By Peter Barrett

Vice Chairman of MCAHK

MCAHK was represented by K K Yeung, Chairman, Peter Barrett, Vice Chairman and William Lam, Hon. Secretary. Also, in attendance.for Hong Kong was Invest HK with Simon Galpin, Associate Director General and Philip Kung, Head of Business and Professional Services being their representatives. The event was held in a hotel complex facing the sea outside Athens and it was interesting to know that of the 221 people registered, only 50 were from outside Greece of which 5 were from Hong Kong, 13 from Japan and 3 from India. Thus only 29 Europeans other than Greece were present compared with 21 from Asia. The theme on "The Role of a Consultant" entailed several presentations about the consultancy market in Europe. Hong Kong was well represented as KK presented a paper on "The Consultancy Market in China" and Peter Barrett on "The Development of Management Consultancy in Asia Pacific". Both of these were well received on the first day. One interesting presentation from Kennedy Information talked about the global market. It estimated to be US$50 billion in the United States and US$9 billion in Asia Pacific. There was slow growth 2003 to 2006 on average 3% per annum. He referred to "Big Idea Fatigue" such concept as SAP proved in practice more difficult to implement than the conceptual proposal. Consultants were less secure. Clients more demanding and a much stronger focus on implementation. The new model of consulting entails an emerging offshore service of data collection and analysis. 50% of the Asia Pacific Market is in India and China, the balance being in Japan, Australia and South Korea with the rest of the country negligible. We were also present at the elections for the Feaco Council and Antoine Beuve Mery of Belgium was appointed as Chairman. He is a partner in IBM Business Consulting. He pledged to analyse the Bylaws to improve the governance of Feaco. He announced that the number of member countries is now 23. He invited member countries to take part in working groups to help the European Commission understand how consultants work. He outlined future prospects which were poor in Germany, France, Belgium and Switzerland and better in Central Europe such as Romania, Herzegovina and the newer EU states. The new Vice President is Jean Luc Placet of France. He outlined a new vision of Feaco to develop the new strategy: 1. The management of a new membership survey 2. He hoped to have a help from all national associations to secure the building of multinational members as the budget of Feaco is too weak. 3. To reduce the number of activities to make them higher in quality. 4. To improve press relations and be more business like in their relationships with the media. 5. To hold an international conference in 2005 or 2006 and try to involve Japan and the United States into a global consulting organization. 6. To build new links between member associations. The Next Global Conference The Hong Kong delegation was able to persuade Feaco to hold their next global conference in early 2006 in Hong Kong. It is felt that we can act as a bridge between the US consultancy profession as well as Europe. At the same time, we spoke to many Japanese delegates and obtain support from them for a conference in Hong Kong. We also believe that we can attract a number of Chinese consultancy firms to join us. Your committee is working hard to begin the preparation for the global management consultancy conference to be held in 2006. We are looking for key sponsors for the main events who will receive full recognition as well as individuals willing to help us with what would be a significant organizational challenge for such a small membership. Among the countries presenting was a new member, Bosnia and Herzegovina who indicated that they have a budget of Euro 50,000 per annum, but they employ 2 full time staff. The challenge for Hong Kong is to secure consistent income so that they can receive some part time pay support. Altogether we believe MCAHK acquitted ourselves well and are at the forefront of the countries helping to promote and develop the management consultancy profession globally.

Pictures taken during the Feaco World Conference 2004