What is consulting?

Parents Forum
21

Clarifying the actual question is a big part of it. Sometimes clients ask for x but they really want to know the answer to y.

Assembling data is a big part of it too but you have to think conceptually about what that means. What’s the right data? Where is it found? Do I have to go and create it or does it already exist? What are the limitations? Are there other considerations beyond quantitative data - eg consumer behavior, regulatory constraints, capacity constraints? If relevant, what might be a competitor response and how to prepare for that?

On this board, we do “consulting” every day for the kid/parent who says “help me choose a school for engineering” or “Harvard is my dream school, how do I get in”. We ask questions to clarify the objective / goal - what kind of engineering, why engineering, what about Harvard and ca those qualities be found elsewhere. We ask questions to establish / clarify the parameters - my family can only afford $x, I don’t want to travel more than x distance, I have a special disability that needs to be considered, etc. We ask questions to clarify the inputs, what is changeable, what isn’t. We help find sources of data and explain the limitations - here are the rankings, but understand that you have to squint at them, etc. We brainstorm alternate solutions/options that the person hadn’t thought of - have you thought about schools a, b and c in addition to Harvard. This process is the process of consulting.

22

And some of you are only focusing on macro consulting. You could consult in a specialized field, like how to train a sales force, how to target consumers, how to do digital media. It’s not necessarily overhauling the entire business structure like some of you are talking about.

23

And not all consulting projects are billed at hourly rates. Some are project-based.

24

My wife is a consultant. Her current project is with a major bank doing project management for their federal stress testing. The analysts (junior consultants) on her team are crunching numbers, along with some of the bank’s employees, and she and the more senior consultants are reviewing the work and making sure everything is on schedule for required dates. On a previous project, she was doing data lineage for another major bank, tracking all their loans for various required reports. She did a project for a health insurance company, tracking their claims process for accuracy and efficiency. Another insurance company did a software transformation, where her team made sure the old and new programs worked with each other. In addition, throughout the year she’s working on new client bids, doing research for the pitch that will be made by the managing directors. So, on a day to day basis, it’s heavy excel and powerpoint, research, analysis, and reporting.

There are many kinds of consultants. Some evaluate and recommend, some do actual implementation, some do outsourcing of needed work.

25

PG–I think most of know what the concept of “consulting with someone about something” is, thanks.

It was the definition in terms of a discrete, stand-alone profession, not “consulting on this, or consulting about that”, but consulting as an end in itself, as discussed in that other thread, that I was asking about. As an entry-level job, not as a piece of advice.

26

@Chardo, Isn’t your wife a actuary? Does her current position in the consulting firm require someone with actuary experience?
I love learning about a world that I have absolutely no knowledge.

27

In business, consultant is a very generic term - similar to ‘analyst’. I think what you are asking is what does a 22 year old do when they get hired as a consultant or by a consulting firm.

Many, many of these consulting jobs are with software companies. The software company trains the newly minted consultant on the tool, and then they go on the road with senior consultants to companies who have just purchased the software. They are not system developers, their skills are in the fact that they can quickly/easily learn the nuances of the system, but can speak non-IT jargon and work with the real users- the client who has bought the software. Think of all the new computer software our doctors offices are now using. When the hospital bought the software, they had a big ‘project’ and during that project time dozens of consultants were sent down by the software company to figure out how they were going to go from paper to computer. Then once the software went live, they were there to fix stuff and help train. Months after ‘go live’ they periodically go back and see the clients, do upgrades, fix more stuff, train more people etc… Pretend your snowflakes first job was this. They worked 80 hours a week on that project in the middle of nowhere and flew in and out, home on weekends. Snowflake learned a lot here… now he/she is a senior consultant and goes on the road to the next hospital etc… 5 years later, snowflake is an expert in that business area and gets recruited by a software competitor as a VP or manager, etc…

There are also non-software consulting firms that hire 22 year olds. For example (still in the healthcare space) pretend you work at IBM and IBM is thinking about changing the healthcare choices for its employees. They use Mercer as their consulting firm to shop around for the best deals in healthcare (as if there are any, but ignore that). Mercer has a huge staff of healthcare consultants and their entire job is to know every healthcare company out there and figure out which one best fits IBM, based on IBMs employee demographics. When snowflake gets hired by Mercer, they are a junior consultant who’s focus is learning about the health care industry by working for a senior consultant doing research, putting together presentations so the senior consultant can present to IBM and crunching numbers on IBMs employees so they can make a good recommendation on what’s the best price IBM should pay for insurance.

Anyway, you should have the idea now. Later on in life, both snowflakes above can eventually be independent consultants like @88jm19 's husband. When they actually know something. They have to find their own gigs, but they get to keep all the hourly pay. Its like being self employed.

28

After my son graduated from college (with a degree in economics), he worked as a consultant at one of the very large management consulting and accounting firms. One of his major assignments was to analyze transfer prices. The goal was to help clients who were international corporations to minimize their tax liabilities as they moved product across their own supply chain and from location to location (often one country to another). This was complex spreadsheet work, but (to him) very boring. He also did other consulting projects in various fields including assessing educational outcomes. While much of his work was done in the home office, some involved travel.

A few years of this convinced him to find other ways to earn a living, especially ones that allowed him to be more creative and more in control of what he works on. He considers that period of his career as a consultant to be wasted years. The rest of his career has been far more interesting, even when it has involved complex spreadsheet and statistical work. And it has been far more rewarding both financially and in the recognition he has earned from his work.

