Monty is a principal with Deloitte’s Strategy & Operations practice in the tri-state area, primarily working out of the New York office. He holds an MBA from a top-5 school, an engineering degree and has worked around the world for Deloitte.
Could you introduce Deloitte Strategy & Operations, Deloitte Consulting and Deloitte to our readers?
Deloitte is a global professional services firm based in the UK; it is no longer a Swiss Verein. It comprises of tax, audit, consulting and financial advisory services as the core businesses. Each of these divisions is wholly owned by Deloitte, although the employees belong to separate legal entities – partnerships as you call them on the blog.
Deloitte Consulting is one of the largest divisions hiring tens of the thousands of consultants. Consulting focuses on human capital work, technology and strategy & operations (S&O). There are other areas but these are the largest of them all. So S&O is the part of Deloitte Consulting which only focuses on strategy and operations work. Leadership and organizational design consulting, for example, would be done out of Human Capital and technology consulting work would be done out of technology consulting.
S&O is large and growing rapidly. It is a multi-billion dollar business, the largest strategy and operations consulting team worldwide by revenue and has a presence in 75 countries around the world. We are structured around a number of focus areas: strategy, operations, innovation, cost reduction, supply chain and finance transformation. We have about 15,000 consultants in the practice worldwide.
Tell us about the culture of the firm?
The culture is one of being collegial, innovative and driving excellence. We see ourselves as a home to consultants who want to stay and build a long-term career, and not just race to the top. Therefore, we do not have an up or out policy. That said, poor performers will be asked to leave, like in any firm which cares about its clients. Without this pressure of constantly needing or having to impress, Deloitte consultants can focus on solving problems. We believe in executable strategy, strategy which can be implemented by our clients, and that is what counts for us. Our culture is about encouraging people to seek opportunities to develop ideas and solutions which work for clients.
That said, we do creative things and inspire excellence. We have strong relationships with the Harvard Business School, Stanford GSB and other top schools. To bring in these top people, we need to do inspiring work and make a meaningful impact at clients. So the culture is very creative and we do our work in a collegial way. We compete for the clients and not against each other for personal gain.
On a lighter note, we have so many Indians working in some of our offices that Diwali leads to the office being almost deserted. This is not just in India. I am talking about Manhattan. Deloitte S&O has a culture which embraces diversity.
Is there a memorable engagement or story which shows Deloitte’s rise in management consulting?
Yes, one more than any other shows our rise. When HP and Compaq merged, Deloitte S&O, McKinsey, BCG and another firm were in contention to help with the post-merger integration. After a tough process of getting to know the client and really understanding what they needed to make this work, we submitted a formal proposal. At the time, the odds were stacked against us and although Punit Renjen pushed us to go for the work, I think internally we were worried whether we would get it. HP did give us the work. One of the largest ever post-merger integration engagements in the US.
The McKinsey partner actually called the HP executive and asked why Deloitte was awarded the work over McKinsey!
That award, and the way we overwhelmed our competition, along with their response shows that Deloitte S&O has been playing in the highest levels of management consulting for a long time. It is just that only after we started sharing what was happening “under the engine” that people have realized there is much more going on here. For example, we set up special sessions with Kennedy Research so they would not make assumptions about the business but understand what we are actually doing.
Let’s talk about some landmark engagements which Deloitte runs, which our readers would typically expect to go to McKinsey and BCG.
I will have to be careful in answering this and will only speak to engagements which do not give away confidential client data. The first one that comes to mind is us helping execute a strategic rebalancing of Agilent’s business unit portfolio to help position several multi-billion dollar global divestitures. We concurrently performed a global cost reduction program targeting $450 MM in annual cost savings (38% reduction). The fees for that engagement were up in the low $20M.
I also do not want the readers to think that Deloitte S&O only performs major work in the US. I want to talk to some landmark projects outside the US. Turquality comes to mind – this is in the media. Our Turkish office, with strong support from the Dutch, German and UK offices are helping to literally transform the Turkish economy. We helped the Turkish government review all Turkish companies across all sectors and find those who could be helped, through improved strategies and business practices, to become more profitable and stronger. This 4 year engagement is the center of Turkey’s plan to make sure its economy can grow, and the results speak for themselves. At its peak, we had 40 consultants on the engagement generating fees well in excess of $40MM.
