[astockwell]

By far, the majority of consulting engagements I’ve seen or participated in (Big 4 and freelance) are things that could easily be done if the company hired a few folks, for much less pay than this. Simple number crunching, tedious paperwork review, trivial integrations/dev work.. I would hazard a guess that at least 50% of all enterprise consulting spend goes to these tasks.

However the indisputable fact is that these companies are willing to shell out for this stuff, whether because they think it’s temporary work (cheaper to hire Patrick than an FTE who you then have to keep paying or dispose of) or they’re paying for the top-of-Hill expertise (eg. paying a Big 4 where you get 10 hours of a partner’s time/expertise at 1k/hour and then 300 hours of 23yo grunt labor).

[qaq]

There could be a ton of reasons from covering one's behind to how things look on the books etc.

[putnam]

Who is the 23yo?

[stevenwoo]

From the age - a fresh college graduate recruited into the consultancy employee/meat grinder.

[astockwell]

Exactly. And not just one, each partner had a battalion of them.