[tequila_shot]

I've been in one of the "Big 4" Consulting firms, and I can vouch for the article. As a "Senior" the Customer is charged 150-160$/hour and on top of that 25% for travel. The work that we did for these customers was lackluster. We used to come in as "experts", get all the technical work done from body shops in India and offshore. I was shocked to see that Customers just keep paying for these expensive services, and have no clue they are getting hoodwinked.

[harvey9]

In some cases the customer is just looking to put a veneer on a decision they already made. The big 4 name is what they're deliberately paying for.

[kneebonian]

This was one of those big eye opening moments for me. Consultants are hired mercenaries in coporate warfare, they don't care about you, they don't care about your company or the rivalries or the squabbaling. You pay them a bunch of money to come run roughshod over your enemies by producing reams of analysis and Powerpoints, to fling the arrows of jargon, and lay siege to your enemies employees by endlessly trapping them in meetings and then they depart.

Consultants are brought in to secure your flank, to provide air cover and to act as disposable pawns in interoffice combat.

They are not brought in to solve problems, to find solutions, or because of their incredibly acumen. It's because they have no loyalty or love but money.

[bps4484]

"Consultants are hired mercenaries in coporate warfare, they don't care about you, they don't care about your company or the rivalries or the squabbaling."

"They are not brought in to solve problems"

I've known people that worked for consultancies and the biggest value add they think they have brought is when the problem is the rivalries, politics, and squabbaling has led to inaction and they've needed outside support to come in who don't care about these things.

Perhaps we should hope for companies to have leadership teams where they are able to cut through this intransigence, but unfortunately all too often with old companies stuck in their ways this isn't the case.

[freetinker]

They might see their role as brilliant mediators facilitating action by settling feuds using 2x2 matrices, but I think that's naive at best, disingenuous at worst.

They care about the agenda of the person they've been hired by. Usually a C-level agenda-setter or someone influential in the org, and often a McK "alum".

And speaking of action, they have zero stake in the actual implementation of what they proselytize.

All this isn't to say that they don't provide value. Exchange of money is usually is a reasonable signal of providing value, and these firms and its employees do reliably well in that area. However, the narratives around what value strategy consultants provide I find to be truthy, but not actually true.

[josephg]

I can vouch for this. I've done software consulting in corporates a few times throughout my career. Probably the highest value things I've done have been those times the team's organisational structure was a bit broken, and nobody in the company had the visibility, audacity and cover to call it out.

One team had no clear leadership, and there was an important milestone coming up that the team didn't seem to be orienting around. I started kicking up a fuss in meetings by constantly asking "Is this important for our April launch?". I know I upset at least one person, but with some help from management we ended up collectively getting the launch back on track.

At another company my perspective was relayed through my consulting company to the client's upper management, and that ended up being used to fire someone. It doesn't feel good - he was a nice guy. But he was genuinely useless. He spent about 90% of his attention brown nosing to upper management. Once or twice he even actively sabotaged the team in small ways so he could be seen stepping in and fixing the problem. I think they wanted to get rid of him anyway but they didn't have legal cover.

There's absolutely value for companies in having outside consultants sit amongst a team. But its a subtle kind of value. I thought I was brought in to write code. Hah!

[not_enoch_wise]

"Exchange of money is usually is a reasonable signal of providing value"

How do I get some of the drugs you're on? Sounds like a truly magical journey.

[freetinker]

I should clarify “value” is subjective. Value in this context doesn’t necessarily mean good, of value to society, aligned with your values, etc. Just that one party is willing to part with cash in exchange for something of value to them (presumably of value to them – unless they’re on drugs).

[avianlyric]

They’re providing value, just not to the company at large. But the specific person that hired them, and pays them with company fund, you can bet your ass they’re getting value.

[emodendroket]

It's a noisy signal but not an outright bad one.

[bps4484]

I don't think they were saying they are mediators or settle feuds. I'm sure a bunch of people at the companies are pissed at the conclusions they come to. It's moreso though that precisely because they aren't tied to any feudal relationships within the organization they're able to be more impartial with their research and cut through bureaucracy.

Certainly though if all they're doing is parroting back conclusions backed by "research" that the exec who hired them wants to hear then they aren't providing much value, other than perhaps providing air cover when some decision, any decision, is better than no decision and gridlock.