We helped ABM set the strategic guidance for all Mexican banks on pricing, growth and technology adoption. Deloitte S&O developed an interchange fee structure for card transactions in the Mexican banking system to maximize growth of electronic payments for the domestic network while optimizing benefits. Just a couple million dollars in fees and this engagement was of great importance to the Mexican government and economy.
In another engagement, growth for CNN International had slowed as multi-channel TV penetration peaked and profitability was being challenged by local channels. We delivered a real and robust growth strategy, adding incremental revenue exceeding $100MM. This engagement was led from the UK practice.
Finally, Bluescope Steel faced increasing maintenance costs and needed sustainable cost reductions. We beat all our peers to design and deliver an improved maintenance program, enabling a data-based approach to find and resolve bottlenecks. The fees exceeded $2MM on this engagement.
This list can go on and on. Yet, I think your readers get the point. We do great work.
Why do you think many, rightly or wrongly, consider Deloitte tier-2? For the record, I do not like that phrase much.
I just think people need to take more time to learn about Deloitte and not go on perceptions and hearsay. For example, you taking the time to ask these questions is a good example of what candidates need to do. You would not be asking these questions if you already knew about Deloitte. Granted, we should be doing more to make it easier for candidates to learn about Deloitte S&O. I have for long time advocated a separate website to address this issue and I think that will help. However, even without the separate website, as I explained earlier, we still do outstanding work and a serious candidate would dig behind the misperceptions to find out what is happening.
What is happening with the Deloitte Review?
It is still going strong. It is the flagship publication of Deloitte S&O and captures our best thinking. It can be found on the Deloitte website. There are plans to expand the review and I think in a year it will be a very different, and more exciting, initiative.
Tell us about the strategy laid down by Punit Renjen (previous S&O leader) and the results so far.
Punit’s vision was simple. He wanted us to be within the top-3 recognized consulting firms by 2009. Granted, we are still not there on the general market perception, but he made huge strides, and we are there in terms of quality and client perception. We now have one consistent and unique identity and branding worldwide. The momentum we built attracted a drove of McKinsey, Bain and BCG partners to come across to Deloitte S&O. Profits surged, we started winning major assignments and recruitment went through the roof. We are one of the largest recruiters of MBA candidates worldwide. In terms of eminence, Deloitte partners wrote more books than most of our peers last year and we repositioned the Deloitte Review.
He also had some specific themes he pushed very hard. He pushed hard on training and teaching the consulting fundamentals, as well as giving recognition through internal awards. He also worked aggressively to integrate the different offices around the world and encourage cooperation. He pushed heavily into improving our practices in cost reduction & shared services, growth & corporate strategy, supply chain and M&A. Finally, but not least important, he focused on raising salaries, fixing our business and training models, and developing more support systems for consultants.
All good news, but most importantly, Punit showed our clients that we were their best partners for their business and he changed the markets perception of Deloitte.
Why was Jeff Watts, a partner leading the smallest S&O practice (Japan) appointed to succeed Punit Renjen?
I am not sure if Jeff led the smallest practice! However, even if he did, should size correlate to ability? Jeff is a widely respected partner, who was groomed to work in one of the fastest growing regions in the world. No one questioned Dominic Barton’s appointment to lead McKinsey from South Korea and the logic is roughly the same. Jeff had the values the firm needed and had exposure to a key region.
That’s the first time I have heard Japan referred to as “one of the fastest growing regions in the world.” Let’s talk about Deloitte S&O around the world.
I meant Asia-Pacific in its entirety. As mentioned earlier, we are in most major countries and cities. We generally served about 30% of the largest companies in all economies where Deloitte is present. In major economies Deloitte S&O serves up to 80% of the largest companies.
Let’s talk about the implications of having separate P&Ls across Deloitte S&O. How do you manage the challenges associated with this?
There are definitely challenges, but we manage them well. The fact that we continue to grow aggressively would show that our clients feel we are handling things very well. S&O has 91% of work from repeat clients. That is a figure we are proud of. Logically, we want that to be lower, around 85%, and still grow, since it implies we are bringing in new clients.
