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Hi Fishes, I am bit confused to pick the role in KPMG lighthouse as Sr Cloud Data architect or Saama technology as a Project lead. Money wise it is not a big difference. In KPMG I will work with partner where as in saama I will work with project/program manager. Please suggest your opinion. Saama KPMG KPMG India
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Rising Star
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I miss the lab, that’s all I’ve got to say. I was drawn to Consulting because of the breadth of opportunities offered, but it turns out I hate navigating politics and dealing with obscure personalities.
I know at the end of the day, it’s all about putting a sweet lil twist on the “insights” we find, but knowing that a lot of it is BS, and the leadership telling us “just go with what I say. We dont care if its doable; that’s their job”, this doesnt seem very appealing anymore. Does this simply mean consulting is not cut out for me, or does anybody else with a STEM background have any advice on how to look at consulting industry from different perspective?
I sincerely apologize if I offend anybody and their occupation. I would just love to pick everybody’s brain on how they see this
Chief
It’s not just STEM. I worked in financial tech and it’s the same. The suggestions are obvious but also completely unachievable.
Rising Star
Completely agree with your point that we tell clients what they already know, summarised in a ppt. I often find execs use it to add weight / justify to what they want to do.
Chief
And have a well-formatted “insurance policy” in their back pocket if things go south.
Agree.. engineering/analytics background working in healthcare. Never used any advanced analytics (except for when you develop actual tools but not day to day work). Engineering background definitely provide me with analytical thinking but at the end of the day in healthcare consulting it’s the experience that matters, and how you “talk about it”. Want to exit at some point.
Really appreciate all of your thoughts shared here. Would rather not share the details of the study here (I brought up my thoughts to my team as well in person, and I dont want to risk them finding me here letting out the dirty laundry).
Definitely wanted to try out the implementation work bc its more tangible and the progress is always visible, but I’ve always heard that strategy is more “prestigious” and opens more door to managerial opportunities and you learn the valuable, ‘behind the door’ softskills that you wouldnt learn on the streets, but i dont know how much longer i want to get by as a simple bullsh*itter. I think I just need to grow up and start thinking about what is right for me as opposed to what is right on the paper in Wall Street.
Really appreciate all this and would love to hear more!
I started in operations /implementation and wanted to learn strategy so spent two years in strategy by now. Agree with what others said. One more point here, the “downside” of implementation work is you are held accountable for the results, for example reducing costs. It’s great when you see results but the process can be painful and suffering… vs in strategy there usually isn’t a “money saving target” and you basically “plan for the client”. I’m still exploring though!
BS In Math/MS in stats here - I agree I feel like recommendations and “big-picture” data strategy projects are the worst because we either have clients that say what you just mentioned or “this is great and theoretical but how do you actually do this” to which is followed by “we can do it!” And sometimes no cannot. I hate those projects. I hate having to come in with some big picture ideas and the decks and the slides and pretend I know how to implement a whole 3 year project with architecture, self-service analytics etc. because the deliverable it’s not actionable (always high level and theoretical like adopt this operating model but no other information to how) - at least from what I’ve seen at my consulting org. I think the best thing to do is talk about what can we begin to do today with the resources you gave and GET TECHNICAL AND HANDS ON. But that’s not the name of the game in consulting - sell big ideas and figure out what the heck you’re actually supposed to do later…
Also curious about your studies regarding this.
Chief
I’ve had to help companies implement so I don’t give them unachievable plans or strategies because I would be there for the suffering and failure. On the other end, framing “no duh” stuff isn’t always a waste. Sometimes you wouldn’t believe people don’t actually understand basic stuff so it helps get the ball rolling on initiatives because you get leadership buy in. Other times the client simply didn’t have time to put the presentations and information together coherently. So overall, I’ve felt I have added a lot of value and the activities I perform do help impact the bottom line and subsequently the companies value. Maybe if you join a firm that implements more you will get away from pie in the sky strategies that aren’t “no duh” and are also realistic. You will provide value by being an expert in that area with the experience to get it done for them
Dare I bring up that Strategy vs Implementation discussion again?
This is why you should have the same team do the strategy, business case, proposal, implementation and transition to ops.
Also who are your clients and how do you get away with that? My clients all have STEM backgrounds.