Different Types of Consulting - Respective prestige level

Just had some questions about Consulting in general

I was wondering about the different types of consulting, what they refer to, their respective prestige level, and the companies that have that specific consulting.

  1. So when people say "Management Consulting" or when a Firm has a "Management Consulting Unit", they are referring to specifically their strategy consulting? Correct? Management Consulting does not include Operations, IT, or Industry Specific Consulting?

And in general, we have Management/Strategy Consulting, Operations Consulting, IT Consulting, and then other Industry Specific Consulting?

  1. Management Consulting is generally considered prestigious (Lets define "Prestigious" as what MBA schools like the most).

Is operations consulting less prestigious? IT consulting even less? And industry specific, where does that fall to? Or is all consulting on the same level?

How does the prestige breakdown look?

  1. Do all consulting firms have a management/operations/IT consulting unit?

For example, I know MBB has management consulting. But do they also have operations and IT?

Do other consulting firms like Accenture, Delliote also have MC? Or are they operations and IT only?

Thanks for taking the time to read my post! Hopefully you can clear some misunderstandings I might have

41 Comments
 
Best Response

ill try to help clarify things for you.

  1. the only "true" management consulting firms are MBB, however this is moot. nobody really cares about "management consulting" as much anymore, its purely consulting. firms are so diversified nowadays that you primarily separate them by the type of consulting they do (i.e. strategy, IT, HR, etc.)

  2. prestige does not necessarily go hand in hand with the type of consulting you do. MBB does the same kind of consulting that Deloitte does, or Oliver Wyman or any other firm for that matter. However, 90% of their work is strategy, and some indirect work is in IT, etc. Some firms specialize in other fields, like Accenture in IT. In no way does this make one firm better than another. MBB is so prestigious is because they have a incredible workforce. They hire almost exclusively from top MBA programs, have a incredible alumni base, work with top clients, etc. But working for a smaller firm like Navigant Consulting (for example) is not worse. Its just what you want to get out of it. I think you need to look beyond prestige or youll never make it into the field. There are just as good consultants at PwC/Deloitte/OW/Monitor, etc. as there are in MBB.

  3. no, not all firms have these departments. Next time google this before asking people on the forum, You can easily read what services firms provide on their websites. Accenture is an IT house, however they have a small strategy group. Deloitte is more of a strategy/risk firm, but they do IT work too. Google the firms man.

“Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” - Albert Einstein
 

Hi! I follow up this discussion and I put it differently: given that the core business of MBB is strategic consulting, they also have other practices, such as distressed firms restructuring, M&A and corp.fin.

Similarly EY, deloitte, pwc and kpmg are primarily auditors, but among their practices there is also strategic consulting, corporate finance and so on.

The question is: in the latter firms the practices that are not auditing are good enough? can you do good experience there, or it would be better to target other firms that are less prestigious (at least to my perception) like at kearney, oliver wyman, arthur d little, but that operate mainly in strategic consulting?

To make a parallelism with another industry: if you want to work in marketing, probably p&g would be one of the best options: as a second choice would you advise another fortune 500 firm, that is not so focused on marketing, or it would be better to go in a less known firm, but which is putting a lot of effort in the marketing division?

I hope I was clear, thank you for your answers

 
mmonkey"There are just as good consultants at PwC/Deloitte/OW/Monitor, etc. as there are in MBB. "

That's nonsense, on average this is definitely not true.

Firstly, you can't dismiss something as "nonsense" when you then discuss a completely different metric (the average, rather than the upper bound).

I would agree about Deloitte, but as for Monitor/OW, the only difference to MBB is the prestige, and people want the prestige so they can hop ship. It's not the low-level analysts doing it for their CV that make a good consultancy, it's the managers, principals and partners. And they don't give a shit about prestige.

 

Can you elaborate on the types of models you were building for these excperiences? Looking into purchasing an online program but can't decide if cases would be better for big 4 advisory type of work. Thanks

 

At a Big 4 Advisory firm for a bit over 2 years and have worked on the following: - Distribution Channel planning and mobilization (road-mapping and resource planning) - Implementation of a nation-wide quoting platform - Cost model for IT department - Vendor Selection to update/change an Insurance carrier's operations and business process - Product Strategy for an Insurance company (more focused on the Cost-Benefit model side) - Integration of a Business Intelligence tool

Most important lesson I've learned in the past 2 years is this: Almost anything explained in a high level sounds awesome. Even while writing this post and trying to boil down my project in one line, I almost convinced myself that they sound like cool projects. Its when you get into the details and the nitty-gritty (which you most likely will) - that's when things can get very uninteresting/too technical very quickly. Granted, I did enjoy some of these projects, and even during the ones I did not like, there were aspects I enjoyed. Just thought I'd put that out there.

