DID YOU KNOW?

Management consulting continued... Anticipation of the new millennium drove the consulting boom in the 90s as preparation was well underway for Y2K. The millennium bug, or Year 2000, presented serious computer repercussions but some warned the potential glitch could affect banks, traffic lights, power grids, and airports, all of which were run by computers. With so much preparation and updated programming done before the change of date, very little actually happened on January 1, 2000 and the crisis was averted.

Growth stalled in the early 2000s as the dot-com bubble burst and many corporate clients began cutting their consulting budgets for the first time in decades. While the dot-com bubble burst caused the dot-com crash, the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on U.S. soil accelerated it as The New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq closed for four trading sessions (the longest shutdown since 1933). The dot-com crash – a two-year market downturn that eviscerated more than $5 trillion in market value between March 2000 and October 2002 – resulted in severe consequences for clients and, therefore, their consultants.

Next week... Enron