Boston Consulting Group

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The Boston Consulting Group
Private
Industry Management consulting
Founded 1963
Headquarters Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.
Key people
Rich Lesser, President & CEO
Revenue $4.55 billion (2014)[1]
Number of employees
6,200 consultants worldwide (10,500 total staff[2])
Website bcg.com

The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is a multinational management consulting firm with 82 offices in 46 countries. The firm advises clients in the private, public, and not-for-profit sectors around the world, including more than two-thirds of the Fortune 500.[3] Considered one of the most prestigious management consulting firms in a branche-internal survey,[4] BCG was ranked second in Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work For" in 2015.[5]

History

The company was founded by Bruce D. Henderson, a Vanderbilt University and Harvard Business School alumnus. After many years in the purchasing department of Westinghouse in Pittsburgh (where pricing behavior gave him the idea of the experience curve), he joined Arthur D. Little in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He was then recruited by The Boston Company, where he founded a one-man, one-telephone consulting unit he named Boston Consulting Group.

In 1975, Henderson arranged an employee stock ownership plan, and employees took the company independent from The Boston Company. The buyout of all shares was completed in 1979.[6]

In January 2013, Rich Lesser became the sixth president and chief executive officer of BCG.

Awards and Recognitions

BCG received the top spot in Consulting magazine's 2014 "The Best Firms to Work For" ranking, released in September 2014.[7] Fortune Magazine ranked BCG second in its 2011- 2012 lists of the "top 100 best companies to work for".[8] The 2015 rankings by Fortune listed BCG as the second "best company to work for."[9] and in 2014 BCG ranked third. BCG has also been listed in Consulting magazine's "Best Firms to Work For" list every year since 2001,[10] received a perfect score on the Corporate Equality Index[11] formulated by the Human Rights Campaign for the past six years,[12] and been rated by Working Mother magazine[13] as one of the "best companies" for working mothers for the past six years.[12]

Recruitment

BCG's recruiting process is notoriously demanding, typically taking candidates through multiple rounds of case- and experience-based interviews. In 2013, career review site Glassdoor ranked BCG as the 3rd most difficult company with which to interview.[14]

Developed concepts

"Growth-share matrix"

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Growthsharematrix.png
BCG matrix of example data set

In 1968, BCG created 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" (originally "Pets"), 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.[15][16][17]

Experience curve

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The experience curve illustrates that the more often a task is performed the lower the cost of doing it will be. The task can be the production of any good or service. Each time cumulative volume doubles, value-added costs (including administration, marketing, distribution, and manufacturing) fall by a constant and predictable percentage.

BCG founder, Bruce Henderson, expounded the implications of the experience curve for strategy.[18] BCG research concluded that because relatively low cost of operations is a very powerful strategic advantage, firms should capitalize on these learning and experience effects.[19]

Advantage matrix

Lua error in Module:Details at line 30: attempt to call field '_formatLink' (a nil value). In this matrix, the two axes are economies of scale and differentiation. The four quadrants formed are called "Volume", "Stalemated", "Specialized", and "Fragmented".

Publications

Books

Perspectives

In 1964 BCG began mailing concise essays designed to stimulate senior management thinking on a range of business issues.[20] The pieces would be called Perspectives. Considered provocative ideas on business, BCG founder Bruce D. Henderson referred to them as "a punch between the eyes."[20]

Example Perspectives are:

  • "The Product Portfolio", 1970.[21][22]
  • "The Pricing Paradox", 1970.[21]
  • "The Rule of Three and Four", 1976.[23][24]
  • "Sustained Success", 1984.[25]
  • "Time-Based Results", 1993.[26]

Notable current and former employees

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References

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  6. About BCG
  7. [1]
  8. Fortune magazine, "100 Best Companies To Work For, 2011"
  9. Fortune magazine, "100 Best Companies To Work For, 2015"
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  14. Glassdoor Interview Rankings
  15. The Product Portfolio, BCG, January 1970
  16. The Experience Curve Reviewed BCG
  17. Fripp, Geoff.“Overview of the BCG Matrix” Guide to the BCG Matrix
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External links

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