Government Consulting - what exactly is this?

[Anonymous]

In the "DC Salaries for top 20 mba grads", a few posters post low-mid six figure jobs with 40 hrs and low stress and say they are in gov consulting.

What exactly is gov consulting? I've interviewed and made final rounds at strategy consulting firms like BCG and McKinsey but I have no clue what 'gov consulting' is.

Are the engagements the same in substance, but your client is the federal gov?

Note - i don't mean gov contracting where an agency contracts out actual functionality a la the IC for instance with 'green badge'.

For example at McK i could be staffed on an engagement that does M&A due diligence for PE or a strategy project for a CPG, auto OEM, or IB firm, etc.

I don't get how this translates into government facing stuff?

Please try to be as detailed as possible - i really am very curious.

[Anonymous]

Companies like Booz Allen and Deloitte have strategy divisions that do general management consulting, human capital consulting, etc for federal agencies. Not too far off from what BCG and McKinsey do for commercial clients. In my experience it's about 45 hours a week, and the higher up you are in the firm, the more time you have to put into business development in addition to client work. The 40 hours is prob mentioned because some contracts cap the consultants at 40 hours per week, but you're expected to spend a couple more hours on IC or business development.

The pay is nowhere near McKinsey or BCG, and is largely driven by consultant rate categories set by the government. Yet most of our clients think we are overpaid. Things like the shutdown can also negatively impact pay/job security.

Projects are generally longer engagements - often a year or more.

What else do you want to know? I'll try to answer any questions you may have

[Anonymous]

Pope and Associates

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Companies like Booz Allen and Deloitte have strategy divisions that do general management consulting, human capital consulting, etc for federal agencies. Not too far off from what BCG and McKinsey do for commercial clients. In my experience it's about 45 hours a week, and the higher up you are in the firm, the more time you have to put into business development in addition to client work. The 40 hours is prob mentioned because some contracts cap the consultants at 40 hours per week, but you're expected to spend a couple more hours on IC or business development.

The pay is nowhere near McKinsey or BCG, and is largely driven by consultant rate categories set by the government. Yet most of our clients think we are overpaid. Things like the shutdown can also negatively impact pay/job security.

Projects are generally longer engagements - often a year or more.

What else do you want to know? I'll try to answer any questions you may have

So could you go into more detail regarding what a management consulting project would entail with the government?

I.E. would an example be: XYZ agency hires Booz or Deloitte to figure out what is the optimum mix of contractors vs. direct hires for a particular program or function?

I guess I have a tough time understanding how management consulting is effective in a federal setting.

It isn't like DHS can 'spin off' the secret service or do a divesture for instance because they are 'underperforming'.

I'm just thinking of the types of engagements McK or BCG do for private sector and struggle to figure out the equivalent for government. things like "go to market" strategy, optimum marketing mix, M&A/spinoff, segmentation, profit maximization, growth plans, entry/exit scenarios, PE due diligence - I don't get what the federal equivalent would be.

Is it just mostly cost/budget optimization/human capital allocation work done for specific agencies?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Companies like Booz Allen and Deloitte have strategy divisions that do general management consulting, human capital consulting, etc for federal agencies. Not too far off from what BCG and McKinsey do for commercial clients. In my experience it's about 45 hours a week, and the higher up you are in the firm, the more time you have to put into business development in addition to client work. The 40 hours is prob mentioned because some contracts cap the consultants at 40 hours per week, but you're expected to spend a couple more hours on IC or business development.

The pay is nowhere near McKinsey or BCG, and is largely driven by consultant rate categories set by the government. Yet most of our clients think we are overpaid. Things like the shutdown can also negatively impact pay/job security.

Projects are generally longer engagements - often a year or more.

What else do you want to know? I'll try to answer any questions you may have

So could you go into more detail regarding what a management consulting project would entail with the government?

I.E. would an example be: XYZ agency hires Booz or Deloitte to figure out what is the optimum mix of contractors vs. direct hires for a particular program or function?

I guess I have a tough time understanding how management consulting is effective in a federal setting.

It isn't like DHS can 'spin off' the secret service or do a divesture for instance because they are 'underperforming'.

I'm just thinking of the types of engagements McK or BCG do for private sector and struggle to figure out the equivalent for government. things like "go to market" strategy, optimum marketing mix, M&A/spinoff, segmentation, profit maximization, growth plans, entry/exit scenarios, PE due diligence - I don't get what the federal equivalent would be.

Is it just mostly cost/budget optimization/human capital allocation work done for specific agencies?

