The top 3 consulting firms versus the big 4 are an interesting comparison. The three main management consulting firms are McKinsey, Bain and BCG, known as MBB firms. They are not necessarily the largest firms, but they are the most prestigious firms that can charge high fees to their clients. The big 4 refer to the top 4 accounting firms.
These firms may have strategy branches that compete with MBB firms, but most of their business is related to accounting. Let's make a small comparison between the top 3 and the big 4 consulting firms and see what some of the differences are. If you're looking at what firms you can apply to, this should give you some interesting facts to consider. The Big 4 are the four largest international professional services and accounting firms.
They are Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC. Each of them provides auditing, tax, consulting and financial advisory services to major companies. The big 4 are made up of PwC, Deloitte, EY and KPMG. Historically, they are accounting firms and have expanded to other professional services, but there is little difference between each of them.
These firms are collectively known as “MBB” and “the top three” management consulting firms (not as “the big three consulting firms”, a common misconception). Finally, each of the four big firms offers quality assurance and consulting services to their clients, which involves verifying that the company's processes are accurate and up to date. Strategic consulting: although there has been some level of competition between the Big 3 and the Big 4 for more than 20 years, it was when EY, Deloitte and PwC acquired strategic consulting firms (some of the competitors of the Big 3) that they began to offer the same services and compete more frequently for work. There are several similarities between the work that consultants do on the strategy teams of the Big Four and the work that management consultants do at McKinsey, BCG, and Bain.
Once companies have helped craft a strategy, they can help implement it through the wide range of services they offer, such as technology consulting, implementation and transformation consulting, and transaction services. The firm offers a range of professional services to its clients, from risk assurance to strategic consulting. Services: The big four companies offer a full range of professional services, from tax to consulting, while the big three companies focus exclusively on consulting services. At the beginning of the 2000s, the big four companies expanded their services to other professional services, such as consulting and law, but after a controversy over the independence of the firms that provided advisory services to clients, they audited PwC, EY and KPMG and all provided these services.
Technology consulting, a growing area for the four firms, involves taking advantage of technological solutions and innovations to help companies transform their business models, be more efficient, improve their services and take advantage of new opportunities. The Big 4 consulting services cover a wide range of disciplines, covered by several teams with often overlapping competencies. The Boston Consulting Group was founded in 1963, initially as the consulting arm of The Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company in order to provide strategic advice to the bank's clients. All three of the big consulting firms offer the same services to their clients and have been competing with each other for decades.
Consultants in some offices may work fewer hours than MBB consultants and therefore enjoy a better work-life balance. Because they perform similar work and have a similar set of skills, consultants from both groups of companies can take advantage of a number of consulting exit opportunities. The Big 4's strategic consulting services are those that are most closely aligned with the services of McKinsey, BCG, and Bain.
