IBM Consulting vs. Accenture

Hey Everyone,

I have been offered full-time by IBM Consulting By Degrees (Rotation begins with Strategy) in NY and Accenture Systems Integration LA. My goals are to work in strategy consulting and eventually attend top 10 b-school. I am currently leaning towards IBM, but would anyone have any advice?

Also, Accenture is offering much higher base salary, how negotiable is the salary? And how should one go about this professionally?

Thank you for your help!

 

Accenture without a doubt. I've seen a few people jump from there (internship or 1 year full-time) to MBB. Never seen anyone from IBM.

That being said, I think IBM would be a fascinating place to be long-term. But if you're looking for a bridge to either MBB or to something else after a few years, then Accenture is probably the way to go.

 
Best Response

Depends on the department; IBM has an internal Venture Capital Group and allots funds for employees with start-up ideas. Watson was one of those projects with a couple million in internal funding and is now a billion dollar projected revenue business.

Accenture trains you better for a pure management consultant perspective. They have the up-or-out system, more well defined teams and processes, and more strategy if you're in MCDP. Doesn't it have pretty high B-school placement as well? As opposed to IBM, which doesn't encourage B-school.

IBM gives you more flexibility in choosing the type of projects you want, and they actively rotate you for two years so you see which industry/specialization you like the most. It's more of a long-term sort of thing than Accenture.

Just my .02

Oh, and Accenture sucks ;) (just had to say that)

 

Go for Accenture. Its good for your MBA app and you get to work with some really smart people. I worked with MCDP during my earlier engagement.

 

I will simply echo what I was told by an ex-IBM strat consultant: strat / management consultants at IBM do not do management consulting, they do pre-sales. I was told that he had been asked more than once to discontinue a project they were heading for because it would not result in HW sales.

You could argue that ACN consultants are also conflicted, but a big difference is that the mandate for ACN MC is to build a reputation for good, pure consulting. At a company level of course the cash comes from SI/Outsourcing, but at a group level MC is left do to MC - that's the ACN brand strategy.

 

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