#4 Booz Allen Hamilton – an overview of the top four consulting firms 2008

Organisation type

Private company

Headquarters

McLean, Virginia, USA

Key people

Dr. Ralph Shrader, Chairman and CEO

Other key people

Size

19,000 employees in 115 offices across six continents

Revenue

$4 billion (2006)

Expertise

Main expertise is strategy and technology consulting, in commercial and government sectors.

Mission

To deliver results that endure.

Operational structure

Firm’s services are broken into strategy and leadership, organization and change management, operations, innovation, sales and marketing, and information technology.

Clients

After WWI, Edwin Booz increasingly used his ties to Washington and the public sector, establishing a tradition of government service that continues at Booz Allen to the present.

Booz clients also include the world’s largest corporations and emerging growth companies from every industry sector and every country.

Culture

Client confidentiality is important at Booz Allen and the firm doesn’t typically publicise the names of clients.

The firm is said to have a very non-hierarchical open structure which fosters a culture of team work and cooperation.

Booz Allen consultants typically get heavy workloads and travel is a fairly regular thing. Consultants at Booz Allen would generally be out-of-town four days at a stretch, with Fridays back at the home office.

Promotions are up-or-out, you get promoted upwards or asked to leave.

Publications

Since 1995, the firm has published strategy+business, a magazine for business executives.

Brief history

1914 Founded in Chicago by Edwin G. Booz. Booz believed that companies would be more successful if they could call on someone outside their own organizations for expert advice. He is credited with being the founder of the management consulting profession.

1940 The firm was hired to help the US Secretary of the Navy with WWII preparations, marking the beginning of a longstanding relationship with the US Federal Government.

1950s The firm went global in the 1950s, with a contract in the Philippines and its first international office in Zurich.

1962 Firm changes its structure from a partnership to a privately held corporation.

1970 Booz Allen goes public with an initial offering of 500,000 shares at $24 per share.

1976 The partners took the firm private again through one of the first management buyouts to allow the firm to consider long-range investments that companies beholden to shareholders might not be able to make.

1982 Booz Allen Vice President Keith Oliver develops the concept for supply chain management working with the Dutch electronics giant Phillips.

2003 Booz Allen develops the Org DNA online self-assessment tool, enabling company leaders to better understand how the inherent traits of their organisations influence employee behaviour and affect company performance.

Nota bene

Notable intellectual contributions include the OrgDNA framework, the PERT management technique, and the product lifecycle theory.

2008 Ranked 4^th most prestigious consulting firm in the world by the Vault Guide.

2007. The firm has been recognized one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers by Working Mother magazine for seven straight years to 2007

2007. The firm has been recognised as one of Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work for two years running in 2007

Careers information

There is a strong emphasis on case interviews.

Website

www.boozallen.com