[metadat]

> Perhaps we should hope for companies to have leadership teams where they are able to cut through this intransigence...

In my experience, hope has always been a terribly poor and ineffective strategy.

[tjs8rj]

Based on what? I’m close with a few higher levels at different strategy consulting firms, and most of their work at these firms we’ve talked about has been serious: how to respond to a firm you’ve heard of receiving backlash over a botched vaccine, balancing a pivot in their product line with their existing customer base, etc

Problems that will screw you royally (speaking of the firm here) if you get them wrong, so you bring in outside perspective that can pattern match your problem to real world examples (and get in the room with others who’ve navigated a similar problem) to make sure you take the best trajectory.

At worst, consulting is exactly what you say. Large firms, being so large, cover the gamut in their services (and so surely get some exposure to these more flippant projects). The bread and butter of consulting though is solving real problems.

From here, this perspective you have about consulting looks a lot like the mindset some people have around VC: “they just come in to pump companies and dump them in the public market / make an exit before the music stops and everyone realizes it’s bullshit”. Of course there’s some of that in VC, but by and large it’s legitimate and serious work, focused on legitimate outcomes, and done all around by genuine people looking to do a good job - all while creating real value for everyone involved.

[shuckles]

Another value of consulting is getting advice from someone who has seen the same decisions play out elsewhere, including at competitors, and apply their secret information on your behalf. It is effectively non-public strategy information laundering.

[vjulian]

I find that the people most critical of strategy consulting are often the ones with least experience in it—and tend to paint caricature and with a broad brush at that. Thank you for this more realistic comment.

[moffkalast]

Amazing, I'll have to save this quote.

[luckylion]

So everyone pays them and whoever pays them the least ends up with them wreaking havoc on their company by "helping" them to "improve" things?

[freetinker]

Brilliant. Permission to reuse, please!

[kennend3]

AS someone who has both read the book and interacted with "big 4" names a few times this is going to be one of those "underrated" comments you sometimes see here.

At my previous place of employ they made some really terrible decisions which ended up costing a LOT of money later.

Their response was classic "the design was vetted by McKinsey"..

No.. you sent them what you wanted to do, they told you what you wanted/needed to hear and now you are deflecting your decisions.

[azemetre]

I worked for a health insurance provider that paid BCG $1mil to confirm that we should be using agile in our org. It took BCG a month to do their "study."

We were already using agile in our org, but nice to know some incesteral relationship between directors/VPs were able to make a nice pay day.

[kennend3]

> nice to know some incesteral relationship between directors/VPs were able to make a nice pay day.

you should read the book.. The industry is rife with this type of behaviour.

There are always stories about how "senior manager" X is basically a shadow employee. While they work for company "Y" their real job is to send business to the consulting mother ship.

[schnable]

It's not always so formal or sinister. I've seen consultants build relationships with younger managers and "rising stars" by buying them lunch and drinks, and even doing some free work that makes them look good. Then the consultant is an easy connection when there's some dollars to hire consultants.

[azemetre]

I think I will now.

I can't find the comment now, but there was a similar conspiracy about ex-Amazon Managers being paid to force their new employers to adopt AWS on one of the programming subreddits.

[toyg]

There is usually no forcing: they are typically hired because of their AWS knowledge - the business has already decided to go AWS, the new hire is doing what he's expected to do.

[throwaway202212]

This really sounds like a conspiracy theory. That being said, McKinsey (and presumably BCG and Bain) very much embrace their employees leaving to join their clients. It creates a good "referral" network if you will. But more than that, I don't buy it.

[kennend3]

I'm obviously not using a throwaway account like you and so i am not willing to disclose details.

But lets say that in my industry this sort of "kickback scheme" is well known.

I saw it first hand, and have had friends tell me other instances of it as well. And i am NOT singling out "McKinsey" but consultants in general.

As for McKinsey, read the book, they provide examples of this.

[kennend3]

PS - as a former McKinsey employee.. Would it be fair to say your view is biased?

Look at your response on the "agile" comment. They feel it was "pure graft" and you defended it without knowing any details?

Now look at the other response on this thread, where someone stated they saw it first hand as well.

Are they in on the "conspiracy theory" as well, or perhaps there is truth to it?

