| Topic Name: |
Opportunities for PhD's in consulting |
| Message Name: |
Does not take a PhD |
| Date Posted: |
05/07/2003 |
| In Reply To: |
Which consulting firms do the kind of customized strategic consulting that could benefit from consultants who have PhD's in business? If no one, is all of the custom strategy work done by business academics who do consulting part time? Do all consulting firms simply fit their own models to all business problems or what? If so, wouldn't it make sense to hire people with PhD and thus more models to match across the spectrum of problems? |
| Message: |
It does not take a PhD to solve most business problems.
In fact, there is some truth to the notion that those attracted to a PhD are not as pragmatic or action-oriented as those attracted to a top school MBA. This is not a "slam," just something that is true "ceteris paribus."
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Most strategy consulting firms do quite well with customized work without a real boatload of PhDs. One sharp, experienced partner, a good project manager, and some solid analysts can get most things done.
When there is a need for truly deep, really customized or quantitative modeling (or anthropological insight for that matter), such a team is good enough to know its limits & find a good PhD "type" resource ... who may or may not actually have a PhD. These might be drawn from a small pool of such resources within their own firm, from a boutique, or from a short list of academics.
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As a PhD, former top 10 b-school prof, and strategy consultant at several firms, I would have to say that I value my business-experienced partnrs' perspective more than that of most of my former academic colleagues.
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