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Grow or Die. It’s probably the most common business axiom, and the least accurate, according to the new book “Smart Growth: Building an Enduring Business by Managing the Risks of Growth” (Columbia Business School Publishing). To better understand the book’s implications for firms, Consulting’s One-on-One sat down with the book’s author, Ed Hess, a former Arthur Andersen strategy consultant and current professor at the University of Virginia's Darden Graduate School of Business.
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When prospective employees interview for a job, they obsess over making a good, lasting impression. Firms should do the same. To learn how firms can avoid typical pitfalls, Consulting’s One on One sat down with David Litherland, managing partner of Summit Search Group, an executive search firm specializing in placing professionals within professional service firms.
- »One on One with PwC's Tom Craren
Senior executives are becoming immune to traditional marketing. Marketing consultants tell us that to pierce through the white noise of corporate communication, firms should consider “content marketing”. Instead of more traditional marketing, providing valuable insight and perspective in a blog or electronic newsletter can serve as a more effective door opener. One of the best examples is PricewaterhouseCoopers’ “10-Minute” series. For almost three years, PwC has boiled down complex thought leadership into small electronic pieces an executive can read in about ten minutes. To learn more about PwC’s marketing efforts, Consulting’s One-on-One sat down with Tom Craren, the firm’s brand strategy and thought leadership leader. His team of 20 writers produces between two to three 10-minute pieces each month, along with more detailed white papers.
- »One on One with Stanford Hospital's Kate Surman
Transitioning healthcare companies from paper to electronic records presents huge consulting opportunities.
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- The 2008 Best Firms to Work For: An Overview
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2008
»The 2008 Best Firms to Work For: An Overview
The consultants have spoken. And this, our eighth annual Best Firms to Work For list, is the result. In this 24-page special section compiled by the editors of Consulting magazine, we reveal the very best consulting firms to work for according to you, the consultants who actually work for them. For an eight-week period in May and June, we asked you to tell us all about your firm and what it's like to work there. We asked for your feedback about your consultancy in six distinct areas—Career Development, Compensation and Benefits, Culture, Work/Life Balance, The Job and Leadership. We collected those responses and measured them against your peers. This year, you'll find that some things look the same as in previous years, but many things are different. We have two consulting firms that have never made the list before and one that has a recognizable name but is new nonetheless. Four firms are repeat winners from 2007, and three others are returning to the list after a hiatus.
Still Growing…
Over the last few years, we've seen the Best Firms to Work For survey grow... and grow. And it's the type of growth that would make any consulting firm proud. In 2006, we had about 4,800 consultants participate in the survey. The following year, with more marketing muscle and a greater editorial emphasis placed on the survey, we saw an 87 percent year-over-year increase to just a shade under 9,000 participants. This year, we saw another 45 percent increase in survey participation to nearly 13,000 consultants representing 205 firms.
And for the first time, we've allowed smaller consulting firms to participate this year. In previous years, firms with fewer than 200 billable consultants were not eligible. Considering the impact that the niche and boutique firms have had on the industry over the last several years, we just didn't think that was right. So, this year we opened the survey up to any management consulting firm with at least 20 billable consultants. This ensures that this year's list is our most thorough, our most complete and our most comprehensive survey since we launched it back in 2001.
Best Small Firms to Work For
Small firms, of course, face their own unique set of challenges. However, for the purposes of our report, we didn't want two different surveys. All firms took the survey and were judged on the exact same criteria. But after all the data was collected, we had to come up with a universally accepted definition of a "small firm.” This was no easy task. Our analysts went to work to determine what constitutes a small vs. a large firm. In the end, we opted to rely on the data itself. We looked all 13,000 survey participants and determined the median firm size was about 350 billable consultants. So, that's where we draw the line—any firm with fewer than 350 billable consultants is a small firm.
