Hi people, I was wondering what everyones views were regarding strategy at PwC. How do they rate in the market, clients, pay, reputation, career prospects. Would you put them ahead of Strategy at Deloitte?

Briefly, PwC Strategy is very small and predominantly covers M&A advisory and Valuation projects specifically, rather than "strategy" generally.Comparison with Deloitte Strategy is difficult - DC does a lot more work, consulting on a wider range of strategy elements. I'd imagine PwC picks up some tasty work from its audit connections, but haven't heard of it winning anything big. I don't imagine it has the scale to handle the bigger global projects as the PwC Strategy group only exists in London as far as I am aware.Fairly sure this question's been asked & answered in the recent past by people at PwC, so search for more comments.

I'd opt for PwC ahead of Deloitte. Both are great brand but in terms of the big four, I think the order in terms of work, combined with 'prestige' goes PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, E&Y.Would be interested to hear peoples opinions on the order and whether they would choose PwC ahaead of Deloitte for consulting.

I couldnt disagree more. PWC strategy group is very small, focuses on mid market transactions and is going through troubled times in terms of getting work. In my eyes, Deloitte are the only 2 out of the big 4 that have 'consultants' as we intend with the term. EY because it has recently hired more than 200 of them from other firms and industry - and Deloitte has a very established and recognized consulting brand that is successfully seperated from their audit division. KPMG is completely unheard of in consulting circles - and they are the first to admit they do not work in that space. The order goes as follows: Deloitte, BAS, PWCKPMG is purposely not on there for they do not play in the market. Although BAS still have to prove themselves, they have hired the talent to go forward ( please dont start the uncosntructive bashing now)opinions welcomed

completely agreed. PWC strategy group is a buffed up version of Transaction Advisory Services of EY, KPMG and Deloitte - NOT thier respective consulting arms ( bar KPMG)

so lets hear it....

What rubbish!! I certainly wouldn't put an untried entity such as BAS ahead of PWC strategy. Deloitte maybe, but certainly not BAS!!

the reason they go in front is that they have hired talent from top organisations such as Capgemini, Mck, ATK, Accenture & IBM - which are ALL better, 'old-school', consulting companies than PWC strategy - which is only UK focused and revenues very very litte. As a poster up there said, PWC strat group is a TAS service - that works with the stuff that the Investment Banks dont want to pick up / is too small for them to pick up. They are not 'true' consultants in the litteral meaning. I rate BAS on the experience of the people - and to see what they can do you give them time. PWC strat hasnt done much in its time - has it now?

I think KPMG is also moving into this space with their Risk Advisory Service [RAS] now so they may do well too.

I was intrigued by the comment that KPMG doesn't work in the consulting space at all?!Non-compete agreements have meant that KPMG and others have had to be very careful about how they position and describe the work they do. Hence why some of the accountancies have described themselves as building up capabilities in "business advisory" rather than "consulting".But these non-compete agreements have been coming to an end in recent quarters and all four of the Big 4 had a major presence at our Consultancy Careers Fair last Friday.We'll be publishing videos of the presentations the firms gave at the Fair in the next weeks - so very soon you'll be able to watch for yourselves what the firms had to say about their consulting activities and judge for yourselves. But I would say that all are active in the space and recruiting quite heavily.In terms of how I would 'rank' the firms, this always differs according to the person you're advising and their individual requirements / circumstances. However, what I would say is that Deloitte were the only one of the Big 4 that chose to keep their consulting arm when the Enron debacle brought accounting firms' activities under the spotlight.So in terms of brand strength, I'd have to say that Deloitte are therefore the most well-known. E&Y sold their consulting arm to Capgemini (which was called Cap Gemini Ernst & Young remember) and have started a rebuild strategy with the ending of their non-compete. They've hired a lot of people from really top brand consultancies, so the calibre of people is certainly there for them to rival all the other firms in the coming years.PwC sold their business to IBM and they don't seem to have been rebuilding this capability as aggressively as E&Y - from what I've seen at any rate. It seems they're focussing on certain types of work, as other posts here suggest, so they'll be great employers for some readers and not suitable for others.KPMG in the UK sold their consulting business to Atos (and in other parts of the world to the business now known as BearingPoint). I suspect their non-compete was the most water-tight, as they seem to be the Big 4 firm that's been the most cautious about getting back into the consulting market. But again, they now seem to be recruiting in numbers - so should be lots of opportunity to make an impact if you join them.I guess this debate could run and run and run. So I'll finish by repeating my usual mantra - the most important consideration is whether you gel with and like the types of people you meet at the firms when you're interviewing. Being surrounded by a great team of people you like can go a long way to keeping a consultant sane and satisfied with their career. Equally winding up at a place where you do not feel like you belong is a sure way to have a consulting career that needs a change of employer within just a few months of joining...Good luck with your choices and hope this is helpful.Tony Restell (Top-Consultant.com)