Wonder

Consultants at Major Consulting Firms

Delivered January 2, 2020. Contributor: McCaw

Goals

To determine the percentage of employees that are employed as consultants at major consulting firms (like   McKinsey, Bain, Deloitte, KPMG, PWC, Accenture, and BCG) as part of a market analysis for the promotion and sale of a new product.

Early Findings

Boston Consulting GroupBoston Consulting Group is one of the big three global management consulting firms, with annual revenue of $7.5 billion and a global staff of 14,000 (2016).
They employ 6,200 consultants (2016) across 90 offices in 50 countries.
The percentage of staff that work as consultants is 44%.
Accenture Accenture (formerly Anderson Consulting) has its headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. They have annual revenue of $43.2 billion and a global staff of 492,000.
The company offers a range of different services, including consulting.
Bain & CoBain & Co has its headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. They have annual revenue of $4.5 billion and a global staff of 8,000.
They have staff in 56 locations globally.
McKinseyMcKinsey has its headquarters in New York, with offices in 127 locations globally.  
They have an annual revenue of $10 billion and a global staff of 27,000.

Proposed next steps:

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We would continue our analysis into the companies previously noted (McKinsey, Bain, Deloitte, KPMG, PWC, Accenture, and BC). We would provide their website, headquarters, number of locations globally, number of employees, key services offered, and the number and percentage of consultants (if available). The initial research suggests that this information is unlikely to be readily available, but there is a sufficient amount of data available to indicate the percentage could be triangulated. To determine the percentage, we recommend the following approach: Firstly, we would search the company website, press releases, media articles, and financial databases (like Crunchbase). If the information is not available in these sources, we will search the companies' annual reports. Finally, we would attempt to triangulate the percentage using information obtained from the sources above. (2 projects given percentage already calculated for BCG).

In addition, we would identify a further three of the top global consulting firms. For each of these firms we would identify their website, headquarters, number of locations globally, number of employees, key services offered, and the number and percentage of consultants (if available). The initial research suggests that this information is unlikely to be readily available, but there is a sufficient amount of data available to indicate the percentage could be triangulated. To determine the percentage, we recommend the following approach: Firstly, we would search the company website, press releases, media articles, and financial databases (like Crunchbase). If the information is not available in these sources, we will search the companies' annual reports. Finally, we would attempt to triangulate the percentage using information obtained from the sources above.

We recommend an analysis of the best practices in consultant employment at global consulting firms. We would identify 2 - 3 of the best practices. The best practices would be focused on consultant to total employee ratios and consultant employment practices. For each practice determined, we will provide an overview of the practice, the reason for its inclusion, and 1 - 2examples of firms that are using this practice.