Since we had never included small firms before, we weren't quite sure what to expect. Overall, the final scores were higher for the smaller firms. On one hand, this makes complete sense: It's probably easier to have a healthier culture, work/life balance and job satisfaction at a smaller firm. On the other hand, it could be counterintuitive; smaller firms don't have the resources to offer the same compensation, benefits and career development opportunities as other firms. We did discover that the discrepancies in some of those areas isn't as great as one might think, but you'll have to take a look and judge for yourself. Best Small Firms to Work For begins here.
Who Took The Survey?
Of the 13,000 people who completed the survey, 29 percent classified themselves as a director or manager, 28 percent as senior consultant, 17 percent as a consultant, and 10 percent as a partner of vice president. Some 32 percent consider IT as their functional specialty, followed by strategy (27 percent), business advisory services (16 percent), operations management (14 percent) and human resources (11 percent). When it comes to industry focus, financial services topped out at 39 percent. (Multiple responses in this area were permitted.) That was followed by healthcare (32 percent), business services (28 percent), high tech (24 percent), public sector (23 percent), industrial manufacturing (23 percent) and consumer packaged goods (20 percent). Some 15 percent participants came from outside the United States—with the majority of those (26 percent) coming from India. And nearly a third (31 percent) of all respondents were female, up from 28 percent last year.
Where's McKinsey?
One of the first things you may notice about this year's ranking is what firm isn't on it. For the first time ever, McKinsey & Company chose not to participate in our Best Firms To Work For survey. To determine the rankings, Consulting magazine relies on data provided to us by the consultants who work at the firms. In order to get an accurate data set for each firm, we require at least 30 consultants (15 for smaller firms) to complete the survey. Despite our efforts, McKinsey did not have the required 30 completed surveys. While we have no reason to doubt that McKinsey is still one of the profession's premier places to work, we simply couldn't make that determination based on the data we received.
TOP 5 IN...
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Career Development
- Bain & Company
- North Highland
- The Boston Consulting Group
- Deloitte Consulting
- Avanade
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Compensation & Benefits
- The Boston Consulting Group
- Bain & Company
- Milliman
- Booz & Company
- Alvarez & Marsal
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Culture
- Bain & Company
- Point B
- North Highland
- The Boston Consulting Group
- Alvarez & Marsal
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The Job
- Bain & Company
- North Highland
- Point B
- A.T. Kearney
- PRTM
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Leadership
- Point B
- Bain & Company
- The Boston Consulting Group
- North Highland
- Kurt Salmon Associates
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Work/LifeM
- Bain & Company
- Alvarez & Marsal
- Point B
- North Highland
- Monitor Group
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SERVICE LINES
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Strategy
- Bain & Company
- The Boston Consulting Group
- North Highland
- Booz & Company
- A.T. Kearney
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Multi-Service
- Deloitte Consulting
- Accenture
- IBM Global Services
- PA Consulting
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Operations Management
- Point B
- Kurt Salmon Associates
- ZS Associates
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Business Advisory Services
- Alvarez & Marsal
- PricewaterhouseCoopers
- KPMG
- Crowe Chizek
- Huron Consulting Group
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Human Resources
- Milliman
- Towers Perrin
- Hewitt Associates
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Information Technology
- Avanade
- Diamond Management and Technology Consultants
- SAP Consulting
- SunGrad Consulting
- CSC
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Definitions of Consulting Service Lines:
- Strategy: Consulting services intended to improve the long-term growth prospects of a company and the capabilities to enable that growth.
- Operations Management: Consulting services that improve the effectiveness of the client's value chain, including each of the major processes in client operations
- Human Resources: Consulting services aimed at managing the employee "lifecycle,” consulting around the people component of change management.
- IT Consulting and Implementation: Consulting services aimed at improving business performance through leveraging technology in processes and decision making.
- Business Advisory Services: Financial and risk advisory services that reduce risk exposure for clients through assuring and justifying business decisions, assuring regulatory compliance and supporting the identification, reduction and management of business risk.
- Multi-Service: Consulting services that blend one or more of the above service lines.
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