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Hi goons, I've been working as a Strategy Consultant for the last 3.5 years with Accenture. I joined as a grad and consider that it was the perfect place to start my career. It rapidly gave me exposure to a number of different clients and types of work, and I've met some wonderful and inspirational people. However, I've reach a career fork in the road and want to leave Accenture, and most likely the Consulting industry. There's two reasons that have lead me to come to this realisation: 1. Work/life balance. Working long hours comes with the territory but when it's impacting on my life and I'm missing out on social activities and not seeing my girlfriend for days on end it's too much. 2. Type of work in my city. I'm a Strategy Consultant, but very few company's have their corporate headquarters in my city so there's very negligible strategy work here. As such over the last 18 months I've done NO Strategy work and instead I'm becoming a bit of a 'jack of all trades and a master of none', doing things that don't really interest me or match my career path. From here I have 3 options to explore: Option 1. Stay in current job, but transfer to somewhere with more suitable work available (addresses point 2 only) Option 2. Change to another Consulting firm - perhaps a smaller niche player or a dedicated strategy firm i.e. McKinsey, Bain, etc. Again this would address point 2 but probably make limited improvement to point 1. Option 3. Work directly in industry. But where? I'm leaning towards Option 3 - leaving Consulting and working directly in Industry (most likely Gas or Utilities where my work has been). But I don't know where to begin? I'm looking for suggestions/examples of where I could go next. What type of jobs could be suitable for an ex-Strategy Consultant with skills across things like operating model design, business strategy, business process design, etc. ? (I had a search for a Management Consulting thread on here but couldn't find anything)
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Apr 5, 2014 05:53
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What kind of strategy work are you doing, what city are you in?
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Apr 5, 2014 07:37
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Hello, I left management consulting about 9 months ago to join the regional strategy team of a global FMCG firm. We are all ex-consultants, and hiring pretty much only ex-consultants. We are very small as a function - think 5 people in a 1500+ FTE region. Pros include amazing w/l balance, much less stress and complete immersion into the business, much more than you can get at any consulting assignment. Cons include pay, a lot of implementation work (so running PMO, chasing people, playing company politics) and a lot of ambiguity around what exactly it is you actually do as a 'strategy' team. My advice is that if you are going into corporate world, make sure to join a 'core' business function. Just like in consulting / i-banking, you have 'core' functions and 'back office' or 'support' functions. For example, in FMCG, you live and die by marketing, sales and supply functions. Finance is also a big one. Everything else is pretty much dead-end crap that exists to support the core. Strategy teams are very much non-core and unless you join a very well-established team, treat it as an accelerator to learn the business and move to sales or anything else that has a 'big' career path to the top.
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Apr 5, 2014 10:39
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I used to be a strategy consultant as well. When I started getting antsy, the options as I saw them were: 1. Switch consulting firms 2. Go into industry 3. Get an MBA -> ? I went for 2 after thinking about 1 and getting several offers, but am still considering 3. I now work in corporate strategy/development for a household name F500 company. The Capitulator is correct about some aspects of industry work, but my personal experience has been different in other areas. + work/life balance + better immersion into the business + more respect internally vs. when working as a consultant with clients + greater focus on strategy vs. implementation projects; this will vary by situation, and coming from ACN, I'd imagine it would be true for you + pay; also varies by situation, but my F500 pays extremely well - they also support international assignments with full expat packages (this is what I'm doing for the next year and a half) + internal mobility - some companies (mine included) use the corporate strategy/development teams as leadership pipelines - corporate politics - dealing with less motivated people in the rest of the business, and by association, having slow periods of work - external mobility - picking an industry is like declaring a major and it can be tougher to break back out - office location - seriously, some F500 companies have offices in bizarre, lovely non-cities Feel free to PM me if you are interested in chatting - happy to help you think about things. Also, there is a management consulting thread somewhere in BF.c, but it sucks and I don't recommend trying to track it down as it was taken over by some  .
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Apr 7, 2014 08:32
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jbusbysack fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Apr 12, 2014 |
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Apr 8, 2014 06:13
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Pissingintowind posted:+ internal mobility - some companies (mine included) use the corporate strategy/development teams as leadership pipelines Hello, can you talk a little bit about this? For example, I agree that strategy teams are definitely 'talent accelerators' but does yours have a direct path to 'the top' or do you need to put in some time in another area before having a shot at the big office?
