In 2007, the Chinese consultancy market expanded by nearly $600m and typical growth rates this year have ranged from a high of 50 per cent down to 10 per cent, depending on the consulting firm and the market segments it operates in.
Around the globe, consultants are concerned about how the economic slowdown will impact their business pipelines and 2009 bottom line. In China, however, that is not necessarily the case, as Stephen Lee, KPMG's head of risk advisory in China, points out: “We must demonstrate specific insights to China as opposed to paraphrasing what's happening in the US,” he says. “Yes, the US has an impact, but the insight is in connecting that to what should be happening in China, rather than just saying what happens in the US is happening in China.”
Some of those insights may involve applying Chinese culture to the situation. In Chinese the characters used for the word crisis (WeiJi) separately have their roots in danger and opportunity. It seems that many of China's consulting leaders have already got a taste of some of that insight: while they admit to caution, they also quickly move on to talking about the opportunities that the global crisis will throw out.