What about staffing? Why would the Australians, for example, put in place an international team and “give” revenue to another partnership at their expense?
They would rather have 30% of a big pie versus 100% of a tiny pie. Seriously though, yes it does happen at times, but that is normal with human nature. When it counts, the partners will always do what is best for a client. Our clients will bear testimony to this.
So the UK partnership (separate P&L) is buying up partnerships across Europe, the US led partnership (separate P&L) is buying up practices in South America and others are doing the same. What is the end-game?
If we can manage the risk of integration, then integration is the end game. But I am skeptical we could.
I have always wondered this. If Deloitte Consulting has a separate technologies consulting practice from S&O, who is on the technology strategy projects? Is it the SAP implementers?
Yes and no. Technology strategy projects are led by our technology practice, but if needed, S&O will have people on the engagements. It depends on the nature of the engagement. Our strength is our ability to form teams which have strategy depth, technology ability, finance skills and more. Is there any firm in the world today which can help you restructure your entire technology base, run your IPO, develop and carry out your strategy, align your organization’s culture and finally make all these pieces work? We have a unique base of skills.
What is the S&O practice looking for in new hires?
Passion, intellect, a track record of accomplishments, entrepreneurial nature, inquisitiveness and a bent for interesting work. There is no need to be obsessed about your school, GPA, GMAT Score and so on. We look at the application in its entirety and rely heavily on the fit and case interviews. I think the most important thing is to be sincere. We can quickly see whose resume, background and style does not mesh.
What is the application process?
Although we have peak seasons for recruiting, we look at talented people all year round. So it is best to contact the office you would like to join and get advice from the HR team.
We also work through campuses and you should see if we visit your campus. If so, try to attend our sessions and learn more about us.
I have offers from BCG and Deloitte S&O. Why would I pick you?
If you want to learn, grow as a business thinker, add value to clients and join the world’s fastest growing, and largest, strategy and operations team, you will want to be one of us.
And the salaries?
It really depends on the country and level. Depending on who is reading this, the numbers may be irrelevant. I can say that we offer highly competitive salaries which match or exceed our peers.
Do you have any fast-facts or memorable sound bites to remember?
These numbers are just for Deloitte S&O and not for Deloitte Consulting!
- We are committed to management consulting for the long-term and did not cut or sell the business during the last 3 recessions/downturns
- ~ $3bn revenue
- ~ 15,000 consultants worldwide
- Fastest growing management consulting firm worldwide
- Largest management consulting firm worldwide
- Presence and opportunities in every major city and country
- Exposure to landmark clients on critical projects
- Rapid growth opens up tremendous promotion opportunities
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Why go into management consulting: 11 reasons
Management consulting, along with financial services, is among the top choices for most MBAs, other graduates, and even experienced professionals. This is despite the fact that the image of management consulting is not always positive. As some people say “management consultants take your watch and tell you what time it is”.
You may be thinking about making the switch to management consulting, but may not be sure if you are clear on why go into management consulting vs. pursuing other attractive career paths.
You may also be trying to figure out how to answer a possible consulting case interview question, “Why Consulting?”
I am here to share with you my 11 reasons why go into management consulting. Hope you will find it helpful.
Why I ended up joining a consulting firm
I came across management consulting by chance. My close friend was a management consultant and he used to tell me how interesting his work was. He routinely regaled me with stories about the client issues, analyses and impact they were having.
He also shared with me interesting books and articles, and forced me to take a more structured approach to my thinking.
I remember him warning me how difficult it is to get in. The outstanding grades one needs just to get invited for interviews, as well as case interview skills on estimations, brainstorming and hypotheses, plus the stamina and alertness required to successfully handle rounds of interviews.
Moreover, even once you are in, the work can be tough, especially when deadlines are approaching. This results in many people leaving management consulting to get a better work-life balance. The churn in consulting is very high.
I remember he sometimes would not sleep 2 days in a row, working 48 hours straight. Of course, this was not necessary and was driven by the study partner who wanted to prove to everyone how exceptional he was by working all-nighters and expecting the same from his team.
Still, he seemed to like the work very much.