I'm the poster you quoted. I work in this area though not GMC and more of a creative type (so not 100% sure of all the business terms - sorry). Capabilities that come to mind that I have collaborated with for our clients include strategic planning, org design, human capital (selection, workforce planning, leadership development), learning/training development, communications (branding, marketing campaigns i.e., outreach to veterans for VA, social media strategy, etc). There are a lot if efficiencies-related assignments, BPR, CPI, process modeling. Does that help?

[Anonymous]

I'm another one of the posters you mentioned.

I've been doing government consulting for about 8 years pre and post-MBA.

Some example engagements on the government side of the house might be identifying cost-avoidance/cutting opportunities, setting up a shared service organization in IT or finance, doing operations and supply chain optimization work, setting up an PMO, developing an IT strategy (cloud, mobile, etc), developing an HR transformation plan, developing cost and operational predictive models, etc. You might also see opportunities where the agency may be offering a new public service and a consulting firm is be brought on to frame how that's done. Many of the strategy engagement are for business line leaders or C-suite offices and are short in duration, but if you do a good job, the agency can keep you around for years. There are many, many more government contracting engagements that are purely staff-augmentation where you're basically a government employee doing regular government employee work, albeit at a higher cost to the government.

As previous posters mentioned, the rates are much lower than you see on the commercial side and the salary lower, but the hours and travel are better. One of the previous posters on the previous thread mentioned he/she switched from commercial to government. At some companies (I know Deloitte does this), you get to keep your commercial-side salary. I'd be curious to see if that affected staffing opportunities because a commercial-side salary might price you out of some federal consulting positions. There's also significant competition out there from large and small firms, and the government does often give preference to small, disadvantaged businesses for contracts. Sometimes you'll see large firms become subs to small firms simply so the agency can cut costs and get small business contracting credit.

McKinsey and BCG also have government practices in DC, and I think Bain just opened one, although I don't think they're very big. I believe they also do some foreign government work as well.

A few of my MBA classmates came into the government strategy consulting practice of my company expecting big, hard-hitting strategy engagements at the upper levels of government. When they found out engagements are typically agency-level and sometimes operational/transactional, they jumped ship, some even going to the commercial side. It really is more of a lifestyle choice. Change is slow in government.

[Anonymous]

OP here - thanks for the responses, that cleared it up a lot!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm another one of the posters you mentioned.

I've been doing government consulting for about 8 years pre and post-MBA.

Some example engagements on the government side of the house might be identifying cost-avoidance/cutting opportunities, setting up a shared service organization in IT or finance, doing operations and supply chain optimization work, setting up an PMO, developing an IT strategy (cloud, mobile, etc), developing an HR transformation plan, developing cost and operational predictive models, etc. You might also see opportunities where the agency may be offering a new public service and a consulting firm is be brought on to frame how that's done. Many of the strategy engagement are for business line leaders or C-suite offices and are short in duration, but if you do a good job, the agency can keep you around for years. There are many, many more government contracting engagements that are purely staff-augmentation where you're basically a government employee doing regular government employee work, albeit at a higher cost to the government.

As previous posters mentioned, the rates are much lower than you see on the commercial side and the salary lower, but the hours and travel are better. One of the previous posters on the previous thread mentioned he/she switched from commercial to government. At some companies (I know Deloitte does this), you get to keep your commercial-side salary. I'd be curious to see if that affected staffing opportunities because a commercial-side salary might price you out of some federal consulting positions. There's also significant competition out there from large and small firms, and the government does often give preference to small, disadvantaged businesses for contracts. Sometimes you'll see large firms become subs to small firms simply so the agency can cut costs and get small business contracting credit.

McKinsey and BCG also have government practices in DC, and I think Bain just opened one, although I don't think they're very big. I believe they also do some foreign government work as well.

A few of my MBA classmates came into the government strategy consulting practice of my company expecting big, hard-hitting strategy engagements at the upper levels of government. When they found out engagements are typically agency-level and sometimes operational/transactional, they jumped ship, some even going to the commercial side. It really is more of a lifestyle choice. Change is slow in government.

OP here - post financial crisis, even McK and BCG's operational/strategy mix became more and more operational. While getting a role at MBB gives you the opportunity to be staffed on interesting strategy work in a growth/high visibility industry, I think over 60% of McK's billings are for operational work these days from what I've heard - and staffing is a crap shoot when you join as a generalist.

Pure strategy shops like Monitor used to be have a tough time existing in this market.