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70% of UK firms expect new business growth     results show sustained growth in management consultancy revenues over the last year. The sector has now enjoyed uninterrupted growth since Q4 2002, with like-for-like revenues increasing 6.6% in the last 12 months.    Encouragingly, the outlook for 2006 looks rosy. Around 70% of MCA member firms are predicting an increase in new business over the next quarter. And reflecting the ever-     higher utilisation rates being achieved in the industry, 80% of member firms expect an increase in their headcount of consultants employed over the next three months.    Nick Owen, MCA vice-president 2005/6 and managing partner at Deloitte, said: “Although there has been limited growth over the last quarter across all sub-sectors, the sustained growth within the consulting sector     over the past two and a half years has provided further evidence of the value consultants add, and the positive effect they are making on their clients’ business, both in terms of improved productivity and increased revenues.”    Although MCA members are predicting further growth, the MCA survey also showed that the sector’s confidence in the UK’s economic performance underwent a dramatic decline in the     third quarter: nearly two thirds of members (58 %) were ‘not confident’ or ‘not at all confident’ about the UK’s economic performance. This is the first dramatic change in confidence for over four years (since the first quarter of 2001) and sounds a cautionary note in an otherwise upbeat quarterly report.           The UK’s Management Consultancies Association (MCA) has just released its latest quarterly survey of member firms’ performance and expectations for the coming quarter. The

Xansa secures Boots contract extension     Xansa has been awarded a £26m extension and expansion of its IT outsourcing contract with health and beauty retailer Boots.    The current agreement extends the original     seven-year outsourcing agreement, which was signed in 2002 and was worth £90m, by a further two years to 2011.    Xansa will continue to provide application support and maintenance     to all areas of Boots’ business from the Head Office, through the supply chain to store based applications.    Xansa will also continue to provide applications     development, programme and project management, application architecture and business consulting services.    The new contract expands Xansa’s scope of responsibility to     incorporate a Boots Advantage Card service.

Boxwood to raise profile with Evans appointment     Boxwood has appointed Alun Evans as a director. Evans has worked in the consulting industry for 25 years and joins from Aon, where he was managing director for business development. Prior to     that, he was a regional director for PA Consulting Group, senior vice president of Capgemini and a founding member of Gemini Consulting.    Evans is to develop Boxwood’s profile on a     national and European scale.    Boxwood has grown dramatically since its inception in 1996 and was recognised by the Sunday Times as the 11th fastest-growing company in 2004 in its UK’s 100     Fastest Growing Companies list.    This year, Boxwood won the Management Consultancies Association’s ‘best of the best’ Platinum Award for excellence in consulting, as judged by     an external panel of businessmen and academics.

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