All questions tagged consulting industry - Consulting Q&A - PrepLounge.com

I am willing to buy together with other people! Will send a private message.

Hi there,

I do have industry overviews including revenue drivers for 25 different industries. Feel free to reach me, I can provide it to you for free.

Cheers

Serhat

Hi Anonymous,

The notion of prestige is debatable, but assuming it refers to the general perception of the brand, the only two firms with a strong consulting brand between the Big 4 are Deloitte thanks to the acquisition of Monitor (merged also as a brand name) and PwC thanks to the acquisition of Booz (not merged as a brand name), as also mentioned by Julien. Before such acquisition, Deloitte had already a consulting arm. The general perception of the two firms is therefore generally based on the following:

1. Booz was generally considered stronger than Monitor;
2. Strategy& is branded separated from PwC, while Monitor is not from Deloitte;
3. Deloitte did have a consulting arm before the acquisition, while PwC did not.

The first two elements support PwC while the latter Deloitte, so you will probably find people who will consider Strategy&/PwC superior and others that will consider Monitor/Deloitte superior as of today. This in general terms; at local level, things could be perceived differently, and in certain geographies PwC/Strategy would be considered definitely better than Monitor/Deloitte, and the other way round.

At the following link you can also find a comparison between the different firms based on some other criteria. In their review, they put Deloitte as top for consulting, but since the Strategy& brand is separated from PwC, that’s again debatable:

http://news.efinancialcareers.com/uk-en/204621/working-for-pwc-deloitte-ey-and-kpmg-whats-the-difference

Besides an analysis of prestige, I think it could also be useful for you to consider exit opportunities (in many countries, consultants stay 2-3 years, so that’s not such a remote option even if you are still considering where to go). The simplest thing to analyse that would be to take a look to LinkedIn and check which have been the exit paths for people coming from Strategy& and Monitor Deloitte in your target geography.

Hope this helps,

Francesco

Hi Anonymous,

Big 4 and MBB have a different focus in terms of projects. Specifically, Big 4 work more on implementation projects rather than strategy. However, many of the Big 4 have now also a strategy branch, thanks to the acquisition of Booz (PwC), Monitor (Deloitte) and Parthenon (EY), thus moving towards strategy and more direct competition with Tier 1 and Tier 2 companies. When they overlap, competition is mainly price based – MBB are far more expensive than Big 4 for a client.

In general, compared to Big 4, in MBB you get:

• Higher competition
• Stronger alumni network
• Higher pay (may depend by the country)
• Longer hours (may depend by the country)
• Shorter project, more strategy focus
• Support for extra stuff – there are specific MBB department for research and you can outsource most boring activity (eg slides realignment)
• On average, higher budget for travel
• More exposure to CXO level

Best,

Francesco

I do agree with Sara’s sentiment on focusing on culture/people and the business focus alignment to your area of interest, but I am not sure how I feel about the segmentation. I do agree there is not a hard line, but below is a different approach to how the industry might be segmented (read how folks describe the industry or folks in industry might perceive themselves):

Strategy Consulting Firms: Main focus is to provide high level strategic advice to companies leadership (C-level and Board). They partake in other things, not limited to, but including implementation, operation etc. These companies would include:

Tier 1- which typical refers to MBB

Big 4 - Which refers to the Strategy side of Deloitte (Monitor), KPMG, PWC (Strategy&), EY (Parthenon)

Tier 2- Typical Non Tier 1 or Big 4, could be called "Other Boutiques"- example could be Oliver Wyman, A.T.K, Accenture strategy, Z.S Associate and a host of others.

Management Consulting Firms: Now this includes everything including strategy consulting, IT, Supply Chain, Operations, Finance, Deals or M&A etc. again the companies above mostly offer such services, but the industry has its way of branding MBB as Strategy, Accenture as IT, A.T.K as operation and Big 4 as financial services based. The irony is that they are all management consulting firms that do a bit of everything, so do more than the others do, but you can do strategy work or IT implementation work at most of those firms.

