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咨询顾问入门必读:认识管理咨询公司 1 The Top-Consultant.com Guide to Consulting Firms Top-Consultant.com, 18b Charles street, Mayfair, London W1J 5DU United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)207 667 6880 Fax: +44 (0)207 667 6400 Email: Customer.Services@Top-Consultant.com 2 Table of Contents 1. Rev...

咨询顾问入门必读:认识管理咨询公司
1 The Top-Consultant.com Guide to Consulting Firms Top-Consultant.com, 18b Charles street, Mayfair, London W1J 5DU United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0)207 667 6880 Fax: +44 (0)207 667 6400 Email: Customer.Services@Top-Consultant.com 2 Table of Contents 1. Revealed: Things to Consider when applying for consulting firms - Insights from management consultants 2. Strategy, Boutique & Full-Service firms - Three types of firms to consider 3. Who’s Popular and Who’s Not? - Identifying those firms where your CV stands the most chance of being noticed 4. Appendix - A shortlist of firms who are being overlooked by the majority of applicants, and where you may stand the best chance of success 3 1. Revealed: Things to Consider when applying for consulting firms - Insights from management consultants 4 Things to Consider when applying for consulting firms There are numerous reasons you may be considering a career in consulting. The high-flying lifestyle, the money, the prestige, the learning experience… … so this report starts off by identifying the things that actual management consultants are most looking for in their next consulting job. These insights are based on a survey of ~1,500 consultants from the likes of Accenture, McKinsey and Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, as well as numerous smaller firms. By assessing the things that real consultants are most concerned to secure in their next career move, you can begin to understand the research that you need to be undertaking about future employers and the types of questions you need to be asking your potential employer. It may surprise you that Quality of Work & Clients ranks higher than salary for the majority of consultants. Work-Life Balance, Career Progression prospects and Training are all desired at least as much as salary. For the full survey results, see overleaf. But if these issues are the ones that most concern actual management consultants then they should surely be the issues that concern you most as a prospective management consultant ? Top-Consultant’s advice: make sure you drill down on each of these factors during the application procedure, or you could well end up a disaffected employee and back on the job market within a year or two… 5 The factors that Consultants believe are the most important Most Important Criteria for next consulting job – Weighted scores 6 What are the best approaches to adopt when job-hunting in consulting? With the rise of the internet, the options for finding a job in consulting have multiplied. But which routes are the most effective – and where should you be focusing your efforts? A survey of over 1,000 consultants provides some food for thought. When asked to score the channels used in their last career move, candidates favoured personal referrals over all other means of applying. So if you have contacts in consulting firms, don’t be afraid of calling in a few favours!! Internet job sites and recruitment agencies were the next best option. Score out of 5 Candidate Recruitment Channel Source: 2003 Consultant Survey 3.9 3.2 3.1 2.8 2.7 3.6 3.2 3.2 2.7 2.5 1 2 3 4 5 Personal Referrals Internet Agencies Corporate Sites Newspapers 2002/03 2001/02 7 2. Strategy, Boutique & Full-Service firms - Three types of firms to consider 8 Introduction: Be sure to differentiate between Strategy, Boutique and Full-Service Consulting firms When contemplating a career in consulting, it is critical to differentiate between the types of firms in existence. The term “consulting” is now used to cover a wide array of activities, so the work you will undertake at various types of firms can be quite different. This can have major implications for both your job satisfaction and career prospects – both inside and outside of consulting. Overleaf we show a graphical segmentation of the sector, breaking the industry down into strategy firms, boutique firms and full-service firms. There are many differences between each type, which we shall outline later in this chapter. However, the graphical representation focuses on perhaps the two most telling figures: average revenue generation per consultant and total headcount. Work of a strategic or highly specialised nature tends to involve smaller teams with high billing rates per consultant – strategy and boutique firms fall into this category. Full-service firms, by contrast, are characterised by large project teams (often 30+) and much lower billing rates per consultant. The implications will be discussed later in this chapter. Firm size has ramifications in terms of career progression (how regimented is the firm?), culture and likely project responsibilities. Boutique firms will typically be ~200 strong, strategy firms 1,000 – 5,000 and full-service firms anything up to 80,000+ consultants. 