[doctor_eval]

I saw it happen with my own eyes.

[throwaway202212]

Running agile in a small team is one thing, having a company do "agile at scale" is quite another (yes I realise the contradiction in terms). As someone who worked at McKinsey, on several large scale "agile" rollouts the bulk of the work was on re-organising the company (this is not an easy thing to do in companies with thousands of employees - hence bring in the consultants). The driver behind these projects was almost always cost cutting or increasing efficiency. The agile part was mostly window dressing.

[azemetre]

No not at all; this org had existed for two years already, was already using agile for said two years, and successfully delivered a multitude of projects using agile.

The driver to me seems to clearly increase complexity for the sake of it in order to push for more billable hours.

This was pure graft.

Honest Q since you're a throwaway but is this how consultants typically act? Justify simple things to be more complex to lay people and charge them out the wazoo?

I think I'm slowly starting to understand why some of my friends are creating their own dev agencies. This racket is rife with stupid money.

[throwaway202212]

That's interesting. I'm curious to know how the internal sponsor of the project sold it internally. It generally takes a lot of motivation to convince your superior (and finance team) to pay the millions McKinsey would charge per week.

At the micro level, I would agree that in some cases there was a tendency of some to make things more complex than necessary. The implicit intent here was generally to demonstrate some type of credential to lay people.

That being said, at least in my personal experience, most of the actual recommendations were backed by as much data as possible. In the projects I worked on, I don't think a single slide went by without hours of debate and critique by the partners. It was a given that any recommendation should be supported by data.

That being said, there are also lots of cases where there is no right/wrong answer - especially given the timeframe (typically 4-8 weeks). Companies basically pay consultants to come in, analyse as much data as feasible and just make some type of informed decision. In most cases the company is either unwilling to make that decision themselves or does not have the ability to do so (i.e. organisation is too complex to tackle this problem within so just get an outsider to cut across the company and get it sorted as best as possible).

[rightbyte]

You are danger close to seem like you are defending agile. I am all in on blaming kickback consulting. But we can't blame agile's failure on consulting companies.

There was a genuine and optimistic belief in agile among programmers and management. They tried and failed refusing to admit the mistake and doubling down on all the BS.

It works perfectly fine to hire consults to do welding courses for the employees. If agile was a good idea "agile consultants" would do fine to.

[yamtaddle]

Another rôle they play is a kind of out-in-the-open corporate espionage. You pay them to come in and tell you what the "best practices" are in your industry (i.e. effective new things your competitors have been doing since the last time they came to visit you—and they'll learn some new ones from you to tell your competitors, next time)

[_carbyau_]

Oh, so they increase productivity across the industry, thus leading to wage rises for employees, increased margins for company profits and a higher GDP for the country.... right?

(Off to dig my tongue out of the deep hole in my cheek.)

[yamtaddle]

Didn't necessarily say it was bad. It's a bit like the Japanese R&D-pooling system post-WWII, in some ways, and AFAIK that worked great. Just unofficial, and with a profit margin.

[EDIT] Well, and also it's not kept within the host country, but exports those ideas & methods globally.

[AlexandrB]

I had an Econ prof who described his consulting business as:

1. Coming into the company and gathering information from the low-level staff.

2. Presenting the information to management.

3. Collecting $1000/hr or more for his trouble.

Basically information washing to get execs to accept information that they would normally ignore. I wonder how much of this kind of thing goes on in industry.

[LAC-Tech]

IMO that's what a good consultant does! I mean that's much more useful than the big 4.

[acdha]

Where I saw that work it was effectively routing around the middle layer: the guy bucking for a promotion based on some project isn’t going to let any report mention that the users hate it, but they’ll certainly tell the consultants that.

It worked but was a very expensive way to about fixing social problems.

[Firmwarrior]

haha, I definitely saw some of that at Amazon

This highly-paid factory efficiency expert was enthusiastically explaining how he works. "You just listen to the workers. They know where the inefficiencies are"

[pempem]

No matter how many times you recommend managers do this very thing, they do not.

[ianmcgowan]

I've worked with senior managers who have zero regard for the knowledge of the people doing the work. It might be those workers don't have some over-arching conceptual framework for how the company works, but they do have intimate and sometimes deep knowledge of what they do all day. And not taking advantage of that is a huge blind spot.

