Company: PwC
Date: 2015-12-23
Overall rating: 1/5
Employment status: former

Advisory is really the audit practice in disguise
Pros: The IT Support is really good - the laptop, 3M privacy filter, phone support and phone service (free phone service for everyone) are good.

The pay was good - but then again - I was hired away from another firm and had other offers on the table

PwC believes in only being on-site when you need to - that helps minimize travel
Cons: I have worked at another large consulting firm and i have my MBA - so I have a bit of an idea what consulting is about.

Consulting is about helping clients understand how they can help improve their business.  Usually that improvement can be traced back to a financial improvement in the balance sheet, income statement, or statement of cash flows.  In order to do that - you need to understand a client's business - you need to understand which levers affect the successful implementation of their business plan.

But not at PwC - at PwC - learning about a client is all about lip service.  PwC's consulting is really all about improving the client's ability to score higher on their next audit.  

Now they don't come out and say that is the plan - but let me explain how it works.  When you come onto a project - the first thing they'll do is perform a gap assessment against a pre-existing gov't framework (SOX, PCI, ISO, NIST, etc.).  Then they propose a roadmap to improve that score.  

That is not true consulting - PwC has basically said that your business will operate better if you merely improve your audit score.  PwC does not branch out from there - they do not trace their recommendations back to an improvement in a company's financial statements. 

The reason that they consult in this manner is because it is defendable - the usual comments I heard there were "we have a 180 year record of doing it this way," "clients pay for our tools" (funny I thought that client paid us for improvements to their business, and my personal favorite "how can clients believe our recommendations if they are not tied to a gov't framework."

Ok - let's look at other areas

1.  Their training is a joke - there is no on-going training - unless you count a 2-3 day promotion "training" session where they go around saying "we are in a category of one."  I'm not saying that training is the only way you learn - but at each level - PwC should teach its employees "this is how we tackle problems at this level"

2.  They cannot grow their own people - hence why they buy companies every 20 seconds

3.  They have zero ability to execute - heck I saw them try to execute on an internal project and it was awful.  You had 3-4 partners with over 20 years of experience each and they could not get an internal initiative off the ground

4.  They are horrible at integrating acquired companies - 3-4 years later - acquired companies are still referred to by their parent name.  PRTM, Diamond Consulting, Booz and Co.   In effect they buy companies, slash their training, and use those people until their skills are gone

5.  Deliverables are reviewed 800 times (which is good) - too bad the original decision tree or storyboard at the beginning of the project (these set the tone and direction for the project) are never checked

6.  Their PTO is a joke.  You officially get 22 days a year (for mgr's and higher) - but 3 of those are immediately taken away for a christmas shut down.  In effect I only have 19 days of PTO.  I'd rather go somewhere else that has more vacation.

7.  They are all about appearance and not content.  This is why they practice presentations a million times - but they can't answer how their recommendation will improve the business

8.  People from acquired companies leave in droves - The people from Booz and Co / Strategy& left almost immediately after the acquisition.

9.  I have never seen a company that is so focused on not teaching their employees real skills.  PwC loves to say we are strategic - not tactical.  Too bad that sometimes you need tactical skills to pull off certain types of analysis, or to validate (sanity check) that your high level recommendations can actually be performed or add value to the company

10.  PwC was unable to define what "We are strategic meant" in real terms.  The best I could figure out was that they mean - we work with C-level executives.  No where did they say - we are strategic - meaning that we help C - level executives understand where they need to invest their money to support future growth opportunities or to improve productivity (in effect spend less money on internal operations).