9 When applying, it is unlikely that more than 2 types of firm will offer the type of role you are looking for $ Rev. per consultant Firm size (headcount) McKinsey $300k 1,000 BCG EDS IBMKPMG Parthenon Marakon Bain Mercer Monitor LEK Booz Allen CSC $150k Boutique Firms Strategy Firms Full-service Firms Roland Berger OC&C 0 Accenture Independents 10 Full-service Firms (such as Accenture, KPMG Consulting, Deloitte Consulting) Overview: Full-Service firms are global consulting organisations, who have typically built up a comprehensive client base through prior work as auditors or through their role as IT implementation experts. The business model of a full-service firm is based on maximising utilisation of consultants at a relatively low price-point. Selling a wide range of services to the client base is critical in ensuring a low cost of sales (maximising the value of each client relationship). Typical firm profile: Firms tend to have a large number of junior consulting staff for each Partner-level professional. This fits perfectly with the type of work sold – typically large-scale projects requiring sizeable project teams, often of 30 or more consultants. A lot of work is implementation and outsourcing focused, where project duration is frequently 6+ months. Full-service firms will also have an array of partner / alliance arrangements with firms such as SAP, Siebel and the like. At one of these firms, alliance-derived business accounts for 45% of consulting revenues. So one of the main demand-generators for Full-Service firms is clients’ desire to implement the latest technical solutions in their organisation. Many now describe themselves as “solutions integrators” rather than consultants. Outsourcing is another large component of their business, so you may well be providing consulting advice for an newly-outsourced business process Full-service firms will typically have units serving all industry-verticals and all functional specialisms. They often have parts of the business that compete (eg. HR and strategy) with boutique and strategy firms. More often than not, though, these arms provide add-on services to existing clients rather than competing head-on with the smaller firms. 11 Full-service Firms (such as Accenture, KPMG Consulting, Deloitte Consulting) Plus Points: • Very strong and co-ordinated training courses to ensure consistency of service offering is achieved throughout the firm • Large project teams ensure new-hires are broken in gently • Potential for internal transfers if you decide to change your desired specialism or relocate internationally • Blue-Chip client base provides great exposure and learning experience – plus excellent contacts should you decide to move out of consulting later in your career • International travel less frequent as network of overseas offices can staff international projects (though possibility remains to work on overseas assignments if desired) Negative Points: • Frustrating rules, procedures and regulations are an inevitable part of working for such large corporations • Large project teams mean you will have insights into one specific aspect of a business rather than an overview of how the whole clients’ business operates • Promotion-track is highly rigid, so the very best will not enjoy the same accelerated career paths they might achieve at smaller firms • Given size of project teams, less likely to be working directly with Blue-Chip Directors – liasing with middle-management more usual 12 Strategy Firms (such as McKinsey, BCG, Bain) Overview: Strategy consultancies focus on providing company directors with strategic advice on the likely future direction of their industry - and subsequently the strategic actions that the company ought to undertake to exploit resulting opportunities. Strategy consultancies tend to operate globally through a network of international offices. The business model of a strategy consultancy revolves around a much higher billing rate than for full- service firms. Profitability is achieved through sizeable mark-ups on each consultant employed, rather than through a smaller mark-up on a larger volume of consultants (as with full-service firms). The cost of winning new clients is high, so the key ratio for such firms is the repeat business rate (what % of clients undertake a new assignment with the consultancy when a project is concluded). Utilisation is also monitored carefully, though targets are lower than for full-service firms since much more time is devoted to proposal-writing in an attempt to win new clients. Typical firm profile: Firms will typically have offices covering the major geographies, but rely much more on international staffing to fulfil project briefs. They will have a greater number of Principals/ Partners for each junior consultant – partly because of the greater sales effort required at such firms, and partly because Partners have to be more active on project assignments once won. Most strategy firms are quite arrogant in the sense that they are exceptionally selective about who they hire. Each tends to have its own unique slant (must be academically from the elite; must have had entrepreneurial experience; must have held outstanding extra-curricular positions at University) which permeates the firm’s culture. Each tends to recruit in its own mould, even if this is outwardly denied. 