An international study by Maconomy on resource management shows that almost half of consulting firms are unable to plan more than one month ahead. Let me repeat that – on average, engineers, accountants, business consultants, marketers and advertising people operate in a world where the uncertainty of the future hovers on the one-month horizon.

The sad fact is that the consulting industry is failing at the very core of its business – resource management. In the UK alone, 52 per cent of consulting companies have patched together individualised resource planning sheets in Excel or Access. For the study as a whole, only 20 per cent of companies could claim that they had the ability to track resources across the entire organisation. The consequences of this means that one department may be strapped for hands, while consultants are plentiful down the hallway in another division of the company. And it is costing companies all the while – a crazy predicament to be in, especially given the current economic climate

This lack of transparency appears on another level as well. Many companies are very secretive about their resource planning and refuse their employees access to the resource management system (such as it is). In the US and Benelux for example only 18 per cent of those in charge of planning resources have access to the system as opposed to Denmark, for example, where 27% of all employees have full access. Still, we are talking low figures.

These numbers are even more startling when we consider that the consulting industry survives by planning. In conducting the study, we asked a series of questions about resource management to over 250 consultancies, which face the daily struggle of best managing their consultants’ time. From the answers, it is clear that the problem with planning is costing companies vast sums of lost revenue and putting undue stress on resources. At the same time, there seems to be a certain acceptance within the consulting industry; companies have simply grown used to operating in the dark. According to the study, problems with recruitment, retention, and employee utilisation rank at the top of participants’ concerns. However, in one way or another, these preoccupations all speak to the larger planning problem.

What do these findings mean in terms of the bigger picture? Well, right now the bigger picture is bleak and exhibiting schizophrenic tendencies, but that doesn’t mean that we should resign ourselves to ignorance and doom. Sure, it isn’t always easy to plan, but consulting companies are incredibly vulnerable in a financial crisis, and there is no room for guessing. I am certain that the companies that will come out on top in the coming months will be those that can act on facts.

We are already seeing what glancing nervously at the person next to you means for the market, but it requires a commitment to knowledge to prevent getting pulled along with the raging current. If we are going to weather the storm, we have to give up tentative, informal planning in favour of a professional planning solution. We have to get the right consultants on the right projects at the right time, so that we can see the whole picture. It means involving our employees and giving them access to the resource management system.

We are not talking rocket science here – it is pretty simple, but surviving in today’s market requires more than an Excel sheet and a hunch.