Oliver Wyman (Financial Services)

I doubt MOW travel is as bad as Mckinsey. And not sure where you are getting your info but Bain travel is just as bad as any of the other firms.

mrcanuck, how would you compare Oliver Wyman General Management Consulting against its Financial Services practice and M/B/B? Thanks!

movetofinance: yeah that's what I meant. OW office in NYC is really good for travel. But all the other offices are not very good.

Dinendal: again, read the "Mercer Management Consulting" post. I think the posters there have it spot on. Great firm, but no real differentiation and exit opps pretty much limited to bschool. I know that they don't really serve a lot of PE clients (unlike McK/Bain) so exits there will be difficult. You can't really compare M/B/B to Deloitte/Monitor/Mercer. It's pretty much a strict hierarchy and there's a pretty wide gap between M/B/B and all the other consulting firms. It's not like banking where league tables change every quarter. That being said, OW in financial services is amazing. I cannot say the same for their general management practice.

boozer: My friend in the London office tells me that Bainies get really nice treatment in terms of travel. I could be horribly wrong, and I'm only talking London here...

-disregard-

Thanks for the response.

Can anyone else confirm mrcanuck's statement that first years at OWFS get $120-140 K on average all-in. Also does it grow as quickly as Ibanking salaries do?

This is slightly too high. There basically is a common bonus pool for a all consulting employees at OWFS that adds the same fraction to everyone's salary. In the last years, this has been at between 60 to 70%. First years get base salary, relocation bonus, and half the bonus pool rate on their base or 25% on their base as bonus, whichever is higher. As of year two, your salary is base plus full bonus pool rate. I was told that base salary can grow "aggressively", not sure if that's on par with IB pay rises. And then it's just 6 to 9 years to directorship (this could change if things cool down but apparently things are not cooling down!)... Hope this helps.

wow, I can finally help with a consulting question. My roommate works at Oliver Wyman Financial services.

Reputation; Very solid in FS, a definite top player

Pay: Very very good - basically close to if not at par with banking money

Hours: Garbage, like 9-11 sometimes, and just a shit load of hours

Travel: lots of it, and you're travelling economy

Work: Seems a bit boring to be honest. I'm not sure how you can get excited about the implications of Basel II on european bank consolidation in emerging market service areas.

how do they pay so much?

there has to be some give and take. the partners must be taking a smaller cut of the profits. they def. don't charge as much or work as long as mbb.

the financial services firms pay more. it's pretty simple.

what does it mean "pay more"? insurance companies simply pay more for consultants? that doesn't strike as being quite right to me... the market isn't efficient if certain industries are paying more for the same work. you'd expect a lot of firms to crowed into that niche.

Boozer: OWFS consultants have to fly economy if the flight is shorter than 10 hours (basically you never fly business). Also the hotels they stay at are terrible compared to McK. Think Holiday Inn, Comfort Inc, etc. Also OWFS offices are HORRIBLE. Conference rooms are matchbox-sized and consultants have to fight over phones (because there are not enough to go around). You don't get your own phone, they use a VoIP solution provided by Cisco, you actually have to log into the phone using a password/username....should I go on?

Movetofinance: OW charges less than McK for Financial Services consulting assignments. But their "engagement-flow" is very high (i.e. not a lot of time spent pitching). Financial services consulting is the most challenging because of the depth and variety of subjects to consider. So you need a really good research division, which means economies of scale is a big factor. Also you need a lot of quant guys for the risk management stuff. This is a natural barrier to entry since Ma & Pa consulting firms cannot advice Goldman. Also, financial services firms, in general, are much more picky in who they choose relative to say consumer product companies. So actually there are few consulting groups who this very well: McKinsey, OWFS and Bain come to mind. I know my bank has used Bain for several engagements.

Actually my bank just changed its succession plans (in accordance with SOX), so the new CEO-to-be wanted to do a full strategic review of all our operations and look at areas in which to cut costs (in particular). I know that BCG and Bain were in the running to do the project, but the CEO-to-be picked Bain because he had worked with a particular partner before, Mr Canuck

What I was trying to say is that Bain doesn't get treated any nicer than the other GMCs... it's a really minor point. Anyway, in New York at least, most offices are pretty shitty because of hotelling to some degree.

Just to continue this discussion - can please more people share their insights on the actual work that OW FS does? I know from one friend who's been there for one year (and then left because he couldn't cope with the infrastructure problems) that he did two strategy projects for banks in Europe, one risk management project and research for one journal article. Sounds like 3 interesting : 1 not so interesting tasks to me. 2 more friends I have are currently working on post-merger integration work, cannot say more cause I don't know much more. Any people here with some inside knowledge?

Hey m2, my roomate in NY works for Oliver Wyman and I just asked him this question. Here's an example of some historical engagements that apparently people within MOW brag about:

UBS: Developed a strategy to help investment bank MDs improve their pitching strategy in order to support organic growth efforts within North America.
Citi: Conducted interviews and full strategic review of operations/compliance and made recommendations to board regarding how many positions can be eliminated without significantly hurting internal risk management frameworks and slowing down operations turnaround. Also consulted on how to outsource based on successes of HSBC/BofA.
MS: Developed integration strategy for Dean Witter retail brokerage. Strategy included new management structure, layoff recommendations, exploiting new synergies, etc.

In New York, Citi and MS are their major clients (i.e. uses them on a very very frequent basis). Other banks tend to use OWFS on a more ad hoc basis, Mr Canuck

Sounds interesting, thanks a lot Mr. Canuck.