Marc Brenner, Editor.

There are many ways to judge success. Many of you will have made decent livings out of constructing benchmarks to measure such success. However, the consultancy industry has always found it a little more difficult to accurately pinpoint its own "worth". Once a year Management Consultancy provides you will all you need to know about consultancies' performances over the year. It is the "bible" for researchers, consultants and would-be consultants.

In our annual consultancy league tables (page 6) it looks as though the consultancy industry has, yet again, bucked any sense of economic slowdown and produced another year of strong figures. There have been reasonably sterling performances across the board. It may not be a vintage year - but it's certainly not going to be marked down as a disaster.

This year our league tables are longer and more comprehensive than ever - special thanks, once again, must go to Phillip Abbot and the Industry Research Group for their accuracy and acumen. We have provided you with figures for both IT-related activities, such as CRM, ERP, and telecoms as well as listings for consultancies buy industry sector. The sector breakdown begins on page 12, and that's where you will want to turn to first to discover who tops the tables in such areas such as retail, manufacturing, utilities, transport or finance.

This is our best read and most requested issue of the year. Take a look at one of the industry's most respected benchmarks and judge where you stand on the matter.