Ranking the Big Four (plus ACN) Strategy Shops

I obviously have my own thoughts here but curious to see what the community thinks. Obviously may be group dependent (e.g., deals vs. non-deals) but, on the whole - including perceived "prestige," compensation, exit opportunities, access to interesting work, etc. - how would you rank the Big Four Strategy Shops (plus ACN Strategy given its historically in there as part of Arthur Anderson)?

Also, this ignores legacy Strategy groups for those that acquired a Strategy shop (e.g., non-Strategy& "PwC Strategy"), so is among Strategy&, Parthenon, Deloitte S&A, KPMG Strategy and ACN Strategy.

And, yes, this is kind of a silly topic and more curious to see responses / entertainment value.

 

Kpmg strategy is probably ranked the lowest as far as prestige but it’s got decent WLB and great exit ops. Their projects are the same as any of the other big4 strategy shops as their partners are all ex MBB or other T2 shops. They’ve been doing a lot of diligences lately and  has caused a ton of turnover. Pay is decent for MBAs and they’ve given out a mid year raise. Most post mba managers make around 200 base. 

 

That's interesting, I am curious what makes you rank them higher. I don't think I've heard a single person at my MBB ever mentioning them at all, in any context, whether professional, personal, or otherwise. And I know only one guy who left my old firm to join their M&A group.

My initial thoughts (based only on knowing / seeing people from Monitor / S& / EYP outside of MBB) is that ACN Strat is behind Big 4, both in prestige and in quality. This last one is absolutely subjective as I don't know much about ACN Strat.

My thinking is that since it doesn't seem to come up as much in discussions among consultants (at least in my office), nor it would seem in big bids for clients (again, very very limited knowledge of this from my side), it would have to be lower.

 

Commercially, ACN Strategy is very focused on casework with a tech / digital lens - feeds into longer-term tech implementations / PMO which is where ACN ultimately wants to spend 98% of its time if it could. It would only compete with MBB on those types of cases (e.g., BCG Plantion).

I would agree that ACN Strategy is behind S& and EYP for sure. I'd probably have it on par with Deloitte (whatever they're calling their S&O type function nowadays).

 

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