(BCG) is a
Management Consulting firm founded by Harvard Business School alum
Bruce Henderson in
1963 . He left HBS ninety days before graduation to work for Westinghouse Corporation, where he became one of the youngest vice presidents in the company's history. He would leave Westinghouse to head
Arthur D. Little 's management services unit before accepting an improbable challenge from the CEO of the Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company to start a consulting arm for the bank. BCG begins mailing concise, innovative, controversial, and stimulating essays designed to stimulate senior management thinking on a range of business issues. The subject matter is chosen to be deliberately provocative, significant in implication, and relevant to the policy decisions of corporate competition. The pieces would be called Perspectives and over the next four decades they would become the vehicle for thinking that consistently challenged both classic economic theory and current business practice. Bruce Henderson referred to them fondly as "a punch between the eyes."
In 1965
Bruce Henderson thought that to survive, much less grow, in a competitive landscape occupied by hundreds of larger and better-known consulting firms, a distinctive identity was needed, and pioneered "Business Strategy" as a special area of expertise.
As his client list grew, Henderson invaded the nation's best business schools, the Harvards and Stanfords of the world. He eclipsed McKinsey as the top recruiter at Harvard, aggressively wooing its best students with high salaries and the chance to make a difference in a cutting-edge firm. He encouraged the brilliant young minds he hired to come up with innovative ideas that would dazzle hardened corporate veterans. Sometimes he seemed dazzled himself by the success of the whole business. "Consulting is the most improbable business on earth," he would say.
In 1973 Bill Bain and others left BCG to form
Bain & Company , and two years later Henderson arranged an employee-stock ownership plan (ESOP), so that the employees could take the company independent from The Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company. The ESOP itself was one of the first such plans in the USA. The buyout of all shares was completed in 1979, five years ahead of schedule.
In 1998 BCG created The Strategy Institute. Its purpose is to enrich the firm's strategic thinking by applying insights from a variety of academic disciplines to the strategic challenges facing both business and society. At the same time BCG published Perspectives on Strategy, a compilation of notable Perspectives and other short articles published in the firm's history
Nowdays BCG competes essentially with
McKinsey & Company and
Bain & Company . The Boston-based firm is among the largest and most profitable
Management Consulting firms worldwide. BCG has 60 offices in 37 countries, and its current CEO is Hans-Paul Buerkner.
The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) ranked 11th overall and third among smaller companies in FORTUNE Magazine's “100 Best US Companies to Work For” survey, based on strong employee development, a supportive culture, and progressive benefits.
BCG typically hires for an Associate or a Consultant position.
An undergraduate joins BCG as an associate, and may come from a variety of educational backgrounds. Nevertheless, the interview process for undergraduates is the same case interview process that all associates and consultants undergo, and is indeed very selective. After two years at BCG, some associates choose to attend graduate school. Those who do find that the BCG experience is highly valued and the alumni have a high acceptance rate into many of the top graduate programs worldwide. High performing associates get financial assistance for attending graduate school.
BCG recruits MBA graduates to join as consultants from the world's top business schools. With a masters/advanced degree, candidates may receive an offer to join BCG as either an associate or a consultant. Key factors include the relevance of the degree to business, leadership and work experience, and any scholarships or distinctions earned. BCG's many formal and informal training programs smooth the transition to business, management consulting and to BCG itself.
In the
1970s , the BCG created and popularized 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", and then allocate cash accordingly, moving money from
Cash Cow s toward "stars" and "question marks" that had higher market growth rates, and hence higher upside potential.
The chart was popular for two decades and "continues to be used as a primer in the principles of portfolio management," as the BCG says.