Hugo
 

To be honest, I thought Business Consulting encompassed the financial end more so, while Management consulting pretty much dealt with the daily operations end(including lower management). I suppose it was just a misunderstanding on my part, it's just confusing to decide what you want to be "when you grow up," even though I'm almost there, ya know?

 

This is only one post but it seems to me:

-you do not know how to look up terminology -you do not know how to use the search function find answers

The most basic thing management consultants do is desk research. Read the Vault guide to consulting (see scribd.com) to get a better basic understanding of what you're getting into.

 

id say that there are essentially two poles of consulting--mgmt and technical, and that most types can be placed somewhere on the spectrum in between. mgmt at its most general would be what youre referring to--ie lets say i want to know how to grow my company, so then i hire a strategy consultancy. technical at its most specific would be something like say there's a guy who specializes in say IT, and you need something very specific done (need a better network set up or something), and so you hire them to do it.

 

What kind of sub groups are there are of management consulting or different areas if there are not as pronounced as well as how each rank. I talked to one friend who recieved offers at Deloitte's consulting branch and McKinsey as well for supply chain consulting. I would imagine that McKinsey would be her choice (given its higher rating on vault), but she said that specifically for supply chain Deloitte was better (and paid better). More specifically, I am a finance major so I wondering if there were certain types of consulting more aligned and a more natural fit for a finance major.

 

if youre looking for finance--

-McKinsey's corporate finance practice -financial institutions consulting at McKinsey, owfs/mow, bain (but with the exception of owfs i dont think you can specifically apply to these practices) -pe due diligence at MBB

most consulting anyways isnt really about your skills as much as your ability to think (and bullshit) rigorously, so your major usually isnt that relevant. if youre looking for rankings, there are thousands of those types of posts on the forums, so either search the threads or do some research on the internet.

 

Do a bit more research on consulting and try and set up talks with current or ex-consultants. Strategy consulting will be your best bet, but you cannot really apply for a specific segment/industry (other than the corp fin groups). However, once you start you can angle for finance-heavy projects, FS clients, PE work, etc.

No one really cares about "specialty" rankings. Mckinsey > Deloitte, can't really think of any circumstance one would pick Deloitte.

Don't really know how to break down different types of consulting- if you want a good luck at the different functions, closely examine the Monitor website and the different companies of the Monitor Group. Read the Vault guide as well.

 

In a Big 4 company, these different divisions will usually be completely separate. Unless there is some kind of rare project where it is both IT and S&O at the same time, you usually will only work with people in your department. However, there are many offices where the different consulting divisions will be on the same floor. In addition, these companies are making a push to have more events where you can network across divisions.

 

I've been contacting some friends within Deloitte to try and get me in touch with some of their other divisions and everyone always says they don't really know anyone. It seems like there is a clear split in the work and no interaction (unless you're friends and go out to drink/eat/party).

 
oowijI've been contacting some friends within Deloitte to try and get me in touch with some of their other divisions and everyone always says they don't really know anyone. It seems like there is a clear split in the work and no interaction (unless you're friends and go out to drink/eat/party).

Same. I reached out to a Tech Consultant, the only people he referred me to were in the tech service area. Although all of them had mentioned that they worked with people from all service areas on projects, so go figure.

 

I've been contacting some friends within Deloitte to try and get me in touch with some of their other divisions and everyone always says they don't really know anyone. It seems like there is a clear split in the work and no interaction (unless you're friends and go out to drink/eat/party).

 

Unless you make the effort on Fridays (when you're actually at your HQ'd office) to network with people from other areas, you're probably only going to know people from your vertical/horizontal alignment. Things can change if your client has your firm working on like 5 different types of projects and you all go out for dinner/drinks at night.

I've noticed there is quite a difference between how different areas/acquired firms/and internal networks operate. (For example, some people on long implementation projects aim for 40 hr weeks, strategy guys expect at least 60 etc). Sometimes it can feel like you're working for a completely different company if you're staffed in a new area within the firm (which I like, you learn more/different perspectives).

When you're in the huge consulting arms of Deloitte, PwC, or ACN, it's all WHO you know and who likes you. Expand/focus your question if you're trying to figure something in particular out about these firms that we can help you with.

 

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