We can illustrate this with two examples: productivity improvement and strategy consulting.

The operational improvement consulting market was worth fractionally under $33bn in 2022, roughly equivalent to 14% of the global total. Overall growth this year is forecast at a respectable, but not stellar, 8%—but tucked underneath this headline number is one of the highest growth opportunities in consulting outside of technology services.

Given the economic environment, it’s no surprise to see productivity improvement/cost-cutting the most discussed topic among senior leadership teams. In data we’ve gathered from 10 major markets in the last four months, 40% of respondents said this was the case, compared to the 30% who cited digital transformation, the next most frequent topic of conversation (see figure one). Our snapshot of client sentiment, captured in April, explains why: While clients think that some problems contributing to the “poly-crisis” have peaked—consumer trading being down, issues procuring materials, managing the complexity of international markets—the biggest factor depressing confidence is that costs are continuing to rise, eating into profits.

All of this is translating into strong demand for consulting support: Asked which types of consulting services clients are most likely to use over the course of the next 18 months, 24% cited productivity improvement. However—and here’s the rub—it’s also one of the consulting services where demand is most likely to vary significantly between sectors, depending on the heaviness of clients’ purses.

Post-COVID, cash-strapped public sector clients are twice as likely as those in the technology, media, and telecoms (TMT) sector, where profits remain high despite—or perhaps because of—last year’s lay-offs, to say that they’re most likely to spend on productivity improvement (figure two). It’s also high on the agenda for manufacturing, healthcare, and pharma clients, with automation a particular investment priority. But the attention of clients in the energy & resources sector, where record profits are being earned, is elsewhere.

The strategy consulting market is roughly half the size of the operational improvement market: Globally, clients spent around $16bn on strategy consulting in 2022, at least according to our definition of the service. We’re currently forecasting above-average growth of 11% this year, around the same as in 2022, the result of a growing recognition that incremental productivity improvement won’t in itself be enough to survive.

Here, the variation is by geography: Forty-five percent of clients in South East Asia, an emerging but operationally very challenging consulting market, say that they’re most likely to spend on strategy consulting (figure three). That figure is three times higher than the more mature—and, we should emphasise, much larger—US consulting market, where the focus is more on productivity improvement.

All this highlights the need for consulting firms to understand the differences between markets. Up to last summer, firms were relatively safe to assume that growth was ubiquitous. But as clients start to adjust to the fact that the “poly-crisis” isn’t going to be over any time soon (two thirds think it will last more than three years), they’re starting to pick and choose where the spend on consulting. Consulting firms will need to follow the money, rather than expect the money to follow them.