Since graduating, I have been in consulting for 2 years now and have been on a variety of projects (implementation, compliance, even assessment/control testing). I've gotten a positive experience out of all of them (even under difficult situations...) and learned new things that I'm sure would be useful in the future. But I'm very curious on what a strategy project would be like and how they are different from other projects.
I'm currently planning on jumping to a strategy project for my next engagement (if possible), and wanted to know what to expect. My company is not exactly known for our strategy arm, but a few fall on our lap every now and then. Any insight, positive or negative, would be greatly appreciated.
Big 4 consulting - completed 2 years - state school
Depends what you mean by "Strategy." If you're at a big 4 firm where you are "not exactly known for our strategy arm, but a few fall on our lap every now and then," my guess is this will be an operational strategy project. Typically those gigs will involve the old "build/buy/rent" analysis where you figure out the cheapest way to operationalize some aspect of your client's business. You'll do a bunch of interviews with internal and external stakeholders and run some cost models to find the cheapest solution, then develop a roadmap for how the client will get to the target state. I've found that the big 4 firms tend to do a lot of this cost-side strategy work as opposed to revenue-side, which is more in the domain of MBB and the boutique strategy players (Marakon, LEK, etc.). For revenue-side strategy work, you would be spending more time doing marketplace analysis to find trends in the market, such as new markets to enter, new products to launch, etc., with the goal of providing a strategy that offers a sustainable growth proposition.
Thank you for the fast reply! What other firms are known for the revenue-side strategy besides MBB (and the other two you've mentioned? Personally, which do you consider to be the more interesting work?
LEK, Oliver Wyman, Strategy&, ATK, Parthenon EY, Monitor Deloitte, and then certain boutiques
Seems accurate from what I've seen between the two.
Cost (Operational, existing costs) vs Revenue (Hypothetical, expansionary, market-related)
This is SPOT ON. Worked in the big 4 and a strategy boutique afterwards and the biggest differentiator for me was he cost-side focus of the b4 vs greater share of revenue-side at the boutique.
In the five years I've been working in and around "strategy" I've grown increasingly uneasy about the term. Nevertheless, everybody uses. Here's your classic strategy project:
PRE-LAUNCH
The project thesis is a very broad "where to play, how to win question". Client may or may not have any realistic expectations about the answer to this question. There are some meetings in the first week, -- or before the project begins -- to align on the question...or at least, agree to "the spirit" of the question.
It is almost inevitable that there will be three phases...the phases will be some variant of: "hypothesis forming phase", "data collection & hypothesis testing phase", and "vetting & final recommendation phase". First phase is usually 2-4 weeks, second phase is 4-8 weeks, last phase is 2-4 weeks. The project, therefore, is initially scoped for 8-16 weeks. Each phase has some sort of steering committee meeting to mark its completion.
PHASE ONE: HYPOTHESIS FORMING
You talk to a million people at the client. They all have opinions. You take a lot of notes. Most people say pretty much the same thing. You ask some of the "experts" in your firm what they think. If you're really ambitious, you speak to some external experts too. If the client is ambitious, they will have you talk to actual customers(!).
You make slides with fun chat box graphics, and show an impressive table cataloging that you talked to a million people with smart sounding job titles. You make a slide called "hypotheses" capturing the same 3-5 things that everyone said about what the answer might be. You add 1-2 hypotheses of your own, because your junior partner is an “expert on this sort of thing".
By this point, it's nice if you have some vague understanding of the client's business. Be honest with yourself, and accept that you probably only understand about 40% of it.
Phase 1: Distribution of time spent between Powerpoint / Excel / Word : 70%, 0%, 30%
PHASE TWO: HYPOTHESIS TESTING
Second phase: now, if you're smart, during Phase 1 you'll have asked at least one of the million people at the client to send you some data. During Phase 2, you remind them to send you the data. You wait. If you didn't ask during Phase 1...you prepare to wait even longer.
There might be some datasets available for purchase that could help you. You work with the client to approve the purchase.
You wait for the client to send you data while you read stuff you found on Google.
If you are doing primary research during this project, you make something of yourself and do the actual research. You design the survey (or at least talk to the people in your firm who know something about designing surveys, and watch as they design the survey), you do the focus groups, you post up and make some observations. You harass the market research firm to field the survey. You yell at the market research firm. You tell the market research firm that the client is getting impatient. You threaten to examine the contract while you're on the phone market research firm. You thank the market research firm for handing you cool new data.
