Structure of bigger consulting companies like Accenture

Question

I'm trying to understand a couple of key differences between larger consultancy firms like Accenture and MBB. I'm not looking for details on Accenture specifically, it's just the example I'll be using.

I am going under the assumption that Accenture Strategy is the closest segment to an MBB firm. How does the work differ in terms of client?

These large firms also have separate Operations and Analytics segments. How does career progression look like here? Do you also start as a junior consultant and work your way up to Partner? Do you also work with the same type of client as in the Strategy department? I would be interested in any information toward the differences between Strategy and any other segment.

Thanks in advance,
E.

Answer 1

Hi,

i have experience of working both at McKinsey and Accenture

Quality is much Higher at MBB. To give you a sence, what you are doing as an analyst at big4, at mck will be done by research department or even outsorced students. Though it's worth to say that if your director at big4 will be ex MBB, quality will be much higher
Knowledge base - McK knowledge base is extremely deep and helpfull. You have tons of materials on various topics
Support - at MBB you will have lots of people taking care of extra staff - doing research, visual design of slides, sophisticated models, oursourcing for making surveys in the field. At big4 you'll do that staff yourself
Costs - you will have better hotels, better dinners, better airline tickets, etc. This is important if you spend 90% of your life out of home
Exposurte to senior management may be higher, though it depends on the country. Since the projects are more expensive at MBB, you may have more senior people involved
Relocation to different countries - options highly depend on the org structure of MBB/Big 4 companiy. I've seen good and bad example in both. But since you have higher salaries and per diem, at MBB you'll definitely have a better lifestyle at MBB if you do relocation