[wahnfrieden]

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-bullsh... Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs elaborates on this

[UK-Al05]

That's lean.

[globalise83]

Not really, lean would be listening to the workers

[KineticLensman]

I have worked as a consultant, but not for the one of the big 4. We understood that we were often being used to develop an 'independent' perspective that would support a decision that had essentially already been made or disprove a rival decision.

We also were fully aware of the old joke that a consultant is someone who borrows your watch and then tells you the time. We sometimes deployed this ourselves with customers, and extended it to say that unlike our rivals, we would actually point out how late you were and how to get back on track.

[Edit] We sometimes found ourselves supporting one of the big 4 companies (as domain experts). We were often amazed by the quality of the A team that they would deploy to win the work, compared with the B or C team that would then actually execute it (often bright but junior staff).

[xapata]

I'd extend the joke with, "You're wearing it upside-down." It's never ceased to amaze me how incompetent large organizations can be.

[kriro]

That's exactly my experience in Europe. We want to fire 50 people/close a factory/whatever without blowback...let's hire McK to tell us to do exactly that.

I've also had some experience working for a smallish company with very big clients and they sometimes insisted on having an IT-Consulting company like Capgemini as a middleman. That's the biggest nightmare because they were always a net-negative from my POV...integrating them was just extra work and they provided no value except for their brand name to make the client feel at ease.

[bane]

I'd say companies like this are a scam, but they're only half a scam -- half the customers know exactly what they're getting.

The other half haven't figured it out and think they're getting top-tier stuff and end up with life destroying garbage like your employee performance system or a citywide trash crisis? [1]

Do you need to spend millions to justify an inevitable decision but blame the hired guns for it? Hire McKinsey.

Do you need to spend millions for severely overworked junior grade consultants and offshored "experts" to provide you with objectively terrible advice and create an opioid epidemic? Also hire McKinsey! [2]

1 - https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/07/nyregion/new-york-city-tr... 2 - https://www.mckinsey.com/about-us/opioidfacts

[mayankkaizen]

I have worked in a third-grade infrastructure company in India. Everyone in top management (including founder) was corrupt. Their business practices were always about bribing, siphoning off investors money, inflating assets, money laundering and so on. When it was trying to go public, it hired one of 'big 4' to do the auditing and other due diligence. Once it went public, that agency was fired (2 years after going public). With in 6 years, that company became bankrupt.

Everyone knew that one of 'big 4' was hired to make the prospects of going public legit and credible. That consulting firm made things look right in exchange of big bucks.

[game_the0ry]

This has been my experience when the company I work for engages with an external consultant. Managers look for validation from an external source so that:

- when things go well, they can take the credit, or

- when things go bad, they can blame the consulting company.

Grubby business if you ask me.

[Loic]

In fact they have a name for it internally: "Cover my ass assignment".

Just come to provide the results the boss wants to have for him to rubber stamp and justify the cost cutting.

[SoftTalker]

Yep. The ability to say "the design was vetted by McKinsey" is exactly the cover that they were being paid to provide.

[tyingq]

"scapegoat as a service" is another common nickname for it.

[tequila_shot]

This. They are just a rubber stamp on some of the shitty decisions that management makes.

[7thaccount]

This. They also sometimes just interview employees and write a report about what they heard. That should be easy for the company to do lol.

[darkstar_16]

This. Big 4 consultants are also needed by law or by convention in a lot of places for auditing and such tasks. If it's for actual consultancy services, the decision has already been made. Having a Big 4 company "sign" and provide authority on a decision a manager has already made, just makes it an easier sell to his/her higher ups.

[mbesto]

Furthermore, they're trying to convince someone else (usually a boss) of a theory/idea/strategy that they might have but don't have the resources/rapport/etc. to demonstrate it's effectiveness.

[jasmer]

So that's actually not 'hoodwinked'.

Paying $1B for a site that should cost $50M is 'hoodwinked'.

$150/hr is really not that much money, depending on the importance of the project, and having devs from India is fine.

Almost the entirety of the question in any given situation is 'Did it work out?'

Because if it did, it was worth it.

Companies are not interested in making 'great products' like a startup would, for some secondary thing.

Mostly, it's like construction: they need something built. That works. Not some kind of innovative thing.