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Apr 12, 2014 15:09
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The Capitulator posted:Hello, can you talk a little bit about this? For example, I agree that strategy teams are definitely 'talent accelerators' but does yours have a direct path to 'the top' or do you need to put in some time in another area before having a shot at the big office? I don't think there's such a thing as a "direct path to the top" at any F500 company  - it's all about being in the right place at the right time and knowing the right people. At least at my company, there's no written path to follow for becoming a C-level executive. A good corporate strategy group can help you with knowing the right people because you'll have really high visibility work and you'll work the most senior people in the company.Our corporate strategy group is strong because it's not uncommon to exit from it into a higher position than you would have if you went through a traditional business route. For example, for someone coming in with 2 years of consulting/banking experience, their career path might look like this: 1. Consulting/banking analyst stint (2 years) 2. Corporate strategy associate position (2 years) 3. Exit into the "business" at a Director level (total of 4 years to get here) For someone that starts in the "business": 1. Analyst for 1 year 2. Senior Analyst for 1 year 3. Associate for 2-3 years 4. Senior Associate for 2-3 years 5. Director (total of 6-8 years to get here) Same thing can be seen at other entry points, too. We've had people from corporate strategy become country/regional GMs, CEO/COOs of particular businesses, etc. Again, happy to chat over PM if anyone is interested in discussing a specific situation!
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Apr 12, 2014 15:48
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Pissingintowind posted:I don't think there's such a thing as a "direct path to the top" at any F500 company Thanks for your post Pissing, very interesting stuff. Is the two year stint before exit to the 'business' a common path in your group or do people stay longer? The visibility of work is another 'pro' that I forgot to mention. On the subject of the thread, there is a two-part piece on Management Consulted, not particularly amazing but a decent read never the less.
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Apr 12, 2014 16:54
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The Capitulator posted:Thanks for your post Pissing, very interesting stuff. Is the two year stint before exit to the 'business' a common path in your group or do people stay longer? There are two camps. Some people stay longer and work their way up the strategy tree. Others go into the business. I took the halfway in between route and stayed in strategy, but took an expat assignment in a BRIC country where I don't have P&L responsibility, but do "head" corporate strategy for an entire region and can directly drive impact to the P&L.
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Apr 22, 2014 19:11
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I know it's kind of off topic, but how would one get started in the Consulting business?
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Apr 25, 2014 02:45
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Captain Melo posted:I know it's kind of off topic, but how would one get started in the Consulting business? It depends on the type but a lot of time you stay for one out of school. You could also work for a company and gain experience and connections then shoot out on your own. Utilize all you learned.
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Apr 25, 2014 04:49
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Captain Melo posted:I know it's kind of off topic, but how would one get started in the Consulting business? First off, primarily, you have to love the work. Consulting is more of a lifestyle than an occupation, so if you aren't prepared to stay up until 3AM every morning doing consulting, then get out while you still have a chance. Then, if you're sure you won't want to turn back, buy a plane ticket. It doesn't matter where, just go somewhere far away from wherever you are right now. Small villages work best, as that's where they need consulting the most, so there's a lot of work. You can find odd consulting jobs even in bigger cities, though. What you're really trying to do here is just to get a lot of experience. Get it so that you can consult without even thinking, so that it's second nature. Learn to live off the land, too, as it will make things easier when you aren't making as much money, and make you better at consulting even when you are (think of it like in Karate Kid). When you don't have anything else to learn (you'll know), go back home, and change the world.
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Apr 25, 2014 12:45
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apt gangbang posted:First off, primarily, you have to love the work. Consulting is more of a lifestyle than an occupation, so if you aren't prepared to stay up until 3AM every morning doing consulting, then get out while you still have a chance. Then, if you're sure you won't want to turn back, buy a plane ticket. It doesn't matter where, just go somewhere far away from wherever you are right now. Small villages work best, as that's where they need consulting the most, so there's a lot of work. You can find odd consulting jobs even in bigger cities, though. What you're really trying to do here is just to get a lot of experience. Get it so that you can consult without even thinking, so that it's second nature. Learn to live off the land, too, as it will make things easier when you aren't making as much money, and make you better at consulting even when you are (think of it like in Karate Kid). When you don't have anything else to learn (you'll know), go back home, and change the world. Or examine your skill set, determine a market, update your linkedin and find people. Who cares if your service offering isn't top-tier; as long as you solve people's needs they'll have money to throw at you. (Of course, there are many, many more steps than this, and they're broad, but they're a lot easier than "first, escape from your network").
