HiI recently (5 weeks ago) accepted ACN's offer as a strategy consultant. However, in the past 24hrs, my current employers (c-level exec) has come back with a counter offer that is both attractive from a role profile and remuneration perspective. My mind is set at joining consultancy (aspiration to learn from different sectors, in different companies, broaden skill-set, etc.) , but I wanted to get thoughts/feedback from folks currently in consultancy, on what criteria (s) would you use to weigh up the two options, and if you were in my shoes (6 yr industry experience + MBA) then what would you do? Thanks

Last thing before I leave the office...Anyway, Sprinter have a look at this forum previous threads and you will have lots of "industry vs consulting" items that you can check out.Coolio / BEP / Mars can provide more indepth detail, but not surprisingly it mostly comes back to the same themes (this is in general, there are always exceptions):- Yes, in Consulting, you will be doing more travelling with some at little to no notice. The client is paying £1k+ a day, so if he says jump - you say how high(PS some people do love it, saves you a bucket load of money re expenses and you get to see some nice places... annnnnnd some not so nice places)- You get paid more and bigger bonuses if you stay in industry- Your work in Consulting is more varied. We moan about being PowerPoint monkeys, but sometimes you do get some interesting stuff- Your Consulting colleagues will in general challenge you more, in a good way. They are in general well educated and do not have a "I have been here for 25 years and this is how I do it" attitude. - But the Politics in Consulting is lethal, if you are not great at networking and "playing the game", understand you will be going absolutely nowhere very very fast if you are delivery but not also a BSer- and so on, you know the basics. If I were you? Industry job offering more money, good perks and more importantly a place that you enjoy working? I would probably stay and continue enjoying myself. However, if you have a fairly international background re family or is thinking of living in another country in the future... then Consulting at ACN would not be a bad idea at allPlease do meet with a friend of a friend who is a consultant, tell him to stop the BS and really tell you what its like. Nothing like hearing it face2 faceHave a good weekend all

Excellent response!One aspect to also consider: how much flexibility would you have in the longer run in your current company to change roles, change location/site in order to broaden your skill set?Granted, on average speaking you'll get more variation (e.g. different companies, different industries) in consulting but does that outweight the disadvantages?Another key element in consulting is the whole commercial side - appeals to some people and horrifies others but definitely important to consider how well at home you'd feel selling proposals to clients, dealing with the commercial negotiation tactics (and the additional politics)

I'd also weigh in the type of consulting work you'd be doing. I'm not convinced "Accenture Strategy" will get you a lot of business strategy work (though it should still give you the basic consulting skillset). It will most likely be majority Ops/IT work.I've worked with a lot of ex-Accenture "strat" types and they definitely don't have the strat toolkit / mindset, but they do have the basic, core consulting skills.Therefore, consider what you want when you say you want to broaden your skillset.

Yep. I've come across a handful of 'Accenture Strategy' previously who are legitimate strategy consultants doing growth, Due Diligence etc but most tend to be classic Target Operating Model guys. Don't expect to be doing 'strategy' when you work there!

Hi All,That is a very good point re "Strat ACN". I think everyone straight away thinks that in strategy work they are going to be chums with the CEO of company x, giving him face2face advice on where to take his company. Hahaha.ACN is not a charity, I am yet to see the big Consulting firms saying "nah, no thanks we are not really experienced at that please do take your £multi million somewhere else". Hence even in Strat you will work on whatever work they have won (or if nothing won, support other areas who have won more work than they have staff).Hence I'll slightly rephrase one of my responses to:- Yes, in Consulting, you will be doing more travelling with some at little to no notice, as well as projects which may or may not be related to the area you have joined. The client is paying £1k+ a day, so if he says jump - you say how high

Thanks folks! Really helpful stuff. Everyone has a different perspective on what 'strategy' is, and IMO they're not quiet comparable on better/worse scale. Based on what ACN have explained, it's very well aligned with my expectations and aspirations. Decision has been made. Thanks again for the varied perspectives.