They don't have a year to find 'top talent' and go through interesting architectures, or dynamic processes. They wouldn't even know how to do that.

You might be very well downplaying your input: if you are competent, know what you are doing, show up, and can solve the problem, you're probably worth every penny and much more. Now maybe that is or is not the case! Or maybe 'it depends' or maybe, some projects kind of necessarily require 'proper engineering'.

Now, all of what I just said would apply to normal circumstances. In Africa, it's so complicated. McKinsey is also very different office by office. Corruption is harder than we understand, because when it's a random event we can say 'oh, corrupt!' - but when it's normal trade practice aka 5% kickback for the buyer, well, it takes on a different characteristic.

[the_cat_kittles]

your comment just establishes a spectrum- on one extreme, you have what is essentially a helpful project manager, on the other extreme you have a worse than useless middle man. I think the point might be that Mckinsey is more towards the bad extreme than people think.

[jasmer]

For starters - 'McKinsey' actually doesn't do implementations. So you're not going to hire them to build something. Second, it's hard to fathom their value because it's very secretive. There's nary any real objective data.

[eastbayjake]

McKinsey does, in fact, build software with clients: https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/how-w...

[jasmer]

Oh looks like they've changed their model. I would trust them to give strategic advice about something, or maybe some insights from an industry expert they might happen to have. Actionable or not, who knows. But I wouldn't trust them to 'build' anything.

[throwaway202212]

I worked in McKinsey Digital. Here's an example of the typical type of project we did:

- Client is a legacy bank

- Client wants to be a fancy new cool digital bank like Revolut

- Client brings in McKinsey to help get them there

- McKinsey (traditional side) does a strategy engagement first (4-8 weeks) to define priorities, budget, etc

- McKinsey Digital + traditional consultants come in to do the implementation. This includes architecture, actual tech building (more on this below), assisting with hiring and HR, coaching, financials, integration/de-integration with rest of business. Essentially everything involved with starting a "new" business.

If you want a single company to come in and literally do everything to build and run a new business I do think you would need an MBB-type company as they can bring in all these different skills (business, people, tech, process etc). I'm very reluctant to praise my former employer.

On the actual tech building side, McKinsey would typically bring only 1-3 technical people as it's cost prohibitive for the client (I was one of those people). McKinsey would help the client hire new people or bring in contractors (i.e. Nagarro and the likes).

[paulcole]

> Paying $1B for a site that should cost $50M is 'hoodwinked'.

That’s not being hoodwinked either. If you’re happy to pay $1B for something and get that thing, then that’s your fault for not shopping around for a better deal.

Bernie Madoff and SBF hoodwinked people. Somebody charging a premium for their services and getting willing customers isn’t.

[blue039]

I have worked with the big 4, and also been on the receiving end of their "work". I can vouch for this comment personally. I've never seen less effort put into something worth so much money. Reams and reams of documents, jargon, and other bullshit and some cheap, obviously outsourced, incredibly shitty, "wireframe" sold as an MVP of a product.

I would be impressed by them if I wasn't so disgusted.

[exclusiv]

I've also seen some of these expensive "strategic" documents. And they looked like they were written by a high schooler (not a top of the class student either).

[hef19898]

Just how fast they can adopt their standardized, saying-nothing-of-value presentations to each client's internal jargon and "needs" is impressive so, I have to give them that.

[sharadov]

Used to work as a sub-contractor for Deloitte, all the work was done by us, the Deloitte folk would spend 12 hrs a day at work - looking super busy, attending meetings, schmoozing with the client, go for lunches and dinners and building reports and spreadsheets. They hired impressionable good looking young people who were good at selling, period.

[rr808]

Lol good timing, Deloitte is trending https://twitter.com/BornAKang/status/1599148855454420992

[itisit]

I’m not sure if that video is tongue-in-cheek. Funny either way.

[raincom]

BIG 4 = EY, Deloitte, KPMG, PwC?

Top tier consulting firms are: McKinsey, BCG, Bain

[curiousllama]

This is the correct answer, btw. Accenture isn't usually included in Big 3 or Big 4. It's its own deal, but more comparable to Big 4 than Big 3

[xiaosun]

Every legit consultant knows things only come in threes.

