Deloitte S&O vs. Oliver Wyman

The Sour Patch Kid:

moosen:

Here's how I might compare them:

1. Probably a wash, maybe a slight edge to OW
2. OW
3. OW clearly
4. No insight here

From reading these forums you get the sense that Deloitte S&O might be moving up in the consulting rankings, but OW has always been a top-tier mid-sized firm that consistently competes against MBB. It is more selective, does significantly less implementation work (hence why OW is a clear winner for your third category, unless you're interested in implementation work I guess), and is more well-regarded.

That said, it's a great choice to have and both will set you up well for b-school or entrepreneurship, with the latter probably depending more on your network than which firm you choose. Good luck.

Hmm, that's interesting, because an alumn who works at OW told me to not come to OW unless you wanted to work on FS work, as they said the GMC practice wasn't all that great. This is probably moot, now that FS and GMC are being merged, but something to think about.

Both are true - they do compete with MBB sometimes, but only on FS work. They are basically a strong FS-focused shop. Also do a lot of such FS-specific stuff as risk management. I haven't heard much about their GMC practice. I think OW is more prestigious than Deloitte, probably has better pay too, and probably more interesting if you are interested in FS.

My impression is that GMC (i.e. non-FS consulting) is still pretty top-tier. OW, an almost exclusively FS firm, merged with Mercer Management Consulting 5 years ago, which was a top boutique/midsized consulting firm similar to places like Monitor/Booz/LEK, and that is what turned into OW's GMC group. Regardless, now that the FS and GMC practices are being merged for entry-levels it seems like the best of both worlds: access to OW's top brand, strategy-focused projects, and ability to work in a diverse set of industries. Granted, I've only ever spoken to non-FS consultants at OW, so maybe the FS guys tell a different story.

Put another way, it's not uncommon for someone interested in FS to take OW FS over MBB, and while that may not be true for GMC, in older threads here you see both Deloitte and OW people recommending GMC over Deloitte. With those groups merging together, I'd guess that 'prestige' now falls somewhere in between.