Well Booz have finally done it. After many failed attempts to sell their business they've finally managed to sell to PwC!Looks to be a move by PwC in the wake of Deloitte's recent acquisition of Monitor! Thoughts guys? I'm sure there will be plenty of Booz people on the market now no doubt!

Why would there be plenty on the market? Delusions of grandeur?

Have they "sold" the business or is it a merger?I wonder how this affects the career trajectory of the senior associates, principals etc at Booz?I wonder how it will change (if it does) the nature of ther work... I wonder how the merger with an accountancy firm has been received by Booz's staff?What is the reason they have given for it? Is it to access pwc's client base or to cross sell more effectively? Could there be independence issues?This is a fascinating development. It shows how starkly the market for consultancy has changed over the years

Based on what I saw with my friends at Monitor, there's going to be a hemorrhage. Imagine: these are people who scuffed at PWC and Deloitte during the on-campus recruitment process, and now they are part of these organizations? McKinsey, Bain, BCG, AT Kearney, Oliver Wyman and Roland Berger are going to see quite a lot of resumes in the next few months...

I've said it many times before..... a pure strategy play just won't cut it these days.

So many thoughts about this.1. Very true that pure strat houses know the party is winding down and they need to widen their spectrum of offerings.2. Huge culture clash here. Booz boys thinking they're better than the PWC dude doing "IT Consulting" or programming some Technology Transformation?3. As a Big 4 I'm not overjoyed at the prospect of PWC getting bigger (stronger possibly?). All they've done is merge and acquire their way to arguably the largest of the Big 4. Of course nothing wrong with this, but it just makes you wonder/annoyed sometimes, why bother with trying develop and grow a firm organically when my competition is just buying other premium firms - and essentially the clients and projects that come packaged in.4. If this gets through the Booz vote, it reinforces the tragedy that partners only care about the monies. Because I bet most Booz employees are against this.

Brave-ster!Good to hear from you! I trust you're keeping well - and behaving yourself?The way I see it.....-MBB will be able to make it.-OW will be OK, since they are part of the larger March and McLennan anyway.-The others will struggle and ultimately get taken over. Monitor and Booz just the beginning.They are calling it a merger, but I think we all know that it's Booz being taken over. I believe that this is the direction the industry is heading. Clients want both strat and implementation. Importantly, some clients are building their own in-house teams.

Thoughts on where companies like AT Kearney would be positioned now? Would their reputation in operations / procurement consulting be enough to keep them going?

100% agree with Camster- MBB will stay and go deeper and deeper into implementation (McK is already well on its way)- OW will stay because its revenues as only slightly smaller than Bain and, most importantly, it has the firepower of MMC, its Fortune 500 parent company, to grow via acquisitions- Roland Berger and AT Kearney will either merge with one another or a Big 4, but they will be gone by 2020 no matter whatSo we'll have an industry with ~8 players (MBB, OW, Big 4), which is about the right level of consolidation you want.When all is said and done, the days of "prestigious strategy MC" will be over.