| Topic Name: |
Accenture, why so desperate? |
| Message Name: |
I remember |
| Date Posted: |
03/26/2001 |
| In Reply To: |
I don't work for any consulting firm (yet), but I can't seem to understand why Accenture people are so desperate to prove that they belong among the so called elite startegy firms such as McK, BCG, Bain, Monitor, etc..
when in fact no one at these firms or at top MBAs seem to take them seriously. To Accenture people: instead of wasting your time trying to convince people that it is otherwise, why not just wait and see when the time comes (if it ever comes) you won't have to convince anyone because everyone knows you belong there. If you are anywhere near where you claim to be, surely, this debate will conclude very soon.
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| Message: |
watching a point of argument elegantly framed in Woody Allen's great Annie Hall. In the movie, Woody Allen, standing in line at a movie theater behind a somewhat pompous Columbia University film professor, eavesdrops on the professor's loud and obnoxious criticism of a film's director. Allen then interrupts the professor and argues a point, to which he receives a terse and patronizing line to the extent of "What do you know? I'M a professor of film studies at Columbia!"
Then, in a suspension of reality, Allen pulls aside the film director in question(very much a deus ex machina) and has him corroborate his point. "No, that's not what I meant at all!" the director snaps at the pompous professor, thereby putting the professor in his place.
And at this point, Allen faces the audience and repeats "Now wouldn't it be great if life could really be like this?"
Well, here we go. Probably one of the best ways to measure prestige is actually based on taking a survey of where people want to work as opposed to where they ACTUALLY CAN work (not everyone can be a banker at Goldman Sachs, not everyone can be a parter at Kleiner Perkins...) How convenient it is that the competence consultancy Universum performs a survey of top North American business schools every year - a survey of preferred employers.
And how interesting it is that EVERY YEAR that the survey has been in existence McKinsey & Co. has topped the lists as the number one employer of choice.
And where was Accenture (Andersen Consulting) last year? Well, being in 19th place is not so bad. But it's nowhere near BCG or Bain, either.
Here are the rankings for your very factual and non-opinionated perusal.
1) McKinsey & Company
2) Boston Consulting Group
3) Goldman Sachs
4) Bain & Company
5) Microsoft
6) Morgan Stanley
7) Walt Disney
8) Coca-Cola
9) Booz-Allen & Hamilton
10) Deloitte Consulting
11) Merrill Lynch
12) AT Kearney
13) Hewlett Packard
14) Dell Computer
15) JP Morgan
16) PriceWaterhouseCoopers
17) Nike
18) Proctor & Gamble
19) Andersen Consulting
20) Johnson & Johnson
Given the intensive intellectual capital nature of consulting - I sure as hell didn't see anyone who could get into a top 4 firm going to Accenture.
And I don't see anyone from the top 4 writing comic strips about how much life sucks at their firm either. (www.indenture.ac)
A consulting firm can be defined as the sum of people who make it up. I'm sure there are extraordinary people at Accenture, just only a few relative to the entire group. Compared to a Boston Consulting, there isn't even anything to compare. BCG is in a world apart.
Whoever posted the first message is dead on - the major problem with a website such as the Vault.com is that at a choice ranking at the MBA or undergraduate level the opportunities that are afforded to the best can only be dangled in front of those who didn't make the cut. It's only natural to then be 1) defensive and 2) more defensive and 3) critical of clearly better options to justify their own positions.
EOM
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