A relative slow-down of the growth trend, mainly in Germany and France, has had a significant impact on the European panel trend. Hungary, Romania and Denmark are accelerating their growth trend.
In 2020 Covid-19 had a major impact on the economy, disrupting established trends and making any assessment more difficult. According to preliminary data, the Covid-19 impact on MC turnover has
been very significant, reducing by 6.2% the European panel industry turnover. In most countries, the MC turnover has declined to a significant extent, mostly between 5% and 10%, with Slovenia and
Spain being among the most impacted.
However a few countries - namely the UK, Romania and Greece - have registered a MC turnover increase.
Over the 2017-19 period, in the European panel, MC turnover has grown on average 8.0% per year while GDP has grown on average 2.4% per year. A comparison of MC turnover and GDP trend shows that
in all countries – except Finland and Slovenia – the MC industry has performed better than the overall economy.
The digital transformation has been driving Management Consulting industry growth in the past few years and Technology consulting has been the most relevant also during the pandemic. With respect
to other service lines, during 2019, sales and marketing consulting has been the second fastest growing while, etc. During the pandemic People &change grew in importance mostly driven by new
ways of working, but there hasn’t been a clear and uniform trend across the different countries.
The Service Industries, particularly Energy & Utilities and Telecon & Media have been driving the industry growth in 2019. A significant part of the Service Industries (with the major
exception of Tourism & Hospitality) have also been less affected during the pandemic and therefore in 2020 they have confirmed, or even increased, their consulting assignments, while many
manufacturing industries (mainly automotive and heavy equipment) have frozen, or even cut, several consulting projects.
“During this crisis and still today, we can be proud of our consulting industry that expressed a deep commitment to support our clients and help them design the new world coming out if the
pandemic”, says feaco-Chairman Matthias Loebich.
