Many strategy and management consulting firms also do operations consulting. Technology or IT consultants are focused on the development and application of information technology in an organization. For example, these consultants can help a company set up the right technologies and systems and make the necessary system integrations or transitions.
The largest technology and IT consulting firm is Accenture, although they do also do other types of consulting. Financial consultants are focused on the financial capabilities of their clients. They help clients with a wide range of topics such as corporate finance, tax, restructuring, risk management, forensic research, and support disputes. Human resource consultants help clients with human capital questions and improving the performance of their Human Resources department.
For example, these consultants can help companies make organizational changes, manage talent, and improve employee learning and development. For example, IDEO is a consulting firm that focuses on design and innovation.
Cornerstone Research is a consulting firm that focuses on economic consulting. They provide economic and financial analysis in commercial litigation and regulatory proceedings. The clients that hire consultants can be almost anyone. Large companies, investment firms, governments, and non-profit organizations all hire consultants.
Any major company or organization that you can think of has probably hired consultants at some point. Consulting partners have deep expertise in a particular industry or function. Imagine being a consulting partner that specializes in the healthcare sector. A big reason why clients hire consultants is for the expertise that consulting partners provide.
Consulting partners have deep knowledge in a particular industry or function. They have likely already solved many business problems similar to the business problem that the client is hiring consultants for.
Therefore, they can provide tremendous value in helping clients solve their own problems. Consultants are smart people that can temporarily fill resource gaps. The top consulting firms hire the smartest, most talented people. They pay their consultants well in order to attract the best candidates.
Therefore, consultants can help fill resource gaps that companies have. Hiring consultants is especially useful when there is an urgent business problem or crisis that needs to be resolved as soon as possible. Consultants provide an outside and unbiased opinion. Another reason why clients hire consultants is because they provide an outside and unbiased opinion. Companies and organizations can be entrenched in tradition and the status quo. Executives and managers that have spent a long time working at a company or organization often get used to the same way of thinking about and solving a problem.
Consultants, on the other hand, work on many different problems for many different companies. They do not think about the same problems every single day. Therefore, consultants can offer a fresh perspective on a business situation or problem.
Additionally, consultants can focus on getting the right answer and developing the right recommendations for business problems without worrying about company politics. Sometimes, companies will already have an idea of what the solution to their business problem should be. They will hire consultants, but not tell them the solution they have in mind, to see if they get the same solution as them. Hiring consultants is a safe choice to make. McKinsey is one of the top strategy or management consulting firms in the world.
Company executives may get fired for making the wrong business decisions. However, by hiring McKinsey instead, executives may not always get the outcome or solution that they wanted, but they will not get in trouble because they hired McKinsey. Hiring consultants is sometimes used as a safety measure to help executives avoid making their own decisions for a company, which could go wrong and get them fired. By hiring consultants, executives have someone else they can blame when things go wrong.
There are eight main tasks that consultants do day to day. The tasks that a particular consultant does depends on their role and seniority.
Consulting recommendations are based on information and data. Therefore, a lot of the day to day consulting job involves gathering information and data. At Accenture you will most likely spend a sizable part of your career delivering change and like I explained above, we are working only for Fortune companies exciting companies on their strategic goals exciting projects. More often than not, those projects we are working on have been initiated by our strategy arm, Accenture Strategy and are implemented by either Accenture Consulting, Technology or Digital and when those projects are complete, we may help customers outsource repetitive and less critical operations with Accenture Operations.
It is a very gratifying experience when you go to the gas station and you understand that your team helped setup the processes that are behind or your bring one of your parent to the largest public hospital of the area and you realize that the syringes and other materials that nurses are using have been procured by a system that you installed yourself.
Accenture has been ranked first for many years already in the Gartner magic quadrant for system integration and in many other consulting areas. If I were still to compare to competitors, I would say that you can always expect to work on meaningful and big projects at Accenture. Deloitte recruits from the same schools as we recruit but because it has a "local partnership structure" while Accenture has a global structure and policies, Deloitte partners may decide to take all kind of projects that they want as long to make their sales numbers.
An Accenture partner can't. Deloitte has also a better reputation in Management Consulting although I believe both companies are on par today. Deloitte is not as well perceived in Technology delivery. IBM might be our best competitor in terms of system integration but IBM suffers from its organizational structure as it has an elite delivery force which is called IBM Global Services and there is a cheaper organization for less skilled consultants.
IBM is not doing very well in terms of pure strategy consulting though but they do have a big advantage in the IT market as they host many clients and since they know the IT landscape of their clients, they have a competitive advantage.
In the past, Accenture was trying to compete with MBB but since the publishing of the globally acclaimed article from Clayton Christensen, "Consulting on the Cusp of Disruption", Accenture decided to focus its strategy arm on consulting deals that can enable sales.
Per example, Accenture ideated, developed and delivered the Disney Magic Band few years ago. Be the first to mark this as helpful. Intern at Accenture. Accenture stands out in its ability to invest time in developing its people.
They took a shot in the dark with me in my senior year of high school by putting me on a client facing project to help expose me to the consulting industry.
During my time with the company, they provided countless opportunities that helped me understand the industry through newsletters, networking events and one on one mentoring. This is definitely a place that if you are willing to put in the effort to learn new things and take personal time to hone your skills then they will provide all the tools necessary to help you.
For example, I remember during one of my meetings with my manager that he said there are specific programs that Accenture will pay for to help analyst learnhow to code if they are willing to learn. Accenture stands out through its commitment to its people in that it is willing to develop them as much as they are willing to put in the time and effort to do so.
As Accenture is a major player in multiple industries it has many competitors. In the IT consulting and services industry, it competes with multiple Indian and international IT giants. What makes Accenturestand out is its focus on innovation as well as continuing to improve existing services to their clients. Accenture also has its own Innovation Labs to research and develop about new cutting edge technologies.
It also has developed its own innovation cycle to expedite the process of integrating new technologies into their existing services and solutions. As the global consulting and services industry has moved from cost-leverage based model to due to increased cost parity of services between multiple competitors to innovation based model, I believe Accenture is well poised to compete effectively and also remain an employee friendly company at the same time.
Former Employee at Accenture. I worked at Accenture about 3 years ago. Prior to that, they had been voted "Best Place to Work" like three years in a row. Like I mentioned earlier, once you are brought on as a permanent hire, you are treated like royalty. Accenture is made up of diverse teams of highly motivated people who are committed to achieving outstanding results. You can learn from and be coached by the very best people — supportive, approachable leaders and colleagues with great expertise across all areas of our business.
So we have a flexible approach that encourages you to strike the right balance between work and personal life. In addition to basic compensation or salary, this also includes a range of other market-relevant benefits and professional growth opportunities that recognize individual contributions and performance.
At Accenture we hire the best people and then we help them become even better. Our people also have the opportunity to learn from and be coached by the best in the business — supportive leaders and colleagues who can pass on their industry, technical and functional expertise. We use a well-managed combination of courses, practical experience on the job and feedback to enable our people to develop specialist skills that help them grow professionally.
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