Business Technology Office (BTO) explained?

BTO McKinsey
Recent activity on Jul 17, 2017
2 Answers
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Jonas asked on Jul 14, 2017

Hey everyone,

I'm curious about the position of the BTO in firms like McKinsey. When you navigate to the jobs section you can choose between different areas but only when clicking on Digital/IT or Technology you get directed to the BTO positions instead of the general consultant jobs.

As far as I understand the Technology/IT/Digital sector got so important that they made a special (internal, organizational) office out of it, hiring people more inclided to do projects in that area. Is that the right way to think about it?

Are those consultant positions like all the general ones, just a little bit more specialised in the sense that you might get special training, have your office within range of other BTO people, get staffed on technology projects etc? I ask this because there is also the Analytics group which is a different story than a regular consultant position and would like to make sure that the BTO is not something similar. Other questions would be:

Do you still get on projects outside of IT/Digital?

Are the career options/salary the same?

Thank you and all the best,

Jonas

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Vlad
Expert
replied on Jul 14, 2017
McKinsey / Accenture Alum / Got all BIG3 offers / Harvard Business School

Hi,

McKinsey Digital is a Former BTO. Working there has the following differences with a generalist:

1) More trainings - from my experience BTO guys were constantly travelling

2) Separate staffing - you will have a different staffing coordinator who has to approve all your projects. In general it gives you more opportunities since you can also be staffed on generalist projects.

3) Different project types - BTO is working on IT strategy, Agile transformations, etc. It also depends on the country where you apply - while in US you can expect many BTO projects, in other countires most of you projects will be in various industries and functions

4) Career opportunities - again, depending on the country, the path to the partner may be easier in BTO since you have a separate group of people supporting you and dedicated projects. It may also be difficult as well if you don't have a proper BTO organization pyramid in your office

Personally, if I had to start my path at McK from a scratch - I would go to BTO

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Jonas on Jul 14, 2017

Thank you for the answer, that sounds very promising. The office would be in Germany.

Anonymous A replied on Jul 17, 2017

@Vlad, is there a difference between recruiting for BTO and General Consulting?

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Vlad gave the best answer

Vlad

McKinsey / Accenture Alum / Got all BIG3 offers / Harvard Business School
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