Once you actually have data, you make several pivot tables. You generate beautiful charts showing trends. You paste charts onto slides. The quantitative evidence more-or-less confirms what people at the company thought.
You make slides -- beautiful slides! With 2x2s and mekkos, and wonderful clipart symbols. You add callout boxes! You align bullet points!!
You have the steering team meeting where you show how the hypotheses held up to the quantitative testing. The client is happy to have proof of what he or she initial thought...or the client is happy he or she now finally has something to think. You agree to cross out all but 1-2 hypotheses as non-viable. Things are looking good...
...then someone you've never seen before suddenly has 10 new ideas! 500 new questions! Has thought of 20 more people that should be looped in!
People at the end of the table (again, who you've never seen before) start throwing words around the room like:
"Why were we interested in this in the first place?!"
"Shouldn't [INSERT WHATEVER] be a higher priority!!"
"This is analysis is really interesting...but we really should have done it for these 18 other product categories!!!"
At this point, your badass senior partner calms everyone down. You run 30 minutes over time. The associate partner starts drooling over ideas for new projects to sell. Phase two is over.
At this point, it would be nice if you understood at least 60% of what you hear at the client site. Seventy-five percent would be nice -- but, you need to be honest with yourself. Be happy that you understand "most".
Phase 2: Distribution of time spent between Powerpoint / Excel / Word : 50%, 40%, 10%
PHASE THREE
If you had a million questions that actually could be followed up on, you answer them. You make a nice deck with the answers. Ultimately they change very little, but you cordially demonstrate that the answers to these corner cases are immaterial.
Most importantly, you take those 1-2 hypotheses that are still viable and your start describing all the things you need know to be sure that this REALLY is a good idea. I mean, like REALLY. You explain why the options certainly look attractive, and why they’re the best options around, but before pulling the trigger, you add that someone should really do some modeling to understand how much this stuff would cost. How much revenue it might generate? What sort of operational risks might present themselves? What sort of resources would need to be added? Who would manage this?
You talk to some senior clients to feel out their hesitations. They hesitate.
You have the final steering committee meeting. Many things from the previous steering committee are repeated. Tangents are taken. It feels like very little progress is made.
As time is running down, your awesome senior partner summarizes the state of affairs. The client agrees that everything has come a long way, and he likes how the strategy is coming together. But, he agrees that another level of detail is needed before committing.
You draft a proposal for a follow-up project.
By the end of the project, you probably know about 80% of what the client is talking about. Sadly, it feels like you only know 60%...since when you thought you knew 60%, it was actually only really 20%.
Phase 3: Distribution of time spent between Powerpoint / Excel / Word : 70%, 20%, 10%
This account is both (a) wonderful, in its richness and accuracy, and (b) horrifying, as it activates my steering-committee-induced-PTSD.
I remember trying to explain to my girlfriend (now wife) what was so frustrating about these meetings. I told her, "imagine that someone asked you, 'but do the Yankees score more touchdowns when they're wearing their purple jerseys?' And imagine that it is your job to answer the question, figure out what their question should have been, answer THAT question, and do it all in a non-threatening manner that doesn't make anyone feel stupid."
“…but do the Yankees score more TDs…”
You feel the partner’s eyes turn towards the project managers, since, obviously, the partner can’t be expected to know all the random acronyms each client uses. TDs? WTF?
“…when they're wearing their…”
Project manager starts nodding like he understands the question…in reality, he has no idea what people wear when playing whatever game is being talked about.
“…purple jerseys.”
Awkward 2 seconds of silence.
Partner is about to open his mouth when –
Project manager jumps in: “Yes, that’s a great question. We definitely looked at TDs when doing the analysis…” Project manager turns towards you
“…[INSERT YOUR NAME]…”
Whole room is now looking at you
“…do you recall looking at jersey color? I think that was a field in the data that so-and-so gave us?”
You: “I agree, that’d be really interesting to investigate. I’m pretty sure we have some data on that, but I’ll have to double check. I’ll be sure to follow up with the group via e-mail later today…”
[30 minutes later]
Cancel all dinner plans. You need to learn what TDs are, what jerseys are, and what the color purple is….
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