Boston Consulting Group

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The Boston Consulting Group
Type Partnership
Founded 1963
Headquarters 61 offices in 37 countries
Key people Hans-Paul Buerkner, President & CEO
Industry Management consulting
Products Management consulting services
Revenue 2005: US$1.5 billion
Employees about 3,300 consultants
Website www.bcg.com

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is a management consulting firm founded by Harvard Business School alum Bruce Henderson in 1963. He left HBS ninety days before graduation to work for Westinghouse Corporation, where he became one of the youngest vice presidents in the company's history. He would leave Westinghouse to head Arthur D. Little's management services unit before accepting an improbable challenge from the CEO of the Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company to start a consulting arm for the bank. BCG began mailing concise, innovative, controversial, and stimulating essays designed to stimulate senior management thinking on a range of business issues. The subject matter was chosen to be deliberately provocative, significant in implication, and relevant to the policy decisions of corporate competition. The pieces were called Perspectives and over the next four decades they would become the vehicle for thinking that consistently challenged both classic economic theory and current business practice. Henderson referred to them as "a punch between the eyes."

In 1965 Henderson thought that to survive, much less grow, in a competitive landscape occupied by hundreds of larger and better-known consulting firms, a distinctive identity was needed, and pioneered "Business Strategy" as a special area of expertise.

As his client list grew, Henderson invaded the nation's best business schools, the Harvards and Whartons of the world. He eclipsed McKinsey as the top recruiter at Harvard, aggressively wooing its best students with high salaries and the chance to make a difference in a cutting-edge firm. He encouraged the brilliant young minds he hired to come up with innovative ideas that would dazzle hardened corporate veterans. Sometimes he seemed dazzled himself by the success of the whole business. "Consulting is the most improbable business on earth," he would say.

In 1973 Bill Bain and others left BCG to form Bain & Company, and two years later Henderson arranged an employee-stock ownership plan (ESOP), so that the employees could take the company independent from The Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company. The ESOP itself was one of the first such plans in the USA. The buyout of all shares was completed in 1979, five years ahead of schedule.

In 1998 BCG created The Strategy Institute. Its purpose is to enrich the firm's strategic thinking by applying insights from a variety of academic disciplines to the strategic challenges facing both business and society. At the same time BCG published Perspectives on Strategy, a compilation of notable Perspectives and other short articles published in the firm's history.

Nowadays BCG competes principally with McKinsey & Company, and Bain & Company. The Boston-based firm is among the largest and most profitable management consulting firms worldwide. BCG has 61 offices in 37 countries, and its current CEO is Hans-Paul Buerkner.

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) ranked 11th overall and third among smaller companies in Fortune Magazine's 2006 “100 Best US Companies to Work For” survey, based on strong employee development, a supportive culture, and progressive benefits.


Contents

[edit] Recruiting

BCG typically hires for an Associate or a Consultant position, though lateral hires as Project Leader, Manager or Vice President is possible.

An undergraduate joins BCG as an Associate. With a graduate degree, such as MBA, JD, or MD, the candidate may join at the Consultant level. Interviewees will - in addition to the regular interview process - be asked to analyze a business case, chosen by the interviewer. Most candidates find that extensive practice in the case interview method is helpful[1]. After two years at BCG, some Associates choose to attend an MBA program. BCG Associates enjoy high acceptance rates into top MBA programs and high performing Associates get a generous financial assistance package to support tuition and cost of living, subject to returning to the company after graduation. In the United States, BCG receives around 10,000 resumes for 80 to 100 positions in each Associate class.

BCG recruits MBA graduates to join as Consultants from the world's top business[2], and focuses the majority of their recruiting effort to schools such as Harvard, Wharton, Stanford, Yale, Darden, Kellogg, MIT Sloan, Chicago, and Columbia. There is also an opportunity to join as a Summer Associate or Summer Consultant (internship) position for 10 weeks, which for the majority of interns will result in an offer for full-time position.

[edit] BCG growth-share matrix

The growth-share matrix chart.

In the 1970s, the BCG created and popularized the "growth-share matrix", a simple chart to assist large corporations in deciding how to allocate cash among their business units. The corporation would categorize its business units as "Stars", "Cash Cows", "Question Marks", and "Dogs", and then allocate cash accordingly, moving money from cash cows toward "stars" and "question marks" that had higher market growth rates, and hence higher upside potential.

The chart was popular for two decades and "continues to be used as a primer in the principles of portfolio management," as BCG says.

[edit] Offices in Asia Pacific

[edit] Offices in Europe

[edit] Offices in the Americas

[edit] Notable current and former employees

[edit] Business

[edit] Politics and public service

[edit] Others

[edit] External links

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