EY has confirmed they will be combining to Parthenon as part of their Vision 2020 growth model.
"This is an important acquisition for TAS – the combination will strengthen our front-end corporate finance strategy services in line with our Vision 2020 Transaction Strategy and Operations (TSO) 'Big Bet'," says Pip McCrostie, TAS Global Vice Chair. "It will enable us to build on the success we have achieved in TAS over the past few years and further accelerate our journey from service provider to strategic advisor around the Capital Agenda."
EY also confirmed that Parthenon was a target for the rest of the Big 4, but they beat out their competitors as their "vision, values and strategy made a big difference." They believe Parthenon will be very important in the strengthening of the middle market, education, and private equity sectors and the TAS and Advisory service lines.
Having dealt with EY consultants occasionally, some of EY's MENA and Europe offices are okay, but they are terrible consulting-wise in the US. Parthenon consultants probably should consider updating their CVs quickly.
Addendum - Evidently EY's TAS practice which is separate from their advisory / consulting side is absorbing Parthenon...strange.
Yes, also it appears that they will operate under the Parthenon name, and the Parthenon CEO will still be the one overseeing operations. Smart move on their part. They keep the name brand of both, and yet the money still flows into EY's pockets.
http://www.consultant-news.com/article_display.aspx?p=adp&id=11706
A bit odd that Parthenon will be aligned to TAS and not advisory no?
EY has a strange structure. Their Advisory has a lot of typical consulting practices, but there are also some within TAS. Parthenon most closely aligns with EY's CAS practice, which handles Commercial Due Diligence and Strategy consulting work, so that's why Parthenon is going under TAS and not Advisory.
@crellim Not really familiar with EY in the US, but EY in the UK&I has its Strategy practice in Advisory, not under TAS (Source: friends with / worked with a couple EY consultants on an engagement). Does this differ in the US?
@crellim Not really familiar with EY in the US, but EY in the UK&I has its Strategy practice in Advisory, not under TAS (Source: friends with / worked with a couple EY consultants on an engagement). Does this differ in the US?
Ditto this
Parthenon's business is about half due diligence, so I'm not that surprised it's in transaction advisory.
Thank God they are keeping the brand and not changing it to "Advisory%" or something.
I wonder how this will effect OCR for both companies
Lol
SBed the "Advisory%" lol.
It's KPMG's turn now. Wonder if they're going to be able to acquire something on the level of ATKearney, that would make them somewhat less of an obvious underdog among the Big 4 in the advisory dept.
@Qayin ATK is a good shout or perhaps RB will finally agree to go in with one of the Big Four eventually. That said I think KPMG has always been off the pace in the consulting space of EY, which in turn was off the pace of PwC and even more so Deloitte. At a certain point maybe they will just bin it in.
This is a relatively small acquisition compared to the Deloitte/Monitor & PwC/Booz deals - both of those acquired firms with headcounts of over 1000 people. Maybe there's something further in the works...
Agree with @"Qayin" and @"GlobeTF" - KPMG's gotta do something, otherwise they'll never catch up.
ATK would be a huge acquisition for KPMG, I think ATK has over 2k consultants. RB doesn't really have much of a presence in the USA so I don't think that move would make KPMG competitive with the other big 4 overnight. You have to wonder if L.E.K's phone might be ringing at this point. Due to LEK's focus on DD work, they could slide right into KPMG's Corp Finance division just like Parthenon into EY TAS.
I didn't even consider LEK, that is a great shout @"dthollow" especially with OW probably off limits due to its parent company. ATK hasn't had the best of times as of late, so wouldn't be surprised if someone finally acquires them. LEK seems to still be strong, but then again so did Parthenon...
This is interesting to watch. KPMG and EY have been acquiring small boutiques for the past couple/few years it seems. KPMG acquired a boutique IB too for the CF division I presume. But PwC and Deloitte have really separated themselves I think, especially with the much larger acquisitions.
Well the move by EY to acquire another so-called elite boutique consulting shop shouldn't be a surprise by anyone. The whole industry has experienced this consolidations for a while with MBB moving downstream (pure strategy to ops to tech implementation) and Big4 moving upstream (tech implementation to pure strategy gigs). The ones in the middle (Monitor/Booz/Parthenon/LEK/RB/ATK etc.) didn't/couldn't survive with push from both spectrums and their business models no longer work in the new global economy. Everyone in consulting knows only selling strategy projects are no longer sustainable and F500 and small businesses simply don't need consultants to produce pretty slides like they used to. That's why McKinsey has been building its ops/implementation practices for years because it knows strategy work is only gonna be certain % of its revenues in the future. (not sure about BCG/Bain). It's like there's no big pure investment banking firms out there anymore, they all need to fall under other bigger financial institutions and leverage their balance sheet and resources to cross sell and survive.
I think the future consulting industry landscape is gonna be like this: You have the big guys like MBB +Big4 who can offer full suite of consulting services ranging from strategy to ops to implementation, and a huge number of no-name 5-20 people boutique shops that specialize in very niche market.
@"greekisgreat" @"dthollow" What would be interesting (but perhaps unlikely) would be to see if this spurs firms like ATK which does a fair bit of supply chain and other non-strategy engagements or a due dilligence / econ oriented firm like LEK look at a merger between themselves and a firm like RB. If I recall correctly ATK and Booz (?) had discussed a merger some 3 or 4 years ago, but decided against it...
