Protiviti – “Everyone in a leadership role has clearly risen to their highest level of incompetence.”

Pros

Younger consultants are very motivated, energetic and qualified.

Cons

Andersen "back benchers" run the company. Mostly "B" and "C" players from the Andersen days are in key leadership roles. These people are clearly not fit to lead. Their goal is mainly to make up for being snubbed when Andersen imploded some 6 years ago. As the saying goes - "The ablest swimmers leave the sinking ship first". Nothing left but poster children for the Peter Principle. Had it not been for SOX, Protiviti would be just another generic consulting company with no real deep skills. It's like amateur hour with a broken clock. What's most amusing is that the management team thinks they are All-stars and industry "thought leaders." Yet after 6 years of existence, no one outside of maybe Chicago and NYC has ever even heard of Protiviti. Absolutely no business development capabilities. Every opportunity is met with an "over-engineered" approach to solving a clients challenge.

Advice to Senior Management

Start listening to what clients want instead of telling them what they need. Pretty simple consulting 101 skills. Eliminate the whole "sales credit" BS. This way of compensating people for their selling abilitiy is nothing more than a scam for the people that latch onto a cash cow client. Just ask any "star" who lost their client and now has to do real business development. Chances are the the "star" is floundering because they never really had any ability to develop business or maintain a real trusted advisor role with existing clients.