Accenture Management Consulting

Basically out of 150,000 employees, 13,000 are in Management Consulting, of which 1000 are in Strategy. Strategy is definitely hard to get in, and without top MBA or ivy undergrad, etc., the chances are slim to none. All of Management Consulting has a very strong IT slant.

Only Strategy has case interviews, rest don't.

For the other streams, first round is get to know you, why you want to do consulting, etc. Second round is more like "Tell me one time when you ...". Third round is in office with Senior Managers and Executives. Mix of first two rounds, nothing out of the ordinary. You are expected to have good questions to ask. If you make it to Final round, its your offer to lose. Note that this may not be true for Strategy.

One of the PM at the HF I interned with this summer was a former Accenture guy before moving to the HF world. All I know is that he hated the culture and couldn't wait to get out. Was not a fan of it. But I'm sure there are former Accenture people that would say otherwise, that was just one man's opinion.

I have yet to meet someone who works or has worked at Accenture who enjoyed it.

I have yet to meet someone who works or has worked at Accenture who enjoyed it. Also I have yet to hear of Accenture winning a strategy engagement in all the proposals I have been involved in or know about.

Accenture is generally weaker in strategy, but they often make it up on price. During my time at MBB, I can recall several occasions where Accenture won a bakeoff based on their lower pricing (although this was more common for longer term, ops-focused cases than it was for strategy projects).

yeah that is probably true, but for those short 3 week blitz packages or the C-level stuff, clients usually go with the quals.

any more info?

How has the reputation of Accenture Management Consulting risen or fallen the past few years? What's future outlook?

Only concerned with MC/Strategy Practice, not IT or Systems

It's a different ball game to the strat houses. In fact mostly it's implementation work.

Accenture's work is split roughly: - 60% technology implementation - 30% outsourcing - 10% strategy

Outsourcing is apparently the fastest-growing segment.

If you're joining, be very careful that you're actually getting aligned to strategy. And even if you are, be aware that it might not be quite like it is at MBB or similar.

In terms of career stats, I would say:

• interview process: extremely simple compared to the strat firms
• remuneration: good but lower than at MBB, almost all 2nd tier (OW, LEK, ATK, RB, etc) houses, and almost all boutiques.
• work/life balance: not much better than the above alternatives
• culture: very competitive and quite pressured, staff are 'laddered' and ranked in order based on performance, with the bottom segment given the boot. People can still be nice and good fun, though.
• brand: quite bad within consulting, not that bad outside
• prospects: good MBA entry is not impossible, but harder than at MBB or others. Moving internally to other consulting firms may not be easy. Most common exit route appears to be getting poached by one of your clients to work internally with them

Thanks Bramlow! Anyone familiar with Accenture Management Consultants (NOT systems/tech/outsourcing)? What schools did they go to? Lot of targets or state schools?

for MC, i've met people from Northwestern, Stanford, Yale, Michigan, Duke, Columbia, Wake Forest, UVA, etc. Probably top 25 schools?

Andersen Consulting, as in Arthur Andersen.