29

My two cents – although software companies call that role “consultant”, that is not the kind of comssulting students are asking about out here typically. Nor is it what people usually think of in industry when they are talking about consultants. Usually they mean either the Mckinsey strategic type or the Accenture/PWC/ Deloitte type (they hire the most new grads).

30

I don’t get how there are so many entry level jobs for the Mckinsey, Accenture, etc… type consultants. Are there really that many of these spots for new grads? In my 25 year experience in corporate America, we use them sparingly. We hire them, for example, for their expertise on a new foreign tax law that we have to comply with that we don’t understand, or help us downsize and merger functional roles. But very little. On the other hand, software consultants are a constant presence.

Regardless, the entry level consultant jobs don’t give advice to real clients… they help the more senior consultants do their job and learn about the business- basically doing the behind the scenes information gathering. Research, number crunching, etc… until they actually know something they can advise on.

31

That is right, suzQ7. Entry-level consulting jobs in large firms (my son worked for KPMG) often mainly involve research, number crunching, and the like, and limited direct contact with clients. In a good situation, this can be a learning experience and a stepping stone to a career – though that may require a time-out for an MBA (or perhaps a part-time MBA). In my son’s case, he chose between three basic career options when he graduated, consulting (as start of business career), law, and doctoral study. His experience as a consultant turned him off, and he struck out on a more independent track without going for another diploma. I would say he’s in a leading position in business now, in a sector (journalism) that fits his interests perfectly as well as gives him creative control.

32

There are so many because so many of them quit after a couple of years. Accenture has 375,000 employees worldwide, too.

Some is organic growth… but not all of it.

Your company may hire them sparingly, but some companies use them extensively. Best Buy handed their whole systems area over to Accenture for years, for example (a deal that was recently unwound and taken back in-house). Some really large projects (say a bank replacing their core deposit and loan systems) would overwhelm internal resources. It isn’t infrequent that the C suite (or even the board) insist that they be brought in, too – which can make for poor relationships between the employees and consultants.

33

Seems like a lot of projects for even Accenture and the like focus on technical projects.

34

Even consultants subcontract out. McKinsey subcontracted certain portions of their consulting work to my old company. I also got hired to rework work other consultants did.

35

Yes, I have subcontracted for my old company. I am going to say, though, that after doing it twice I hope to not do it again. It refreshed my memory on why I didn’t like working there.

36

@SuzyQ7 I just want to clarify that my husband never did independent consulting.

He was fortunate that he was able to go straight from undergrad to an MBA program. While working on his MBA full-time he found a part-time job with a two person consulting office…a great learning experience. Upon graduation he worked for a large oil and gas company that helped him gain knowledge in a particular field. Then my husband leveraged both experiences to join a mid-sized consulting group. After a couple of years he went on to “big” consulting…skipping ‘entry-level type positions/billable hours’ and graduating to project-based work. These experiences were very helpful when he began his search for a “get out of the grind of consulting” job. He had definite ideas of what he liked and disliked. His last job, which allowed him to retire early, was a fortunate combination of hard work and luck.

I share this to possibly help others who are thinking about consulting. I would caution those who see it as a destination. The lifestyle is challenging. However, if you approach it as an opportunity for growth, it can lead to promising things. I guess it’s similar to chasing admission into an elite school. I think people should think of it as a path, not a destination…just my opinion.

37

I think the problem with that is that the employees often have little control over what industry or type of project they are assigned to. The year I started there was a huge airline project in our city – about 80% of the people who started in our office that summer were assigned to it, and most spent at least two years at that one client. (At least they were in town!). Just saying that students who think it will give them a lot of varied exposure in a short time may be disappointed. There ARE parts of the practices that do shorter/smaller projects, but an awful lot of it is big projects with long timeframes. I am not saying that experience isn’t valuable. But it often isn’t as varied as some people think it is.

38

"I think the problem with that is that the employees often have little control over what industry or type of project they are assigned to. "

Some people and/or companies specialize in certain industries. I worked in a lot of industries but my primary specialties were CPG (consumer packaged goods), primarily food, personal care, and OTC medications. Others in CPG might specialize in household care.

39

Yes… but at the biggest hiring consulting companies, you don’t always get a lot of say in what industry group you are assigned to. If they have demand in an area, they want people to be flexible and fill it. You can try to work your way into another group, but it may take a while or there may be other issues (execs you don’t click with in your preferred industry group, few in-town projects in that group, etc).

40

I think what the OP was talking about was management consulting, that firms like McKimsey, Bain Consulting and Booz Hamilton do, which is as described, they are brought in to evaluate either a part of a company, the whole thing, and give recommendations on what to keep, what to change, etc.

There are business consulting firms that can be brought in for a variety of reasons, this was the old model of the consulting arms of the accounting firms, like Anderson, Arthur Young and so forth (that have now been spun off), that might be technical/business (project to replace a business system), or for example, in setting up a business process (like accounting, tax systems, etc).

There are firms that specialize in technical consulting, where a company hires the firm for something, for example, they want to automate the test suite for a system, they hire a firm who sends out consultants to implement what the client wants. People working for the firm go from project to project, company to company, spend 8 months here, 9 months there.

Then, a lot of the consulting firms these days are basically outsourcing firms, companies like Accenture and IBM hire H1B visa workers, they are hired by a company, the workers get trained, and then the jobs either stay on shore or are sent offshore, in a sense, ‘permanently consulted’ out, which isn’t really consulting.