It is easy to find someone to make disparaging comments about consultants. As US business executive and author, Norman Augustine, famously said: "Hiring consultants to conduct studies can be an excellent means of turning problems into gold – your problems into their gold."

Throughout the long bull market, conventional wisdom had it that consultancy firms grew fat on this particular brand of alchemy. Financial institutions had lavish budgets and they were grappling to exploit a wave of technology-driven change, while sweeping consolidation in the industry led to massive technology and business rationalisation projects that offered rich pickings for consultants. Since the collapse of the technology boom, the bear market has seen budgets and body count slashed across the financial sector. Consulting is no longer the land of milk and honey that it once was.