Not sure exactly why, but my January columns and song titles seem to go hand in hand. Last year, "Won't Get Fooled Again" struck the right chord of cautious optimism and cynicism prevalent in the marketplace. Before that, "You Can't Always Get What You Want" summed up a time of frustration, angst and ultimately acceptance for the consulting profession.
This year, I'm feeling a bit more nostalgic and am going back a bit further… all the way to 1929's "Happy Days Are Here Again", a song that is associated with both Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1932 presidential campaign and the end of prohibition. Two things worth celebrating, for sure.
But the irony of 1929—a year that ended a decade of decadence and began the Great Depression—isn't lost on me. And I think the song is more than an appropriate end to the Great Recession. That's right; it's over. Dead. Gone. Buried. I know this because consulting firm leaders, who have more access to the corner offices than anybody, tell me it's true. And that's good enough for me.
In this year's Executive Outlook, which consists of both a data-driven survey of more than 200 consulting executives and exclusive interviews with two dozen firm leaders, the results were eye opening. Sure, firm leaders may have peppered their prognostications with some cautious caveats, but each and every one of them is downright bullish on the opportunities in 2014.
And the survey results were simply stunning—92 percent of firm leaders expect revenue growth; 56 percent say it'll be in the double digits. And 89 percent expect net profit increases; 45 percent predict increases in excess of 10 percent.
Give the entire Executive Outlook package a read and after you're through, just try to convince me you're not humming right along: "Happy days are here again; The skies above are clear again; So let's sing a song of cheer again; Happy days are here again."
Joseph Kornik
Publisher & Editor-in-Chief
jkornik@consultingmag.com
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