13 Strategy Firms (such as McKinsey, BCG, Bain) Plus Points: • Alumni tend to be treated exceptionally well because they are the future client stream of the firm. • Project teams will also be much smaller, five being typical, so there is no room for hangers-on but much greater scope for impressing at an early age and achieving fast-track career progression. • Considerable scope for international travel and for early exposure to decision-makers in industry • Opens doors both to leading Business Schools (if contemplating an MBA) and to strategic roles in industry • Early career is likely to be generalist in nature – giving exposure to many sectors and functions; early exposure to Partners/ Directors maximises the learning experience. Negative Points: • Some firms operate an up-or-out policy which is much more rigid than in other types of consultancies • The high workload associated with consulting is perhaps most extreme in strategy firms. • International travel is more often than not an inextricable part of the job, so remaining with a firm and developing family commitments can prove very difficult • Strategy firms are the worst hit in a downturn, so there are times in the economic cycle when it will be almost impossible to break into the sector 14 Boutique Firms (such as LEK, Detica, Parthenon) Overview: Boutique consultancies focus on providing company directors with either sector-specific advice (telecoms or automotive) or functionally-specialised advice (marketing, CRM). Boutique consultancies will typically have one office – or a handful at most – that can service global clients but usually only within a few target markets. The business model of a boutique consultancy is similar to a strategy firm in that a key ratio is the repeat business rate (the % of clients that undertake a new assignment with the consultancy when a project is concluded). The strength of boutique firms is their undoubted expertise in their particular field; their weakness is that they cannot meet all the consulting needs of a client, nor bring to the table experience learnt from similar but unconnected industries. It is not uncommon, therefore, for clients to have both boutique and strategy consultancies advising at the same time. Typical firm profile: Boutique consultancies very often have an identifiable figure-head leading the firm. Their character will often owe a lot to the character of this figure-head. They are also very often created as a spin-off from either a strategy or a full-service consulting firm. Understanding how the firm came to be created can give considerable insight into what it is like to be an employee there (eg. a consultancy created by ex-Accenture professionals is likely to have an Accenture feel to it). In terms of project work, the boutique consultancies tend to be similar to strategy consultancies. Small teams provide business-critical advice to the highest levels within a client organisation. Working hours are likely to be more acceptable, though, as these firms have more of a small-firm feel to them and are much less elitist than strategy firms 15 Boutique Firms (such as LEK, Detica, Parthenon) Plus Points: • There is the potential to focus from day one on a particular functional or sectoral specialism in a way that is quite difficult within a strategy consulting firm • Project teams are also small, giving responsibility at an early age and close contact with the firm’s founders • Likely to be the most enjoyable work atmosphere of all consulting firms, with considerable camaraderie and a small-firm feel Negative Points: • Career limitations when joining strategy or full-service firms. Unless you are looking to join as a specialist, preferably bringing excellent client contacts, it will be difficult to transition to the other types of firms later in your career • In some industries (eg. Aviation, telecoms), the only way to win enough client assignments is to win overseas assignments – which in some firms will mean extended periods of overseas travel • The success of the firm – and therefore your remuneration – is very much tied to the performance of the sector/ function you have specialised in. You will be more exposed to a downturn in a specific sector. 