So, despite all the negative information I really liked management consulting and committed to joining a management consulting firm one day.
When I finally got in, it was just as great as I expected it to be, if not better.
In the very beginning I was a business analyst so you could not be more junior than me unless you were an intern or an administrative staff. However, the work was interesting.
I worked with mostly amazing colleagues and eventually, after a lot of hard work, had exposure to very senior executives of large international organizations.
I would meet and even wine and dine with billionaires, present to the top political figures and travel internationally as part of my job.
11 reasons why go into management consulting
Overall, I would recommend management consulting as I think it is a great platform to start one’s career. And for many, it is a great platform to build one’s career.
So what are the key reasons why go into management consulting?
The answer is different for each person. I can’t speak for everyone but below will share with you what were the reasons why I chose management consulting and why I still love the work.
1. A wide variety of driven and intelligent coworkers.
In management consulting you always work on different engagement teams for different clients. You are a part of a massive organization with many exceptional people at each level, whether it is at the level of a business analyst, associate, engagement manager or associate principal. Working with so many people introduces a lot of diversity into your life and makes work more interesting and exciting.
It also allows you to build a network of individuals within the firm that you truly like, respect and trust. Those are like-minded individuals who are after similar goals to yours.
Moreover, you learn a lot from people you work with. And this is important because, after all, people say you are an average of 5 people you spend the most time with.
If you are driven individual, you may feel demotivated and isolated if you end up working outside of management consulting as the quality of your colleagues in most cases will not be as consistently high as in management consulting.
2. Your reputation reflects your performance.
This benefit is the result of benefit number one. If you are good, it will be well known in the firm. Because you work with so many different people, no one person can damage your reputation or take credit for your work, the situation which is more likely in other careers.
It does happen a few times, but it eventually evens out and is usually not so damaging. The culture does not permit it.
For example, if you join a bank after your MBA you will likely have one boss who may try to put as much work on you as possible and to give you as little credit as possible so he or she (and it is usually he) can keep more credit for himself.
Moreover, there is some envy involved. Many managers and senior executives in banking really had to work through the ranks to get the role you received by securing an MBA. There is a lot less of this in management consulting so you tend to be with more like-minded people.
3. In management consulting you have more control over your development.
If you are proactive you can get yourself onto the engagement which will allow you to develop the skills you want to develop.
Moreover, in management consulting you are the product of the firm. It is in the firm’s best interest to keep your skills level up to date and help you build yourself up as a professional.
In fact, this benefit is one of the most alluring when it comes to management consulting. I cannot think of any other line of work readily available to MBAs and other graduates, or even to experienced professionals, in which organization will be as incentivized to invest in your professional development.
You are in a relationship where both partners want to see the other succeed.
4. Management consulting culture is exceptional.
Consulting firms tend to have positive environments focused on developing people, with approachable leadership. It comes back to the organization’s view of you as an asset, not just as a resource. We spoke about this in an article Consulting vs Banking: 4 Key Differences. Hence, a lot is invested in your professional development and the organizational environment is usually more supportive.
5. You get to see the world.
The extent of this depends on the things like the management consulting firm you join, your efforts to network within the firm (so you know when opportunities to work in exciting places arise and people know that you are available and have the necessary skills to be picked for those opportunities), and your luck.
However, on average, you will get better opportunities to travel and see the world in management consulting versus in other organizations.
I remember when I was just starting out my career before my MBA. My friend wanted to cheer me up and invited me to tag along on a weekend business trip.
I was sitting in an airport catching a flight to a nearby city where my friend was attending a conference. We were in an airport cafe and I distinctly remember thinking that someday I want to live a life which will allow me to travel to different cities, countries, and cultures. This was before I realized I wanted to be a management consultant.
Fast-forward about 2 years, I was working for a large consulting firm, I was at the very same airport, at the very same café, catching a plane with an engagement partner to go to another continent where our client planned to build a new business.
6. You get to test-drive different jobs.
In management consulting you will end up working on various engagements, which often will be very different in nature. You will likely end up working on projects in different industries and even in various geographies.
You may be doing a study to enhance customer satisfaction for a media client, prior to being staffed on an engagement for a banking client helping them to determine if they should target a new segment, which may be followed by a study for a large retailer that plans to enter an emerging market.
