I'm curious...has the COVID-19 pandemic affected consultants' travel thus far to client sites?

Hello!

Yes, indeed. As you can see in all news now, all companies almost globally have banned traveling unless business critical needs. 

Consultants are working from home and some engagements have been postponed (think, for instance, in a transformation plan. What sense does it make to keep going if the client´s employees are not present?)

Cheers, 

Clara

Hello Danielle,

It depends on the country, consulting companies will just follow their clients. If the client has stopped activities they stop the project, otherwise consulting companies are perfectly able to work remotely.
In Italy they have just asked their consultants to work from home and not to go to the office. If the situation will get worse in the future, they could ask consultants to use their days off now.

Regarding the recruiting processes, they are trying to move forward using video interview but it's likely that they will slow down recruitments until they won't understand what is the real impact of the corona virus.

Best,
Luca

The impact varies from country to country but as a general rule, travel to client locations is being avoided as much as possible. International and domestic travel is being discouraged. Meetings are being conducted online and teams are working remotely. so pretty much similar to response from other professional business services

Hi Danielle,

For McKinsey all internal + client-related travel is reduced to the absolute bare minimum. This is due to protect people inside the firm, but also most clients in Central Europe already forbid consultants on-site on their premises.

Also, considering current closing of borders and cancellation of flights, there is not a lot of alternative than remote-work anyway.

Hope that helps - if so, please give it a thumbs-up with the green upvote button below!

Robert

Hi Danielle,

Yes, indeed. Since last Monday (March 9) most of the consulting companies worldwide (Western and Estern Europe, Middle East, Asia, US) have stopped the majority of business travelling until further notice.

My friends in consulting all work now from home offices.

However, the current situation from the hiring prospective in consulting is not that bad as it seems to be. It’s true that many firms worldwide (Asia, Middle East, Europe and North America) are slowing down their recruiting practices, but they are not freezing them.

First the companies simply need some time to adequately react to the situation and adapt.

This will have the following consequences for you:

1. The whole process will probably be a bit delayed and might take longer than usual
2. Instead of interviews in person everything will be switched to online – so keep on practicing skype interviews!

I hope it helps.

Good luck and stay healthy!

André

Hi Danielle, every project now has been freezed or they are conducting it home-office.

Best,
Antonello