum. Is it real? We've been fooled before, but it just feels different this time, even though most experts expect the U.S. economy to grow no more than 2 percent in 2012.
Well, around here we do our own annual forecasting and there's no question that consulting firm leaders are more bullish than they've been in a long time about their prospects for the coming year. In November and December, we surveyed nearly 300 consulting firm leaders and asked them to tell us about their firm's revenue and profit in 2011, as well as provide us with a forecast for the year ahead. (Our special 12-page 2012 Executive Outlook section begins on Page 10.)
In our exclusive survey, three-quarters of all firm leaders saw revenue grow in 2011, and 48 percent said it grew by double-digits. When we asked them about net profits, 70 percent reported growth; 39 percent reported double-digit growth. The numbers get even more eye-popping when we asked them to predict 2012; a whopping 91 percent expect to grow revenue this year and 54 percent say the growth will top 10 percent. The numbers shift to 82 percent and 43 percent, respectively, when we ask about net revenue.
And how does that 91 percent compare to previous surveys? In 2009, 61 percent said they expected to grow revenue (and incidentally, 16 percent expected a double-digit loss in revenue; ouch). In 2010, 74 percent said they'd grow revenue. See? Look at that progression over the last three years—61, 74, 91—that's what I call momentum.
We also conducted one-on-one interviews with 15 consulting firm executives. Their feedback mirrored the survey results. This year, like 2011, many firm leaders characterized their outlook as "cautious optimism," but it's clear that this time around the "optimism" is more prevalent than the "cautious." That's the exact opposite of last year.
Add it all up and we just might be headed for a memorable 2012 in the consulting profession—for all the right reasons.
Joseph Kornik
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
jkornik@consultingmag.com
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