Strategy&

Last updated
Strategy&
Company typeSubsidiary of PwC
Industry Management consulting
Founded1914;110 years ago (1914)
SuccessorBusiness Research Service,
Edwin G. Booz Surveys,
Edwin G. Booz & Fry Surveys
Booz, Fry, Allen & Hamilton
Booz Allen Hamilton
Booz & Company
Headquarters New York City, New York,
United States
Key people
Peter Gassmann
(Global Leader)
Number of employees
3,000+ employees
Website www.strategyand.pwc.com

Strategy& is the strategy consulting business unit of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), one of the Big Four professional service firms.

Contents

Founded by Edwin G. Booz as Business Research Service in Chicago in 1914, the firm underwent numerous name changes before settling on Booz Allen Hamilton in 1943. [1] In 2008, it split from Booz Allen Hamilton as Booz & Company, and, in 2013, it was acquired by PwC, the largest consulting acquisition of the company's history. [2] The contract required PwC to drop the Booz name, and the unit became known as Strategy& in 2014. [3] At the time of acquisition, the company had more than 80 offices in 41 countries.

According to Glassdoor, it is the second highest-paying company for employees in the United States as of April 2017. [4]

History

Foundation and early development

After graduating from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in 1914, Edwin G. Booz developed the business theory that companies would be more successful if they could call on someone outside their own organizations for expert, impartial advice. [5] This theory developed into a new profession — management consulting — and the firm that would bear his name. Booz established a small consulting firm in Chicago, and two years later, he and two partners formed the Business Research and Development Company, which conducted studies and performed investigational work for commercial and trade organizations. This service, which Booz labeled as the first of its kind in the Midwest, soon attracted such clients as Goodyear Tire & Rubber Company, Chicago's Union Stockyards and Transit Company, and the Canadian Pacific Railroad.[ citation needed ]

At the end of the 1950s, Time Magazine dubbed the firm "the world's largest, most prestigious management consulting firm". [6]

Public listing and continued growth

In 1970, Booz Allen went public with an initial offering of 500,000 shares at $24 per share. Trading continued through 1976. [7]

In 2008, Booz & Company was spun off from Booz Allen Hamilton, in conjunction with a private equity takeover by The Carlyle Group. [8] At the time, Booz & Company consisted of the commercial portion of Booz Allen Hamilton's consulting business, as well as all consulting operations with government entitites outside the United States. After the spin-off, Booz Allen Hamilton then focused exclusively on U.S. government consulting endeavors. In 2011, however, when the three-year noncompete provision expired, Booz Allen Hamilton began building out its commercial consulting practice, focusing on technology integration and cybersecurity programs. [9]

In 2009, Booz & Company purchased Katzenbach Partners for an undisclosed sum, and has since launched the Katzenbach Center, focused on the development and application of innovative ideas for organizational culture and change. [10]

In 2012, Axon Advisory Partners joined the company to launch Booz Digital, a full-service team of strategists, designers and technologists who "help companies turn ideas into transformational digital businesses". [11]

In April 2013, Booz & Company acquired international consulting firm Management Engineers for its operations expertise and experience in industries such as manufacturing, chemicals and industrials. Through the acquisition, Management Engineers added 17 partners and 145 staff to Booz & Company, along with a market position in Germany, as well as China, the UK and the US. [12]

Acquisition and rebranding

On October 30, 2013, Booz & Company announced it would be sold to PricewaterhouseCoopers as part of a conditional merger, pending regulatory approval and the vote of Booz partners scheduled for December 2013. [13] Booz partners voted in favor on December 23, 2013, [14] and the deal was closed in early April 2014. The acquisition, and subsequent change of name from Booz & Company to Strategy&, was announced on April 4, 2014. [15] The name, pronounced "Strategy and", was widely criticized, but was required by an agreement with former parent Booz Allen Hamilton that the Booz name or variants could never be used in conjunction with a new legal entity. [16]

The firm operates in over 150 countries around the globe. Strategy& Office Render.jpg
The firm operates in over 150 countries around the globe.

Corporate affairs

Recruiting

In 2007, Booz & Company had roughly 150,000 applicants and 1033 new jobs. [17] Strategy& is the second largest recruiter at Columbia Business School [18] and the third largest recruiter at INSEAD. [19]

The firm operates on a modified version of the Cravath System, under which employees are promoted within a certain time frame or "counseled out". [20] [21]

Research

Over the years, Booz has been credited with developing some of the important concepts in business. The firm coined the terms and developed the concepts of supply chain, supply chain management, product life cycle, the PERT Chart and organizational DNA. [20] [22]

The firm publishes the majority of its research in its quarterly management magazine Strategy+Business, which in 2009 was one of just two business magazines to grow its circulation, along with The Economist. Strategy& also publishes several studies annually:

The firm also regularly publishes cross-industry research related to its four major platforms: Capabilities-Driven Strategy, Deals, Digital, and Fitness for Growth.

The Katzenbach Center at Strategy& has generated a research on the importance of fostering companies' informal organization to improve corporate performance. In a white paper entitled "Fast Track to Recovery" [27] and the book Leading Outside the Lines, [28] Booz partner Jon Katzenbach uses various case studies to illustrate the exchange between the formal and the informal elements of organizations.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PwC</span> Multinational professional services brand

PricewaterhouseCoopers International Limited is a multinational professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounting firms, along with Deloitte, EY, and KPMG.

Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any way to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants for a number of reasons, including gaining external advice and accessing consultants' specialized expertise regarding concerns that call for additional oversight.

IBM Consulting, rebranded in 2021 from IBM Global Business Services, is the professional services and consulting arm of IBM. It provides services to companies, global government organizations, non-profits and NGOs.

Booz Allen Hamilton Holding Corporation is the parent of Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., an American government and military contractor, specializing in intelligence. It is headquartered in McLean, Virginia, in Greater Washington, D.C., with 80 other offices around the globe. The company's stated core business is to provide consulting, analysis and engineering services to public and private sector organizations and nonprofits.

Bruce Pasternack was the President and CEO of the Special Olympics International from 2005 to 2007. He served on the board of directors of Codexis, a biotechnology company based out of Redwood City California, Accelrys, Inc. a software company specializing in biotechnology, BEA Systems a company specialized in enterprise infrastructure software products, Quantum Corporation a manufacturer of data storage devices and systems, and Symyx Technologies a company that specialized in informatics and automation products. Prior to being a director for public companies, he was a Senior Vice President of Booz-Allen & Hamilton Inc. for over 20 years, and the Managing Partner of the firm's organization and strategic leadership center and its offices in California as well as leading the energy, chemicals and pharmaceuticals practice.

James Lane Allen was an American businessman who was one of the founders of the management consulting firms Booz Allen Hamilton and Strategy&, a division of PricewaterhouseCoopers.

PRTM is a management consulting subsidiary of PwC. The firm's business centers on the areas of operational strategy, supply chain innovation, product innovation, and customer experience innovation.

Booz may refer to:

Diamond Management & Technology Consultants was an independent management consulting firm founded in 1994, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois with satellite offices in Hartford, Connecticut, New York City, Washington DC, London, and Mumbai. It was acquired by the British firm, PwC in 2010. Diamond was a smaller player among companies such as Mercer Management Consulting, Deloitte Consulting, and Accenture. The industry segments under which Diamond operated include consumer packaged goods, financial services, and health care, among numerous others.

Katzenbach Partners was a small American management consulting firm. In 2009 it became a part of the global management consulting firm Booz & Company.

Booz Allen Hamilton may refer to:

Adam J. Gutstein is an American business executive. He was the president, from 2004, and CEO, from 2006, of Diamond Management & Technology Consultants (DMTC) until its takeover by PWC. Gustein joined the company in 1994 as vice president. He has been a director of the company since 1999, and has held senior positions including that of chief operating officer.

<i>Strategy+Business</i> Business magazine

Strategy+Business is a business magazine focusing on management and corporate strategy. Headquartered in New York, it is published by member firms of the PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) network. Before the separation of Booz & Company from Booz Allen Hamilton in 2008, strategy+business was published by Booz Allen Hamilton as Strategy & Business since its launch in 1995. Full issues of strategy+business appear in print and digital form every quarter, and other original material is published daily on its website.

Guidehouse is an American consulting firm for businesses and government entities. It is the successor to PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s public sector business and it was acquired in 2018 by Veritas. The head office is in Tysons, Virginia.

Jon R. Katzenbach is a published author and consultant who is best known for his work on the informal organization. He is a practitioner in organizational strategies for Strategy&. He is a managing director with PwC U.S., based in New York. He is also the founder of the Katzenbach Center at Strategy&, a center of excellence in the areas of organizational culture, leadership, informal organization and motivation.

NAXION previously known as National Analysts Worldwide, is an American marketing research company that originally worked as a division of the Curtis Publishing Company. It was founded by Charles Coolidge Parlin in 1911. Donald M. Hobart, future head of the division, joined in 1923, though he ended up resigning from the company in 1928 because he desired to work on the selling side of the concept. He was asked to rejoin the company and become the head of the division in 1938 after Parlin had decided to retire. It is considered to be the "first commercial research company" ever formed. It became an independent organization in 1943 in order to "provide research services to industry and government."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arbeitskreis Börse</span> German non-profit organisation

The Arbeitskreis Börse is a non-profit organization located in Mannheim (Germany), focused on investment banking, capital markets, consulting and start-up companies within the financial technology sector. It is the oldest financial association led by students in Germany and with over 1,300 members among the largest student organizations in Germany. The Arbeitskreis Börse is dedicated to connect students interested in financial markets associated with worldwide banks and consulting firms. These include Bank of America Merrill Lynch, EQT AB and McKinsey It is organized first and foremost by students of the University of Mannheim but is receiving increasing support from students of other tertiary establishments in Mannheim.

Horacio D. Rozanski is an Argentine-born American businessman. He serves as the president and chief executive officer of Booz Allen Hamilton, a global management and technology consulting firm headquartered in McLean, VA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PwC tax scandal</span> Scandal involving firm PricewaterhouseCoopers

The PwC tax scandal is an ongoing scandal involving PwC's abuse of Australian Government secrets to enrich itself and its corporate clients.

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