That being said, it is true that MBB gets a lot of strategy projects, but so does Monitor, Strategy& and Accenture Strategy, just like its true Accenture gets a ton of IT projects, but so does MBB and Deloitte. I don’t have exact data to tell you who have what share, but point is you can end up doing what you want at any firm, if they offer/ sell the service you have interest in.

More specific to your question on if they are the same globally, for the companies described above they operate globally, but sometimes with a slight change in focus (read what the business opportunity might be in that region – Houston firms focus on Energy, San Francisco’s would focus on Tech, Middle East- Oil and Gas and maybe Retail etc.)

Obviously there is more to this, but hopefully this is sufficient to get you a sense of the current industry position.

(1) find more qualified applicants. BCG grew 20% last year, they are constrained by the size of the workforce

(2) depends on the office. In Dallas where I was, BCG has a nearly perfect record of people coming to BCG over Bain and McK I am certain the situation is reversed in other areas, but at the very least this suggests 1 size doesnt fit all

(3) what makes you think they won't? The faster the business changes, the more clients needs MBB

Hi Anonymous,

first of all a disclaimer: I am a white man, so I definitely have blind spots here and there and maybe see things for better than they really are. But I'll do my best to give an objective answer.

I believe that Vlad and Guennael have already made some good points. I am including below an answer to a similar question from some days ago, with some minor edits.​

Just one additional point:

I do fear that racism may be a tougher nut to crack than sexism (especially the blatant kind) . After all, women make up half of the population, so all of us have had quite a bit exposure to smart, ambitious, admirable women. So we've kinda gotten used to that.

But in many societies in W. Europe, you get A LOT less exposure to smart, ambitious, admirable people of different races. First of all because they don't make up half of the population, secondly because many of "these groups" are under-proportionally represented in higher education and the traditional circles where consultants come from. There's a million reasons for that, which I don't want to get into, but the fact remains. Also, sadly, in the current political climate in Europe, many groups are overgeneralized ("the Muslims", "the Africans") and wholesale associated with trouble. And counter-examples of well-integrated, successful people of different races are viewed as the exception to the rule, rather than vice versa. Obviously this does not happen to women, at least not to that extent.

An anecdote to that:
A good friend and former colleague has Vietnamese roots. A few years ago, he moved to the US. He said it was such a relief for him to not see the surprise on clients faces when he walked into a room that he had seen so many times in Germany. So even today, people are surprised to see an Asian-looking guy walk into a meeting. Nobody would be surprise to see a woman enter the same meeting.

So if I would have to guess who has a harder time, for example in Germany: Probably someone whose name is Ali, Mohammed, Kofi or Minh, rather than someone whose name is Theresa, Sarah or Melanie.

Hope this helps,
Elias

Here's my answer from a few days back:​

Hi Anonymous,

first of all a disclaimer: I am a [white] man, so I definitely have blind spots here and there and maybe see things for better than they really are. But I'll do my best to give an objective answer.

All your questions are justified and the observations are 100% correct.

Consulting [in Europe] is still male-dominated [and predominately white], and the more senior it gets the more so. Tons of reasons for that, many of them related to compatibility of consultant lifestyle with family.

The good news is that I believe that the industry has relatively little gender [/racial] bias or gender [/racial] discrimination, especially when it comes to recruiting. The firms in Germany that I have worked for and with or that I know well from close friends (Horváth & Partners, goetzpartners, BCG, Bain, McKinsey, SMP, EY, to name a few) are very conscious of this imbalance and actively try to work against that.

So I believe that being a woman [/non-white] definitely doesn't hurt your chances during the recruiting process. It may even help just a little bit (but really only a little bit).

During work, you'll obviously encounter the everyday sexism [and racism] both from clients and colleagues. Consulting is not a safe haven from that, although you'll mostly be working with young, highly educated and relatively progressive, open-minded individuals (as colleagues), so there are definitely worse places. I hope this sexism [/racism] doesn't manifest itself too much in your formal evaluations and feedback on your work, but it will definitely happen in everyday situations. Sorry about that!

Regarding the long-term: That is up to you. I believe the way to senior roles is wide open for women. But, consulting is a really tough job to align with family, even under the best of circumstances and even for men in more traditional family settings (man as the sole / main breadwinner). So I am aware that the sacrifices that are demanded from women to get there and the conflicts regarding expectations are infinitesimally higher for women than for men.