Think about the exposure this level of diversity of work brings to your life. Especially if you are a young person who just graduated and not quite sure what you are passionate about.
During one of his last presentations, Steve Jobs said “It’s the intersection of technology and liberal arts that makes our hearts sing.”
Being exposed to so many projects in various industries is such a wonderful opportunity to try out things and see if you can find something that, in words of the legendary Steve Jobs, makes your heart sing.
After all, “the two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you discover why”.
Many people never discover why they were born. I think management consulting can help you find what makes your heart sing.
7. Consultants get a lot of perks.
You accumulate a lot of air miles, which you can use for personal travel. Your cell phone cost is usually covered by the company. You can expense meals, travel and accommodation when you are out of the city on consulting engagements. Management consulting firms have well-oiled administration machines and onboarding teams that help consultants stay on top of everything.
8. Management consulting is known for its output-driven culture.
In management consulting the output you deliver is more important than face time. You usually have the flexibility to work remotely when needed as long as the work gets done.
When you are working from the client’s offices, the face–time culture becomes more important but still not to the extent it is abused in banking and other some industries.
9. Higher job satisfaction.
I worked in management consulting and worked outside of consulting and can say that a significantly higher proportion of my management consulting colleagues found their jobs interesting versus my colleagues in industry.
In fact, I only knew one person during my days in the industry who seemed to enjoy his job, or at least he told me he did. But he was in his role for a few months and he was in a coveted leadership position which probably any driven person will find interesting, at least for a while. Even I would find it interesting.
You also more likely to feel you are doing meaningful and impactful work. As Kevin Coyne (a former McKinsey worldwide strategy practice co-leader who leads a number of FIRMSconsulting programs such as The Consulting Offer II, How to Solve Big Problems, How to Become a McKinsey Partner etc.) mentioned in one of his interviews: “People don’t hire consultants to solve easy problems. Why would they pay our ridiculous fees?”
10. It makes negative elements that are common in any job more tolerable.
It is interesting how when you enjoy your work, negative things are more tolerable. I remember my project team landing in a different country for a series of meetings only to discover that our baggage was lost, and as a result we had no business clothes for our meetings.
Moreover, the airline had no idea when they could return it.
On another occasion, I found out around dinner-time that I had to write a business case that was due the next morning. I knew I had to pull an all-nighter. That was not what was stressing me out. I felt I needed more time and the time I had would be insufficient.
There was also a time when I was driving to a meeting on a highway in a storm at around 6.30 in the morning and was not able to see anything and yet was still driving since I had to get to an important meeting.
Those types of experiences would be highly painful in a job you hate or don’t care about. Yet those painful experiences exist in any job.
At least for me, management consulting work is so interesting most of the time that I was driven by an adrenalin rush during those difficult situations. So it was not pure logic or a sense of obligation that was driving me to suffer through those experiences, as it would be the case if you hate your job.
I actually had the energy to do difficult things. I had an internal drive, in addition to logic and a sense of obligation, which made these experiences significantly less painful.
11. Management consulting vacations are more relaxing.
As a consultant you can time your vacations so it takes place between engagements and you can completely disconnect from your work for 2-4 weeks. Comparatively, when I was working in industry, I never actually had a vacation.
When I was on vacation I was still “required” to check my emails. If there was a crisis I had to fix it. I basically worked remotely and whatever work was not done while I was away accumulated, which resulted in coming back to mountains of work in addition to already extremely heavy day to day workload.
Final thoughts on why go into management consulting
Management consulting is a good choice if you would like to learn a lot and are not sure which industry excites you the most. It’s a bonus if you are willing to be in a service job where you always have to be nice to clients who don’t have to be nice to you, can deal with uncertainty and lack of routine and willing to work harder than people do in average jobs.
I hope you found 11 points above on why go into management consulting helpful. My view is if you have a good enough profile to try out management consulting, go after it. In the worst-case scenario, you can stay for 1-2 years and learn a lot. In the best-case scenario, you will find a career that is so much better than most other alternatives available. You will find a career that will accelerate your professional development and your search for what makes your heart sing.
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Cheers, Kris
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