[rr888]

Yes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Four_accounting_firms

[tequila_shot]

the BIG 4 I'm referring to are Accenture, McKinsey, BCG and Bain.

[luma]

How do you know an Accenture consultant? They change "Big 3" to "Big 4".

[wheelinsupial]

Accenture is a new one to me. I've seen MBBD(eloitte) used a fair bit, but figured it was just a reddit meme.

[xapata]

It used to be Arthur Anderson, but they changed their name after Enron.

[wheelinsupial]

Sorry, I should have been more clear. The acronym is MBB (McKinsey, Bain, and BCG) that I'm familiar with when referring to the top consulting companies. MBBD (McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and Deloitte) is a reddit joke that I've seen a bunch. The original commenter was using McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and Accenture to refer to the "big 4" consulting firms. I've worked with Accenture before, but I've never heard anyone group Accenture with those other consulting firms.

[HelloMcFly]

Accenture has over 700,000 employees. Pretty easy to see how they'd get lumped in given they are everywhere, working for everyone.

I am not nor have I ever been an Accenture consultant.

[mitt_romney_12]

The Big 3 distinction isn't based on firm size (McKinsey, Bain, and BCG only have 38k, 25k, and 15k employees respectively) but rather on prestige and type of work done.

[ThisIsTheWay]

Is this distinction why they are often called the Top 3, not the Big 3?

[barry-cotter]

Dell is not lumped in with MAGMA even though they’re everywhere and everyone knows who they are because they have completely different business models, employee pools and compensation. They’re barely in the same industry, if you squint. Similarly with Accenture and prestige consultancies. If you were going to have a Big 4 the fourth would be AT Kearney, not Accenture.

[SargeDebian]

If you redefine common terms as you go, you should at least give the reader a heads up. Nobody uses “big 4” for MBB and Accenture. Those are not the same type of companies.

[fphhotchips]

There's nothing quite so "tell me you worked for Accenture without telling me you worked for Accenture" as referring to MBB and Accenture as "Big 4".

It's like Deloitte consultants referring to MBBD.

[operatingthetan]

>It's like Deloitte consultants referring to MBBD.

I'm pretty sure that's just a reddit meme, but I guess it's funny someone took it seriously?

[eastbound]

The whole thread is debating who’s sitting in the BIG4 and all I see is companies trying to belong on musical chairs. What’s strangest to me is we’re not in an early-Schumpeter cycle, seats should be well-established by now, it’s been half a century.

[SargeDebian]

It is well established, which is why it’s somewhat funny when someone “disagrees”.

[mbesto]

That's not the Big 4. There is "Big 4" and "MBB", that's it.

Big 4 = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Four_accounting_firms

Big Three / MBB = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Three_%28management_consul...

[hallqv]

Accenture is not even close to MBB in terms on hourly rates (~1/5) & “status”. They are a 3rd tier firm.

[throwaway202212]

Accenture aren't even in the Vault Consulting Top 50 rankings. I don't know how this list is calculated but people in consulting tend to refer to this (I used to work at MBB).

[curiousllama]

Keep in mind that Accenture has a lot more variability than MBB or Big 4. I've seen McKinsey undercut Accenture on price for strategy projects

[carabiner]

lol. McK isn't a body shop. McK = ivy league grads, olympic medalists, top PhD's from flagship state schools. I mean Chelsea Clinton worked at McKinsey. You think she's going to be managing some Indians on setting up SAP?

[turing_complete]

One of those four is not like the others.

[kabes]

Accenture is neither in the big 3, nor the big 4.

[Foobar8568]

Only $150/hour as a Senior in a big4?

[makestuff]

Since "senior" is in quotes, I am guessing you probably come out of undergrad with a senior title or get it after 1-2 years.

[Foobar8568]

Big4 I used to work are fairly clear about who they call senior (consultant / senior consultant / manager / senior manager/etc) and I can rarely fault them. Now for consultancies (Accenture and the like), the term is a bit more loose indeed.

[tequila_shot]

I'm talking about a fresh out of college grad/undergrad.

Managers charge 400-600(mind you 25% on top of this is for travel).

[makestuff]

How much does each level take home? Like if I bill out at $500 an hour are they paying me around 250/hr ~500k/yr?

