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  • Welcome to Management Consulted. I'm Jenny Rae, the Managing Director, and

  • today our focus is on bringing you another part of a three-part series on

  • Consulting Firms 101. The three segments of the consulting firms are of the top three,

  • the big four, and tier two firms. Today our focus is on the big four firms.

  • Big four firms get their name from the big four of the accounting industry:

  • Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, and Ernst & Young, and for all of them, their accounting or

  • audit practices dwarfed the consulting practices but they are very well

  • respected for consulting services in many places in the world. In fact these

  • firms generally will have the most international offices for consulting anywhere.

  • There are six key factors that we're comparing all the different types

  • of firms and I'm going to run through those six with you today. So the first is

  • the branding/ the prestige of clients. Now the consulting firms have excellent

  • access to all the top clients in the world however after 2001 when

  • Sarbanes-Oxley in the US and the ethical wall was really established between

  • consulting and auditing, where an audit firm could not offer other services like

  • consulting, the firm's, although they have access to CEOs and top managers at

  • many of the major firms, are left to actually compete with other strategy

  • consulting firms as well as their own competitors for work - so if they're doing

  • an audit job they're actually automatically disqualified from doing a

  • consulting job. However because of their international

  • and global reputation on the accounting and audit side, their brand often

  • gets them in the door. So they do have access to really good clients both at

  • the chief executive level and also at the operational level. Because of this,

  • their price points are pretty significant and they've got good

  • salaries and also very strong perks, maybe not

  • Four Seasons perks, maybe not limousines like you see at the top three level, but

  • you definitely would have access to great rental car perks,

  • good hotels, and also great meal perks when you're traveling and on the road.

  • Oftentimes the travel schedule can be four to five days a week

  • for these firms, which is more rigorous than even at the top three consulting

  • firms. However, that's made up for by the access to point number three, which is training.

  • Now these four firms have probably the best global standards for

  • training in the world, and Deloitte in particular with the establishment of

  • Deloitte University in Texas this last year is really leading the way. They have

  • an established facility - it's pure dedication and focus for the entire year

  • is on training, again on both sides of the firm not just consulting, but

  • consultants certainly reap the benefit. Not only do you have this off-site

  • training that happens, we also have again access to insight and on-site training

  • as well as training that happens by video or webinar - so lots of internal

  • training that happens within the firms. The fourth area is culture. Now because

  • the firms are so large globally and so often distributed internationally

  • there's not the same one firm culture that you'll see at a place like Bain or

  • BCG. However the firm's are generally very cordial and respectful of one

  • another as well as of their counterparts in other firms. So you'll see a lot of

  • mutual respect that operates within the big four band. In addition because of

  • this, you have lots of exit opportunities. There are consultants from each one of

  • these firms that are populating the globe, so there's a general respect for

  • the type of experience that you would have had when you were doing the work. However,

  • the exit opportunities were as for McKinsey, Bain, and BCG the focus was not

  • only on your industry but also on the toolkit that you developed. Here, the

  • focus is really on the project work that you did. So it's really important if you

  • decide to go into a consulting job with one of any of these firms that you

  • really focus on what types of industries and types of projects you're

  • working on, because not everything is created equal for the big four firms

  • especially when it comes to exit opportunities. In addition, we have access

  • to a large global alumni network, but because it's not as cohesive when you're

  • at the firm, you also don't see the same cohesiveness for networking when you

  • leave the firm. And then finally the interviews of these firms are very

  • rigorous. They're actually focused about 50% on fit, your

  • cultural fit with the firm, your willingness to be trained, your ability

  • to learn new things. They're also focused on math, but whereas the math is very

  • complicated at the top three firms often the math is very straightforward, in

  • the cases for these firms, and the cases are very business situation focused,

  • they're conversational, people are looking for you to have a good dialogue about

  • business and a general understanding about it. So again we'll cover that later

  • in a future series on case and fit interviews. For now if you have questions

  • about any of these firms, we have firm profiles on the website and we also have

  • plenty of content at managementconsulted.com.

Welcome to Management Consulted. I'm Jenny Rae, the Managing Director, and

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