Kurt Salmon Associates Reviews

Pros

There were a lot of great people at KSA from whom I learned a lot. I was able to get a broad range of experience with a number of different clients all over the country.

Cons

Like any other organization, politics sometimes got in the way. And there wasn't much focus on making sure people had projects anywhere close to home, but that comes with the consulting gig.

Advice to Senior Management

Not really much to say. They've been doing what they do for a long time and it mostly works. Keep it up.

Pros

The group allows for very wide lattitue in pursuing personal interests and balacing personal and professional time. Excellent exposure to senior level healthcare clients.

Cons

Unclear strategy and direction, organization is in a highly reformulative mode and experience signficant changes. Stated strategic goals are articulated, however historical experience suggest this group has limited ability to implement them. There is minimal business infrastructure and no professional development within the group.

Pros

Good work life balance
Good Working environment and people
Can have interesting work projects
Very entrepreneurial spirit and encourages business development

Cons

Poor compensation
Limited career progression
Seen as a poor alternative to the big four
Will never compete with the top consultancy firms

Advice to Senior Management

Better communication of strategy
Needs clear direction, for example name has changed three times in four years
Increase compensation and career progression

Pros

Balance between professional/ private life

Cons

Lack of reputation fo the campany's brand name

Pros

Decent pay, return clients, location, co-workers

Cons

poor management training, lack of team environment,

Advice to Senior Management

Management training for mid-levels greatly needed

Pros

KSA has good people who are fun to work with. It offers a decent work/life balance. It has good reputation in its industry sectors.

Cons

Poor growth opportunities, most of the proejcts are simple and not high-impact. The company depends mostly on relationships do garner more business.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on getting high impact and strategic planning projects. Leave implementation and low-impact jobs for others. Invest in developing people.

Pros

The people who work at KSA are outstanding. To a person they are smart, talented, team-oriented, fun to be around, have good values. They're the type of people you look forward to traveling with because they're effective and get the work done while also being just a pleasure to be around.

Projects are really interesting, and because most projects are with repeat clients there's an opportunity to build longstanding relationships. There is significant opportunity to lead projects and have a great deal of client-facing time early on in your career. This is the type of culture that will expect you to take the initiative - but if you do no one will stand in your way.

Historically this has been the type of company that takes care of its employees in remarkable ways. If you have family troubles the firm will support you in trying to get on local projects or whatever you need in order to take care of personal issues. This element of the culture has engendered great loyalty to the firm and to its leadership; at the same time this piece of the culture seems to be waning. Time will tell whether the family/people friendly culture survives.

Cons

The impact of the acquisition by MCG combined with the impact of the recession took a serious toll on the culture and work experience at KSA. The MCG acquisition shifted the firm from a fairly conservative, slow growth organization to one focused on achieving a growth rate that could not be supported without changing the culture. This may have been a successful transition had the firm not been forced to lay off much of its new staff with the recession in 2008 and 2009. Leadership did a poor job of communicating post-acquisition and through the layoffs and eroded a tremendous amount of trust, creating an "us versus them" (i.e., partner versus non-partner) mentality that had never before been part of the culture. It did not help that only levels below the partner level were affected by layoffs, thus creating a top-heavy organization where the upper levels continue to generate a certain level of sales capacity and the lower levels (who actually know how to do the work) were expected to continue to deliver the projects.

Much of the manager and senior manager talent has left, which means that mentoring of new employees is either not done or is done by less experienced employees than before. With most of the partner level still intact I question the advancement opportunities that are available for staff below the partner level.

During better times management became complacent. Some of the methodologies are sorely outdated and tools unsophisticated.

Advice to Senior Management

Be mindful of the culture you are trying to create. At the time I left it seemed leadership was schizophrenic - could not decide on a direction, sought feedback from employees then went on a witch hunt for those who did not have positive things to say, over-communicated some things and under-communicated other things. You have to create a purpose for people and a reason for working with you toward that purpose, and you had an old culture that, while it has its negative aspects to, engendered great loyalty. Your new culture needs to fit with your business goals but also needs to be motivating for its employees and one they want to contribute to and build. I really hope you are successful in turning things around, for the sake of everyone (partner and non-partner) who is still there.

Pros

Very focused product line - retail and health care.

Cons

A lot of turnover in the company in the recent past. Leadership is still struggling with strategic direction for the firm.

Advice to Senior Management

Concentrate on staff retention and training.

Pros

The company is very bottom line driven. It has good market niche with very high margins. It offers good work-life balance.

Cons

The firm is undergoing an extremely painful change in its strategic focus. The firm was merged with a UK based firm over a year ago and since then it has lost most of its middle management and some partners. The firm has very turnover, of over 50%. This could hamper the mentoring new staff and future growth of the firm as it will lose clients with its best people.

Advice to Senior Management

The firm needs to focus on employees, and retraining. It needs to focus on the US market and divest from Euorpean markets.

Pros

Much better marketing and go-to-market messaging than in the past
Increasingly innovative and open to outside ideas in terms of services and market-facing activities
Strong brand and market presence
Deep knowledge of focus markets

Cons

Decreased investment in people development - recent cuts in staffing and training
Narrow definition of career progression - still a "one-size-fits-all" approach
Eroding culture - not as much teamwork or collegiality as in the past

Advice to Senior Management

Don't lose sight of the fact that consulting is a "people" business - they are the firm's only enduring asset
Be more open to outside ideas on internal firm management processes