We recently received two emails in one day from different clients delaying work they were about to commission and saying that they will revisit things in a few months. This seems to have been the pattern of the last 6 months and of course it is frustrating for both us and the clients themselves.

I was talking to an old business hand who has been through several recessions and what he said seemed to crystallise the situation: “In a recession your competition becomes ‘do nothing’ and not the other firm.” Similarly I was having a drink with an old friend who also happens to work in research on the client side, but he works for a low-price food manufacturer in the US. Now, as market positions go, being on the low-price staples side is a pretty good place to be right now and they are in fact seeing significant growth. But even they have caught the recession mood and have a pay and hiring freeze on, largely because they can.

So I suspect delay days are here for a while, at least until budgets become clearer. The question in the back of my mind is how much is delay and how much is cancellation; it’s this lack of knowledge that is most difficult as it makes planning so hard.

But on the bright side, a project that was almost commissioned four months ago but then delayed has finally come through. So perhaps they really are delays after all….