Historically, as according to the research of Bäcklund (2003), the Swedish Management Consultancy (MC) market has been characterized by heterogeneity and saturation.Björlin&Bojler (2008) suggests that this could be ascribed to the fact that Sweden’s local market is small, as is its population, relative to the existing global markets. According to Bäcklund (2003) there was a shift in the market landscape in 2001, when the Classical American styled consultancies together with the Big Five accounting houses took over the market. In terms of market share 82% was from then on controlled by the previously mentioned actors, only 18% by smaller, local, actors (a seismic shift in opposite contrast to the market share distribution during the 1980´s).
According to Konsultguiden (2012a), currently the market share sizes are as evidenced by the pie chart on the right. However, the scope of this paper is limited to management consultancies. As M&A is also highly relevant for the field, we have included the Top 5 players in M&A in Table 1 (Konsultguiden, 2012b). However, we will be focusing on Management Consultancies primarily in our analysis.
Above is a table 2 presenting the top 12 players in the MC industry that we could find relevant figures on (mainly from Konsultguiden.se, a trusted source in the industry and, for example, utilized by Bäcklund[2003] in his dissertation). Boston Consulting Group, Celerant, and Capgemini are excluded in the above analysis since relevant figures were not attainable and/or disclosed for those companies. The sample should however be big enough and cover enough of the total market to be relevant and valid for an analysis and subsequent assessments and recommendations to be made. These numbers are then utilized, in companion with other assessments made by the authors, in our industry attractiveness analysis (presented further below) as
References: Abu-Mostafa, Y.S., (2012, July), Machines that think for themselves, Scientific American, July 2012, p 64-67. Elwes, R. (2012), The algorithm that runs the world, New Scientist, 2877, p 32-37. Ayman, R., Karabik, K. (2010), Leadership: Why Gender and Culture Matter, American Psychologist, 65 (3), 157-170. Junemann, E., Lloyd, B.(2005), Consulting for virtual excellence: virtual teamwork as a task for consultants, Team Performance Management, Vol. 9 Iss: 7 pp. 182 - 189 Wilson, A Lory, M., McCalman, J.(2002), Management consultancies as brands: Can David learn from Goliath?,Journal Of Brand Management, vol 9, issue 6, 412 – 430. BOOK Forsgren, Mats (2008), Theories of the Multinational Firm : a Multidimensional Creature in the Global Economy, Cheltenham : Edward Elgar, 2009 – ix. Riezebos & Van der Grinten (2012), Positioning the Brand An Inside-Out Approach, Routledge. LECTURE AssalAshir(2012), Lecture “Real Life Strategy Seminar 2”, Business Strategy, Master Course, edition 2012, Uppsala University, 2012-11-23. NEWSPAPER ARTICLE Telegraph (2012), Management consultancy businesses thrive in downturn, online 2012-11-29, accessed from:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/business/axa-business-insurance/9223530/management-consultancy-businesses-thrive-downturn.html ONLINE Konsultguiden (2012a),Rankinglista, Management, online 2012-11-29, accessed from: http://www.konsultguiden.se/rankinglistor/management Solidx (2012), Our services, online 2012-11-29, accessed from:http://www.solidx.se/konsulting.html