How to determine which department is Front Office (Revenue generating/client facing) ?
Dear WSO members, I am about to graduate (BSc IT) and I came across this forum which was very beneficial for me. I am kind of interested in strategy consulting. Once when I was an intern in KPMG, one system admin at ITS department told me that none from the department got promoted in the last 2 years and advised me to go for client-facing consulting jobs. He said whichever department that generates revenue for a company will be "properly taken care of " and I cant stop thinking about it. I want to land on the right spot from my first job itself and there is this constant conflict of not to make a wrong choice and end up like the system admin. My questions are: 1. How to determine which departments of a company is Front Office ( as I noticed that they get better pay and promotion chances). I believe FO can be identified by looking at who mainly generates revenue for a company and mostly faces the client. Lets say the examples are Big 4s, how to know which domains are FO? 2. Is consulting considered FO? What about Risk Assurance/ Risk Advisory or just Advisory (I think it's the same as consulting)? It's a bit confusing because in Deloitte there is S&O and I saw in another website that ITS and Operations are Back Office. 3. If I did IT, can I still go into strategy consulting ?
I'm sorry if there are any errors and for the long paragraphs as this is my first posting. Thanks in advance. Cheers.
Hi Daniel-Ryan1, whoops, looks like nobody chimed in here.... maybe one of these discussions below is relevant:
You're welcome.
Hi users, does anyone knows anything about this ?
Generally speaking, FO = revenue generating and BO = cost centre (that supports the company, obviously).
As you mentioned, FO is a good place to be just because you know you're actually generating money for the company. There is a clear business case to not only keep you but also help you develop and grow. If the company is hurting on profitability, cuts to cost centres and "right sizing" is typically the first (and easiest) step.
For Big 4, ITS and, ops, internal marketing, etc. is back office. All of the other ones you mentioned are all technically FO because those teams are billed out to clients (S&O, risk advisory, risk assurance, accounting, etc.). Generally, anything client facing at these firms is FO.
Now, that being said, there is "tiering" at the big 4 when it comes to the FO. Some service lines are more profitable than others. Some service lines are more stable than others. For example, accounting/assurance/internal audit is not very profitable, but it is stable (companies are legally required to be audited after all). Strategy within S&O is the most profitable, but it can also be a shaky source of revenue depending on the economy.
Generally speaking, the more profitable your service line, the higher your pay.
Editing to add: just because something isn't front office, doesn't mean that it's not "good". It's always context dependent. People just use terms like FO and BO as a proxy for "perceived value" to upper management. Value is the key metric here. For example, at many tech companies, the data scientists are not really "FO", but most companies still value their insights and invest in those teams.
A very good explanation indeed Matthews. Thanks.
Is there any way for us to know that which department/service line is more profitable (if we are looking at other companies as every company is different) ? Because we cant be asking this to the recruiter/ HR person right? Or the formula is fixed where (just my theory) Consulting/ Strategy/ IB are always the most profitable in any industry/ company ? I know it sounds vague and unrealistic but couldn't find a better way to put it together.
An idea among others, for traditional service companies (e.g. Big 4, other consulting, banking) you could compare reported salaries (entry-level should be the easiest) across departments/ business units of the same company. Glassdoor, etc. should have that.
As an example, ACN Strat is more profitable than ACN MC and pays better at the entry level in most regions.
Dear members, can I apply for Strategy instead of Technology/ Digital consulting/advisory though I have an IT degree? Should I do so or it's a bad move ?
Yes you can absolutely still apply. But it's a lot more competitive than tech consulting.
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