Anybody else here left a Big 4 to join a boutique consulting firm? I made the move one year ago and have no regrets but am interested to hear experiences, pros and cons of others who have done so

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No, but I would like to. My firm is so big, with so many internal walls, that I don't really feel like a consultant any more.

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I’ll go first.

Major pros: less politics, higher comp, more flexibility, quicker sales cycles due to no risk management or independence issues, happier and more people-focused culture, more freedom to scope and price engagements, more sophisticated internal tools and systems, no managed devices that can be monitored

Major cons: No corporate credit card (though you get points by using your own), smaller pool of resources to staff engagements, weaker benefits (e.g. no pension or 401K match), harder to gain access to client executives, more travel, have to wear more hats, more pressure to drive revenue and maintain cash flow

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I have, 2 Big 4’s, 3 top 15, 1 boutique. Resource pool shrinks considerably as you move down the chain. But so do the hoops and independence issues.

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There is a lot to be said for the lack of “hoops”. Although when I arrived at my new firm and saw some of the SOWs we were issuing, I wanted to cry, because one of the most valuable lessons I learned at KPMG was the importance of risk management to ensure that we weren’t inadvertently exposing ourselves to scope creep or cost overruns due to poorly defined scope. So now I’m instituting a rudimentary risk management process at my new firm. Certainly not as rigorous as what we had at KPMG, but more a set of guidelines and best practices to ensure a peer review for every SOW in order to mitigate risk exposure

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Which firm? Interested but want less travel

I left KPMG Advisory. But can’t say which boutique I joined because that would probably compromise my identity. All I’ll say is that it’s the best move I ever made. Sure, there were a lot of smart people at KPMG but many of them were generic consultants with very little depth in any particular subject matter, and management (of which I was a part) treated them accordingly as “assets” rather than as human beings. Staff were frequently set up for failure when they were assigned to engagements for which they lacked any experience.

Where I am now, the talent pool is mind blowing. Everyone has deep expertise in one or more disciplines, and I can honestly say that everybody I’ve met here is a rock star compared to many of the mediocre “cruisers” I encountered at KPMG. Even the partners here pull their weight and dive into the trenches to help the team, and they are quick to assume responsibility when things go wrong, not to throw their teams under the bus. We don’t carry any dead weight and are quick to weed out those who are disruptive or create drama. It’s the complete opposite of KPMG. Sure, the benefits aren’t as good but at least you don’t wake up every morning miserable and wondering who is stabbing you in the back each day.

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I have. Went from big 4 to FTI

Not Big4 but at a very large firm and I’ve been interested in making the same jump. I’m unbelievably tired of all the internal hoops you have to go through to get anything done.

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