| Topic Name: |
Lets get down to the comparisions, anyone can answer this one |
| Message Name: |
YOU HAVE LOST |
| Date Posted: |
07/25/2001 |
| In Reply To: |
Re: "My third question, do you guys agree that Accenture could join the ranks of the tier one some day? "
Keeping in mind that "Tier 1" is just a label (you the 3 firms that are under that label are top tier, but not all top tier firms fit under that label) -- the answer to your question is both YES and NO.
Accenture is already the top firm for a number of consulting specialties (e.g., CRM, Human Performance Management and, as most people know, IT -- tho not in the 'systems integration' sense that some firms like CEGY, IBM and a few others are).
When people refer to "Tier 1" they usually mean in terms of strat consulting only. I think that "anonymous me"'s comment is correct:
"when one compares Accenture to the tier 1 firms, it compares quite well right now ... in the end, a firm which has 3000 people with a "strategy" profile, earning "strategy" salaries and making money at it, and which has been doing so for nearly 20 years, has alreadey joined the club"
Certainly they are in, what some people call, the tier 1.5 (for strat, anyway), which includes Accenture, Booz, ATK and some of the boutiques like Mercer. In that cohort they lead the pack.
However, if you take Accenture off of the top of the tier 1.5 and put them into the cohort with M/B/B, then they do NOT lead. McK leads with Bain, BCG and Accenture behind (tho, not necessarily in that order). Client awareness surveys and other recognition instruments seem to confirm this.
One of the problems is that Accenture is a very large (and now public) company. Although it's true that bigger does not mean better, it also does not mean worse either. Yet people seem to make the assertion that:
1) bigger does not mean better
2) Accenture is big
conclusion: Accenture is not better
Being so big, it does have other consulting practices in addition to strat. It also has other businesses other than management consulting (e.g., they own a sizable outsourcing business, sort of like Cap Gemini in the US prior to buying E&Y's consulting practice, and like Pinkerton or EDS; they have a reasonably size venture capital business; they do technology research, a la IB< labs or MIT, etc.)
As a result people say: "my sister is dating someone who works for Accenture and all he does is code Java all day." Well, that person is comparing apples to oranges.
So Accenture, while in the top tier in most consulting spheres, is not part of the cohort labeled "tier 1." By the same token, if, say, BCG fell out of the top tier, it would still be in the "tier 1", since that is the name of its cohort. Industry and clients recognize this.
So YES, they could and HAVE joined the ranks of the other top tier firms, including, but not limited to strat.
But NO, they can't be a "tier 1" since that refers to a particular cohort of 3 firms.
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| Message: |
YOU HAVE LOST YOUR MIND WITH that jabber
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