[ericmay]

Not exactly. The thing to keep in mind here though is that billable rate isn't necessarily 40 hours/week and you likely have some sort of salary component that requires you to hit a base amount of billable hours.

So something like (just making up numbers here)

$120,000/year $170/hr for each billable hour over 20 hours/month Sales/delivery bonuses, etc.

[mgkimsal]

That still seems low for any big4. Those were numbers I remember seeing 25 years ago for large consultancies personnel.

[markhlady]

Big 4 not really comparable to McKinsey. Completely different game and set of projects clients ask you to work on.

[hef19898]

Plus, the Big 4 are, by law (SOX), forbidden from doing consulting work. Also, there are for, because public companies need someone to audit the books and someone to help them to prepare those books. Companies have to change auditors and the ones helping to prepare the books ever so often, and you cannot just stick with the same two simply switching chairs. All of that, of course, to avoid another Enron like disaster. Hence a pool of four big accounting firms most public companies, regardless if the fall under SOX or not, cycle through.

[oneoff786]

I’m mckinsey. All I’ll care to say here is that we don’t outsource any technical work

[vanviegen]

Do you take on any technical work at all?

[oneoff786]

Yes I’m a data scientist

[runnerup]

I've heard that curing internal myopia is a top priority for McKinsey this decade. Focus is on broadening gender/age/economic background and also broadening professional experience backgrounds.

They're hiring and developing a lot of top talent in "hard skills" (e.g., not MBA's) across different industries. From what I've been able to tell, it's paying off a lot with strategies that are grounded in reality and catching things that non-technical people would miss.

Really depends on the team you get assigned to your project though, as with any contracting/consultant situation.

[SQueeeeeL]

Oh, glad McKinsey is going to ruin the psychology of a bunch of LGBTQ people with 80 hour work weeks while they union bust foreign nations. You aren't developing shit when every single person you hire leaves after 2 years, don't astroturf this garbage here.

What kind of weak political literacy do we have in America where agencies who literally aligned themselves with tyrannical oppressive dictators who behead rivals and loot the wealth of their own population get an ounce of room to "change" and represent "more diverse opinions". (Spoiler warning, it's one where everyone in power secretly agrees that profit triumphs over any other possible motivation)

[factsarelolz]

> McKinsey is going to ruin the psychology of a bunch of LGBTQ people with 80 hour work weeks while they union bust foreign nations.

Do the 80 hour work weeks not ruin the psychology of non-LGBTQ folxs?

[nightpool]

Right, that's why the GP is sarcastically saying how awesome it that they're now going to expand that ruinous treatment to more people by hiring more minorities.

[TheNorthman]

It's a tongue-in-cheek comment, not a serious statement regarding psychological resilience.

[cjbgkagh]

It was sarcasm, and yes.

[kyawzazaw]

Just saw a hrly rate in my country Myanmar where they are charging an Associate rate as USD180/hr in 2022.

[m463]

I kind of wonder if that isn't how much of the business world works?

What if you have a grocery store that makes $50,000 an hour? and you need to update the payroll software to deal with the latest tax law changes.

in a situation like that, does $150/hr matter?

[carabiner]

You were Accenture. Just say it.

[fudged71]

How common is outsourcing tasks in the big 4? I thought it was just things like powerpoint slide layout

[wheelinsupial]

In my experience, Accenture is the big body shop. I've worked at companies that outsource tech strategy, new system requirements / scoping, delivery and development, and post deployment support and maintenance 100% to Accenture.

There are regional hubs they have (I've worked with Philippines and India and heard of Eastern Europe) for the support and maintenance.

There are some back office financial shared services (e.g., AP / AR / cutting POs) that they also support. I wouldn't be surprised if there was more.

Accenture can give you everything from the PowerPoint slides up to the people that will be seconded or placed in your organization as contingent workers / contractors.

[yamtaddle]

That's Big 3 like McKinsey, and yes, notes sent to India, India turns them into powerpoints, team on the engagement has the powerpoints by the next morning (apparently execs don't even read something that's not in a powerpoint—they'll do this with stuff that's only ever going to be emailed, never presented)

[wolverine876]

What year is that? $150-160/hr is the cost of a local small business IT consultant.

[indigodaddy]

Same with Deloitte? Don’t they have a ton of directly employed engineers?