16 3. Who’s Popular and Who’s Not? - Identifying those firms where your CV stands the most chance of being noticed 17 Who’s popular and who’s not A recent survey conducted by www.top-consultant.com polled over 1,700 candidates regarding the firms they would most like to join in the current climate. Respondents identified their top choices of full-service firms and strategy/boutique firms. As shown overleaf, there were clear winners in both categories – which has some major implications as the market picks up again. Amongst strategy firms, McKinsey performed very strongly, whilst the likes of Roland Berger, Bain and OC&C struggled. Amongst full-service firms, Accenture was the clear winner whilst the likes of KPMG appear to be less well perceived. By focusing on those firms that are not the highest rated, you will greatly enhance your chances of successful selection – especially as the market picks up and the best candidates endeavour to secure places with their #1 choice of firm. In such a scenario the lesser-ranked firms are likely to have greater difficulty in filling their requirements and consequently consider a broader range of candidates for their roles. 18 Who’s popular and who’s not: Full-Service consultancies 19 Who’s popular and who’s not: Strategy/Boutique firms 20 4. Appendix - A shortlist of firms who are being overlooked by the majority of applicants, and where you stand the best chance of success 21 Identifying new-comers to approach As should be clear from the preceding commentary, there are numerous consultancies who – because they are slightly less well known amongst candidates – you should stand a better chance of being hired by. Having researched the industry, we provide overleaf listings of UK consultancies you may want to research and apply to direct: 22 Actica Consulting Limited http://www.actica.co.uk/ (0) 1483 295055 (0) 207 399 4700Adventis http://www.adventis.com 020 7486 6023 ALLERY SCOTTS LTD http://www.alleryscotts.co.uk 01252 737866AMTEC Consulting plc http://www.amtec.co.uk 020 7566 9494 Analysys http://www.analysys.com/ 020 78725658Anpro http://www.anpro.co.uk 0207 321 5010Applied Value http://www.appliedvalue.com/main.html 01543 463577Atos Origin http://www.atosorigin.co.uk/corporate/homepage.html 01386 554000 Attra Consultancy Ltd http://www.attra.co.uk 0-20-72242030Baker Robbins & Company http://www.brco.com/ 020 7553 5300 Basis Limited http://www.basis.co.uk (0)1494 689800BDR Consulting http://www.bdr-consulting.com 0118 988 3749Berkshire Consultancy Limited http://www.berkshire.co.uk/services/CorporateFinance.htm 01926 633333Bourton Group Limited http://www.bourton.co.uk (0)20 7436 2525BRAXXON http://www.braxxon.co.uk/ 0800 567287BT Consulting http://www.btconsulting.com (0)20 7626 8123 BTAconsulting http://www.btaconsulting.co.uk BWA Facilities Consultancy (Bernard William Associates) 020 8460 1111http://www.bwassoc.co.uk/ 23 Cannon Hill Consulting http://www.cannon-hill.com/ 020 7405 0777 020-7608-3361Catalyst Development Ltd http://www.catalyst.co.uk 020 7258 7100Central Europe Trust Co. Ltd. http://www.cet.co.uk/home.htm (0)20 7017 4652Chorleywood http://www.chorleywood.com (0) 20 7422 1900City Consultants http://www.cityconsultants.com/ (0) 121 410 6100Compass Management Consulting Ltd http://www.compassmc.co.uk (0)1372 456086Cornwell Affiliates plc http://www.cornwell.co.uk 020 75494949Credo Group http://www.credo-group.com 01252 385701CSC Computer Sciences http://www.csc.com 01786 448804Customer Relationship Management Ltd http://www.crmuk.co.uk/ 020 74998030D.M. Management Consultants http://www.dmmc.co.uk/ 020 7518 1680Darwin Consulting http://www.darwinconsulting.co.uk 01636 686970Delphi Marketing Associates Ltd http://www.delphimarketing.co.uk/home.html 020 7959 7700DiamondCluster International http://www.diamondcluster.co.uk/ 01784 228300DMR Consulting http://www.dmr.ca (0)20 8874 8015Dunnett Shaw & Partners http://www.dunnettshaw.co.uk 2076635651Edengene http://www.edengene.com/indexf.html 01223 315944 ER Consultants http://www.erconsultants.co.uk 020 8899 1735Erskine Management Consultancy http://www.erskinemgt.co.uk/ 24 FBM-Consulting http://www.fbm-consulting.com Frazer-Nash Consultancy http://www.fnc.co.uk/index.htm 01306 885050 Gibson & Associates http://www.gibsonconsulting.com Glendinning Management Consultants http://www.glendinning.co.uk/ 01932 833600 (01727)855432Hartley McMaster Ltd http://www.hmcm.co.uk/ 01252 719 000HEDRA Limited http://www.hedra.co.uk 01279 450000 HIS Consulting (part of Altran) http://www.his-altran.co.uk 01252 372000Hogg Robinson http://www.hoggrobinson.com 0113.258.4484HOSCA Management Consultants Ltd http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/hosca/ ImpactPlus http://www.impactplus.com INTEC Management Ltd http://www.intecm.co.uk (0)1256 331391 (0)20.7776.6999Iris Financial Engineering & Systems http://www.sphinx.com/main.htm 0208.239.2122Jacobs Consultancy http://www.jacobsconsultancy.com/ 020 7961 3200Javelin Group http://www.javelingroup.com/ (01253) 792992 John Ormond Management Consultants http://www.john-ormond.co.uk/ (0)117 925 5533Kaisen Consulting http://www.kaisen.co.uk/index.html 020 7380 8500Kaiser Associat
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