T2 Firms - Italy

Hi there,

Q: How you would rank these T2 companies (Oliver Wyman, Kearney, Strategy&, Roland Berger, Arthur D. Little). Specifically in the Italian market. The parameters of the ranks would be, among the others: prestige, salary, WLB etc.

For salary, you can probably find some information on Glassdoor or similar. 

For work-life balance: I believe you will have to reach out to consultants (or even better, recent alumni) for information on the local situation.

For prestige: I wrote an article here:

▶ Top 15 Consulting Firms by Revenues and Prestige

Here is an extract of the “prestige” ranking, based on the 2020 MBA hiring (you can see the full list and revenue data by clicking on the article above):

You can check that MBB are the clear winners based on that.

In terms of the others, if we keep the companies that just do strategy and are not related to Big 4 with their brand name (ie, we don’t consider Accenture, Deloitte, EYP), then you get Strategy&, Kearney, Roland Berger, Oliver Wyman in the first positions.

This is still an imprecise way to measure prestige as some companies might simply hire fewer MBA candidates than others due to preference or size, but could provide a general orientation of what top MBA candidates consider better for their career at that stage.

Keep in mind that geography and industry matter a lot in the definition of a top company. Examples:

• Strategy& can be considered a top player in the Middle East thanks to the Booz legacy, less so in other geographies
• Oliver Wyman can be considered a top player in financial service and has a very good reputation in terms of quality of work in that industry, less so in other sectors

In any case, my suggestion is to apply to all, get as many offers as possible and compare offers AFTER you get them, taking into account also the interactions with the people in the company. Making extrapolations before is not that useful in my opinion.

Good luck!

Francesco

Hi there,

For me personally:

• S&
• Kearney
• OW
• RB
• ADL

That said, tiers exist for a reason. Prestige is similar (but dependent on exact region + industry). Salary is going to be mostly equivalent ($5-10k seperation), and often dependent on your negotiation abilities. Finally, WLB will be “bad” across all of them (it's consulting) and very dependent on project (client + project manager), though I've heard particularly good things about ADL and bad things about RB in terms of WLB

In terms of prestige, I would probably have:

- OW

- RB

- Kearney

- S&

- ALD

Probably work life balance aligns with this, but in the opposite direction (from worse to better).

Side with Francesco here - would diversify risk here by applying to all and only before round 2 do deep due diligence.

also beyond mbb prestige varies by industry/function, so hard to know without knowing your preference there (e g you want financial services vs supply chain …).

my take from working in consulting in Italy + friends would be

- rb, Kearney , ow, s& in the same zone but with spikes in certain industries or functions (e g financial services for ow, supply chain and ops for kearney)

the rest is more difficult to assess without knowing your goals

hope it helps