I can only encourage you to try to be a trailblazer because our industry needs more of them. But I am aware that it's asking a lot.

Hope this helps,

Elias

Is the question still relevant? If so, I am happy to share my views as a gp Alumnus

Hi,

Working with the application of the AI right now, I can say that AI will not replace consultants in the next 20-30 years, but rather will be one of the consultancy offerings:

1. AI is not as powerful as you think about it. You can use AI to replace the manual labor but you cannot use AI to make the complex management decisions. Even if you use all HBS cases to teach this AI - this dataset will be still not enough:) Not even saying that it is extremely hard to label good and bad management decisions in this dataset, since the person labeling them should be a business guru himself. Moreover, most of the business decisions have a tradeoff.
2. Consulting is a people business. AI can not talk to people. Clients invite the consultants not only because of their problem solving but also because the companies need someone with a consulting brand to be responsible for the management decision, they need external people who are not dealing with internal politics, people who can work across many departments. AI can't talk to people and collect their ideas, AI can't implement things, AI can't negotiate, while the consultants can.
3. The clients will need the external support to implement AI. They need someone to structure it, organize the collection of data set, labeling, etc. Here consultants can help
4. Consulting companies are actively building AI capabilities on their own. Although they are in the early beginning. Moreover, there are new rising AI consultancies and they are all trying to partner with MBBs to get access to the clients

Best!

House of lies is the only one I know about too, however "suits" (TV show) and "up in the air" (movie) while not being about managment consultants were particularly relatable in terms of experience on the job (one for type of work and environment, the other for the travel).

Have fun binge watching!

Andrea

From speaking to many Investment Bankers at recruiting events at Cambridge trying to convince people that IBD>Consulting: the reason they almost all gave is that in IBD, you actually do, whereas in consulting you just advise. Of course, I don't fully agree with this, or I would be in IBD, but to help you craft a compelling argument:

In IBD you have skin in the game, and your work will definitely have an impact in the end - imagine working on a multi-billion merger, and you worked directly and contributed to that deal.

Consulting, on the other hand (for the sake of this story), you provide a recommendation, but there is no guarantee anything will change, or that your work will have impact. Ultimately, you would rather actually have an impact than produce some reports that might or might not be implemented.

Also, one thing you should definitely not mention is better exit into Private Equity. I know someone who mentioned this as a reason for "why are you switching from consulting internship to IBD" at a final round with Morgan Stanley and got rejected, and in the feedback they said the primary reason was they didn't think he would stay for longer than 2 years before trying to jump ship!

I see them playing a bigger and bigger role (pending their ability to keep audit and advisory/consulting independent and do not run into government limitations).

In the industry there is a lot of buzz about acquisitions of these three being very close (would add Bain too), the bigger question is whether once these are acquired the talent stays and customers will still be willing to pay a premium under a big4 name. Recent, similar acquisitions didn't seem to produce the hoped results.

Andrea

Bain, BCG and McKinsey all have initiatives to ensure the wellbeing and satisfaction of their teams. One of the dimensions that is closely monitored is hours.

Number of working hours is not the only dimension and not the most important one because it is not the one with the highest correlation with work satisfaction among consultants at those firms (the ones that have the highest correlation are: how fullfilling is the module/project, how much manager/client values work that has been done).

That said, in US I feel Bain is the one with the reputation of having, on average, better working hours among the top three. Keep in mind that within each firm there is a lot of variability of how many hours you work based on:

-office you work with (some offices have longer hours than others)

-client you work for (some clients work their consultants more because they know what they can get)

-team you work with

-type of project you work on

On average expect to work 55-60 hours a week. A relaxed project can be even 45. An intense project goes into the 75-80 with peaks of 100 hours in key weeks.

Hope it helps,

Andrea

I will try to go straight to the point, Deloitte as the other firms which are mainly focus on audit and advisory (EY, KPMG, PWC), sometimes and in some offices have excellent consulting divisions, however on average MBB have to be better otherwise they would not justify on the market the huge gap of their fees.