@"greekisgreat" @"dthollow" What would be interesting (but perhaps unlikely) would be to see if this spurs firms like ATK which does a fair bit of supply chain and other non-strategy engagements or a due dilligence / econ oriented firm like LEK look at a merger between themselves and a firm like RB. If I recall correctly ATK and Booz (?) had discussed a merger some 3 or 4 years ago, but decided against it...
Accenture, anyone?
Accenture has decided not to purchase a smaller strategy firm (before was rumored to be interested in Booz) and instead invest internally. They just went through a large reorg and now have 3 main groups - Strategy, Digital, and Business Processes.
As a company, the bet is that companies will need to figure out how to adapt to mobile devices, big data, social media, etc etc. Strategy (combined with old MC strategy group and Tech Strategy group) will have a strong focus in this area and the Digital stream will be focsed on implementing such projects. Business processes will be focused on specific industry groups (FS, CPG, CMT, etc.)
not sure if it was the right move for them. They struggled to sell strategy work before and i think it will still be a challenge with this reorg. Essentially it is the same team just under different names. I do know they are investing quite a bit to structure their strategy team different (was a big issue before how MC team was ranked against Tech teams) so maybe if they make the right investments it could work.
curious on your thoughts on the digital group, if you have any..
across the firm, i think most people don't know really know what "digital" really is or "digital strategy" (I'm in Accenture Strategy). It hasn't been something that has been truly defined and has always been messaged very generically. It's not like our BPO business where we know we are outsourcing shit to us in India...much more fluffy. I think at this point, Accenture is still trying to figure out what they truly want to succeed in the space.
In terms of implementation, I think there will be a strong focus on customer analytics (i.e. implementation marketing solution tools and tailoring them to fit marketing rules). Another space would be helping clients improve operations with digital stuff (i.e. one project i did in the insurance space with figuring out how to enable agents through the sales cycle).
From a digital strategy perspective, i think the direction is to work with clients and help them identify a set of initiatives that will help drive their business strategy. Pretty much what IT strategy is but the initiatives will be less traditional and more of this big data, analytics stuff.
It'll be a journey to figure out this space. It's a new concept for many old, conservative F500s and i dont think anyone clearly knows what to best do it. I think Accenture does have an advantage in this specific space given that it is a technology company. If there was anyone they are going to buy I would say it would be smaller firms that know how to implement digital technology.
Actually now that I think of it, perhaps Booz wasn't right the choice for Accenture. If they had this direction all along for their business strategy, Booz would help improve the traditional strategy team but not necessarily this space....just some guesses though.
I wonder if Parthenon post MBA principals would now become E&Y associates? Yuck!
I know a new 2014 MBA graduate from an M-7 programme who interned with and is now at Parthenon, he is gutted. He is already planning an exit as soon as he hits one year or so in.
should be interesting to see how pay will be treated across the firms. From what I understand, Parthenon in the UK pays a lot more than Accenture for the same entry level position. If Accenture is smart they will equalize UP the Accenture staff
Parthenon consultants are far more likely to lateral to MBB, OW, LEK, or even Deloitte Monitor/ S&O than Accenture.
Parthenon consultants are far more likely to lateral to MBB, OW, LEK, or even Deloitte Monitor/ S&O than Accenture.
Bump. Any updates, especially with regards to MBA OCR now that it's recruiting season?
OCR is still separate from what I can tell.
Just a bit of a bump here...At my M7, People seemed much less interested in Parthenon this year during internship recruiting than previous years (where people would occasionally choose it over MBB)
At the Parthenon information session at my school, the talk of the E&Y acquisition didn't seem to deter anyone. Of course, it was spun as a positive, because of the financial resources that Parthenon was able to gain from E&Y.
If anything it's probably a bump in the road and things will smooth over in a few years. I wonder if Strategy& has the same issue after the PwC acquisition.
Similar experience to aspiringconsultant92: On my campus, no one seemed to be too concerned by the EY acquisition. It seems pretty clear that Parthenon will continue to operate as a boutique within EY. They also absorbed a small team from a practice within EY (~5 partners, ~40 consultants) into their Parthenon business. From what I understand, recruiting and training will remain separate under the leadership of the current Parthenon partners and chairman. Parthenon is not under EY's advisory business.
I can also speak a bit to Strategy& as I have a few friends working at PwC fulltime. It appears that the Strategy& brand is only temporary, and that currently PwC and Strategy& consultants are staffed on teams together. The goal is to ultimately dissolve Strategy& into PwC like they did with Diamond/PRTM. The timing of this will obviously depend on how smoothly this goes over, but apparently they are already working on it. Personally, I don't see this approach being too successful.
Interestingly, a Strategy& partner told me quite the opposite, meaning that PwC advisory is going to merge into Strategy&.
That is also what I heard from some partners. The strategy teams will merge, but under the Strategy&/Booz model, so I'm expecting many PwC strategy consultants to lose their job within the upcoming year.
hmmm are both of you at PwC?
Some people who got absorbed from EY into Parthenon (lucky ducks) have commented that only moderate brand dilution has occurred at Parthenon.
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