BrazilAccenture, McKinsey and Deloitte top US recommendations list
Accenture has achieved the highest number of five-star ratings on Forbes’ 2019 list of the best management firms in America, with Bain & Company and Deloitte receiving the most recommendations overall and McKinsey maintaining its prestige.
Compiled in association with market research and statistics platform Statista, the 2019 edition of Forbes’ list of America’s Best Management Consulting Firms surveyed some 7,500 current partners and executives of management consultancies together with 1,000 senior executives who have worked with the firms over the past four years – arriving an index of the 216 most recommended firms.
Topping the rankings this year – which are ordered as to the frequency of recommendations – was tech-minded professional services giant Accenture, which earned 20 five-star ‘very frequently’ recommendations across the 32 sectors and functions of the survey, as well as scoring 11 four-star ‘frequently recommended’ ratings. The firm’s only absence was in the legal & litigation category.
“There’s no other company that invests billions a year in innovation the way we do,” said Accenture’s chief executive for Communications, Media & Technology Omar Abbosh, who took over the role last year. “That combination of huge investment in innovation capability and execution discipline makes us stand out from the rest… As long as we’re on the front end of innovation, I think we’ll be able to continue to serve our clients well.”
With self-recommendations excluded from the survey, Accenture improved on its haul of 17 five-star ratings last year, earning top marks in a diverse range of industries – from oil & gas and pharmaceuticals to consumer goods and internet, media & entertainment – while being very frequently recommended for a wide variety of functions such as digital transformation and human resource consulting.
The greatest number of recommendations however were given to Bain & Company and Deloitte, with both firms attracting votes in all 32 survey categories – although Bain only scored the single five-star rating, albeit in the prestigious ‘strategy’ category, alongside MBB rivals McKinsey and BCG alone. The former of those – McKinsey – earned 17 five-star ratings, up one from 2018, despite a recent period of turbulence.
Like Accenture, McKinsey was also recommended in 31 of the 32 categories, also absent from the legal & litigation column, with ‘IT-implementation’ and ‘digital transformation’ the firm’s only marks below a four-star rating. Meanwhile, McKinsey was the sole five-star rating firm in the Insurance and Mining & Metals categories – a feat only achieved elsewhere by Booz Allen Hamilton in the Aerospace & Defense bracket.
Four Deloitte’s part, the firm – now the biggest of the Big Four – earned a five-star rating in 14 categories, not once dropping below a four-star mark across all 32. The impressive performance however was a dip on last year’s survey, in which Deloitte managed five stars in a total of twenty categories – the most of any on the list. Still, the firm placed well ahead of Big Four rivals in respect to its frequency of recommendations.