Most large firms tend to have internal consulting arms now to avoid spending 4-10x on hiring MBBs, prefering to do that only for the most strategic engagements.

Some names that come to mind:

1. Siemens Management Consulting.

2. Google has an internal consulting arm: BizOps

3. IBM has the same as Google

4. DHL has a very interesting Ops/supply chain focused consulting arm

5. Dell has an Ops focused consulting arm

Let me share my point of view on this.

As for the USP, I find it hard to determine the difference between S& and other strategy consultancies. Probably they are minor differences, but S& has a “fit for growth” agenda, i.e. create conditions for sustainable growth through increased efficiency, transformation etc. Of course like every other consultancy nowadays, digitalization is a huge topic also for S&. However, Booz was already known for a strong digital business team before the hype of digitalization, so they might have an advantage in that. Another important factor to consider is the connection to pwc. This allows to focus fully on strategy and delegate other responsibilities like law, technology etc. without needing to include another external company. Also, pwc provides a great network of expertise. If you have a project on a specific topic let’s say renewable energies, you as a strategy consultant are not gonna have the right expertise, but you can always find a specialist for the topic you need through pwc’s network.

Regarding industry focus, I would say that client industries vary for S&, but there might be a tendency towards engineering/automotive because of the former acquisition of Management Engineers.

Congratulations, both are fine companies!

First, quick caveat: I am a former BCG consultant, from Europe but with consultant experience in the US only.

I would rank both as below MBB, but fairly close - probably #4 and #5 in Europe. My semi-educated guess would be to put Roland Berger ahead of Strategy& in Europe, but reverse this ranking in the US.

Which one to choose? Truthfully, the actual rank and reputation doesn't matter since they are very solid consultancy shops and recognized as such in the UK. I will assume both offices are quite large since in London, so both probably have a number of partners specializing in all the big verticals. If you think of moving to the States, small nod to Strategy&. If not, focus on where you felt best, which people you met and liked most...

One thing most people don't realize is that where you go to school doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things - and which consultancy you join doesn't really matter much either. A few years post consulting, you would be hard pressed to figure out which of Consultant#1 and Consultant#2 went to MBB vs. RB/Strategy&. Just follow your heart, you will do great. Ah, and congrats again :)

Cheers,

G.

ex-BCG Dallas

Hello!

I don't fully understand what you mean by front-end digitisation. In the IT world, it's development of the interface/design/customer journey of a tool and/or product.

Having said that, I believe that all consulting companies are involved in this now, as Marco has explained in his answer. For example, an MBB firm might be engaged to analyse what insurance and banking products are missing at the moment, and asked to help come up with a list for the client. This list can then be used to create the new insurance and banking products that were only meant for digital distribution channels. A hypothetical example could be, a one-day insurance for your apartment if you were renting it out on Airbnb. Then, they might also advise the customer about possible partnerships, so in this hypothetical example, a bank might partner up with Airbnb to offer the insurance directly on the Airbnb platform.

Overall, the whole digitisation thing has taken consultancies by surprise and so many are putting high efforts to recruit people who have Digitization background. But based on what I know, I would say that Accenture has the best position at the moment.

Have a look at this article as well: https://www.forbes.com/sites/falgunidesai/2016/03/23/the-rise-of-digital-consultancies/#217f88776a79

Cheers!

Ignacio

Hi Anonymous,

personnally I am not a fan of in-house strategy consulting opportunities, and am a bit sceptical about the rational of choosing this type of opportuntities as it seems to share the downs of each job without capturing the benefits :

1. If you are really interested in consulting, then go for a proper consulting firm
You're learning curve will be much steeper, salary growth higher, and exit opportunities better

2. If you are really interested by a specific industry, then go for either a consulting firm with strong presence in that industry or an attractive player of the industry
Both will give you more exposure and concrete experience in the industry. Being a third party consultant is sometimes an enabler for achiving a job vs. being challenges from inhouse consulting

3. If you are really interested by a specific company, then identify what are the core jobs of the company (every company has on or sevral key jobs / function) and apply directly to it

I realize this is a very personal thought and not every one can be aligned with this, but at least you will consider this to make your own opinion

Best

Benjamin