June 19th, 2013 – Vienna, Austria – AIMS International, a preeminent global Executive Search and Talent Management organization, has launched the 7th issue of its Business Climate indicator. The ABCA delivers a global insight into the executive search business.
This analysis of the Executive Search Market surveys past, present and expected business conditions in 7 major business segments. It approaches the last 4 months and forecasts the next 4 months on the basis of interviews with AIMS International partners and consultants in 46 countries. The first ABCA was published in Q2 2011.
“Every issue of the ABCA delivers interesting insights for me, as EVP AMERICAS at AIMS International and as an owner of a company with international business relations” comments AIMS International Vice President John W. Poracky.
The ABCA Q2 2013 shows the following significant results:
1. 36% (Δ +8%) of the AIMS International partners and consultants evaluate the current state of business locally as good, 49% (stable) as middle and 16% (Δ -8%) as bad. These are small new indices for a stabilization of the local economy which had been visible already in the Q2 2012 ABCA, but proven false in the Q4 2012 ABCA. Solely evaluating the situation in the EMEA Region it seems even worse, as only 23% evaluate the situation as good there.
How is the present state of local business
2. Allowing multiple answers, significant differences in the development of important business segments during the last 12 months have become obvious: Industrial, Engineering and Logistics has strengthened its position as the core segment of AIMS International Partners, followed by FMCG, Retail and Luxury goods (which had a strong increase (Δ +17%) of the share of business).Whilst the business share of Financial Services is stable the Pharmaceutical, Health Care and Life Science business share shrinks by 5%.Automotive, IT&T and Energy business share increases continuously since the ABCA in 2012 Q3.
3. Following the answers to the questions about the revenue development of the surveyed companies in the last 4 months you can see that stabilization is starting to take place. There is a shift from companies with decreasing revenues to stable revenues. Global markets in the 7 industry segments are in rough waters still. Solely evaluating the situation in the EMEA Region it seems to be even worse, as only 17% evaluate the turnover as increasing in this region.
4. The strongest markets for Executive Search seem to be in EMEA Finland and Italy, in the AMERICAS Brazil, Canada and the US, in APAC China and Hong Kong.
5. Only 58% (Δ +2%) of the AIMS partners evaluated the number of current projects as large or sufficient, 42% (Δ -2%) as not enough. Alarming is that still only 9% of the companies evaluate their number of current projects as large. Upcoming free capacities are mainly used for quality enhancement initiatives.
6. As for the forecast for the next 4 months, 89% (Δ -2%) expect the business to be stable or better, 11% (Δ +5%) as worse. The significant decrease of positive business expectation (Δ -10%) is another signal of tendencies towards rougher markets.
The overall outlook for Q3, 2013 is not worse than in Q1 2013 and not promising.