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Apr 28, 2014 04:12
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I too consulted the in the Energy sector for before leaving for a job in industry. There isn't any magic to it - it is all about translating the skills you've learned in consulting into a permanent gig. I started as a Commercial Operations Director myself and then became a Division VP about two years ago. The money and hours have been much better industry but the level people I work with is far below which sometimes isn't so bad - it is fun to be the smartest guy in the room at times (although lifetime energy people know far more about other aspects of the business). I've also gotten to take on a much bigger team over time to where I now have over 100 people in my reporting chain where it was about 8 max in consulting and I didn't have hiring / firing / merit authority. I did do a top 20 MBA before consulting and I'll warn you that the energy segment doesn't hire that many ex-consultants or MBA's for that matter. I've specialized in smart cities / smart grid which helped. I was recruited into my current company so I'd recommend working with recruiters in the area you are looking at.
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Apr 30, 2014 18:56
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LofwyrSai posted:The money and hours have been much better industry but the level people I work with is far below which sometimes isn't so bad - it is fun to be the smartest guy in the room at times (although lifetime energy people know far more about other aspects of the business). This.
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May 1, 2014 19:09
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LofwyrSai posted:Commercial Operations Director oooohhh baby i'm gonna spread my crack nice and wide for you
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May 8, 2014 10:28
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tolerabletariff posted:oooohhh baby i'm gonna spread my crack nice and wide for you So how is the drunk quitting celebration going? Captain Melo posted:I know it's kind of off topic, but how would one get started in the Consulting business? For independent consulting I just emailed a bunch of work pitches to companies with some example work + record and then started working for them.
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May 8, 2014 11:05
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LofwyrSai posted:I've specialized in smart cities / smart grid which helped. Okay, apparently Commercial Operations Director is a thing that exists outside of refineries. So, uh... you're probably not into nice wide crack spreads then, are you? In that case, I can wish you only the most favorable spark spreads allowable under your rate base. May your next redetermination be painless and your salvation swift, that we may share in the light of full O&M pass-through and bonus depreciation tolerabletariff fucked around with this message at 11:53 on May 8, 2014 |
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May 8, 2014 11:46
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Question since there aren't really any other MC threads: what sort of statistical analysis software to people see being used at most of their clients? Trying to figure out what makes sense to learn for deliverables, in general, if I have free time. I don't want to get stuck with only knowing really specific packages used by one long term client!
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Sep 3, 2014 20:09
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Not an MC but I do work with data analysis and my guess would be that SPSS, SAS and R would make up the majority the cases based on market shares and what I and my colleagues have experienced.
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Sep 3, 2014 20:45
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mobby_6kl posted:Not an MC but I do work with data analysis and my guess would be that SPSS, SAS and R would make up the majority the cases based on market shares and what I and my colleagues have experienced. I have seen SPSS and SAS. In my old firm we had a special team (analytics team) who would do the programming and working with SPSS in general (they needed super heavy duty laptops and knew programming etc). We received cleaned up data in excel and took it from there.
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Sep 5, 2014 08:51
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I've mostly seen SAS or SPSS, but I'm wondering why you'd want to learn it in terms of deliverables. In my experience you are more likely to get data from a controller or business analyst, which you then build your analyses and/or Excel models on and hand those over at the end. I've never heard of anyone working with SAS scripts as a deliverable (in management consulting) and even if you have the skills, clients are often protective regarding giving you access to their databases.
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Sep 11, 2014 13:50
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Question - anyone has any experience with McKinsey (or similar) 'implementation' consulting? I'm especially interested in the pay and working hours. While going back to straight up management consulting is out of the question for me at the moment due to the lovely lifestyle, I'm wondering if there's an alternative to explore.
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Sep 11, 2014 16:24
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