Simon-Kucher & Partners Reviews

Pros

Amazing culture and life experience. Continuous training and climbing the promotion ladder. The company strongly promotes a positive work environment. Smartest and nicest people I have worked with who are always there to help. As a strategy consultant you are looking for three things - Interesting projects, creating real life impact, and engagement with the C-suite. You will get to experience all three here on a regular basis. Company talks a lot about valuing the entrepreneurial spirit of employees and they actually mean it. You get to participate in business development and overall strategic direction of the firm from very early on.

Cons

None I can think about except for typical consulting stuff such as travelling and long hours time to time.

Pros

Some interesting projects although most are standard engagements Many smart, friendly people with diverse backgrounds Global exposure Pricing and healthcare expertise

Cons

Below market salary with broken incentive structure Consistently poor work-life balance in many teams/clusters due to partner tendencies, constant turnover, inability to recruit, and lack of investment in support systems/ people Moral often very low. Managing partner emailed all consultants to request higher rating on Vault survey due to the known issues.... SKP’s ranking still fell

Pros

Opportunity to try foreign office, good projects, some good people

Cons

Poor leadership, employee turnover, hierarchical, salaries low for field

Pros

There are only a few upsides in the LS division but below is my fair assessment. Note that many of the items below are not specific to SKP. You can easily find that in other life science consulting companies. 1. As a known leader in pricing and market access, SKP has good recognition in this field. Consultants can develop pricing expertise by working on projects. However, there are plenty of other consulting companies work on P&MA (and many other functional areas) 2. Many of the projects have international exposure. Consultants have the opportunity to collaborate with colleagues in other countries and learn about their healthcare systems 3. Most of the colleagues at the consultant level are reasonable and friendly people. I wish the same thing can be said to most of the managers and partners

Cons

Overall, there are serious management issue in the LS US division. Consultants are overworked and underappreciated. I echo another review below citing that he/she honestly didn’t know anyone who is truly happy at SKP. 1. Alarmingly high turnover rate: - While the consulting industry has a high turnover rate, the rate of people leaving at SKP is alarmingly high. It is very rare for people to stay much longer than 2 years. Some people stayed because they don’t have a choice (e.g., on work visa). In my time of ~2 years at SKP, about 70% of the people who joined on or before my time have left - Be ready for the frequent “purges”. Competent consultants are laid-off with no warning and no explanation. People chat about the lay-offs in the office but the partners pretend nothing has happened - Most of the people who left the company have joined other consulting companies. This should be a good indicator of SKP’s culture relative to its competitors - Frequent turnover results in a loss of knowledge. There are only a handful of people that stayed long enough to help answering questions and transferring knowledge 2. No transparency and self-centered management: - Promotion is based on favoritism over meritocracy. Some people are on a “fast-track” because they manage up well. If you are not a partner’s favorite, be ready to accept limited opportunity - There is a clear culture of covering up. In addition to people being laid off with no explanation or acknowledgement, management actively discourage employee from writing critical reviews of the company. I specifically recalled a director telling consultants not to write negative reviews on Vault during a company meeting - As mentioned by other reviews, most partners don’t have any interest in the wellbeing of the consultants. The relationship is highly transactional. They only care about whether you have done all the work on time 3. Some LS partners have serious communication issues - Some partners cannot communicate their thoughts clearly. Once, a partner was unsatisfied the direction where the team was going but could not offer any specific guidance when asked by the team. Another time, a partner discredited an analysis done by the team without offer any explanation - Partners are also not always on the same page. There was a famous incident where partners were yelling at one another in office in one evening over the work culture and consultant’s stress at company. Judging by the number of people who left after the incident, it is unfortunate that the status quo side has prevailed 4. Difficult work-life balance from time to time - Work-life balance are sometimes manageable but do expect frequent late-night and weekend work, depending on your projects. I frequently had to work late at night and once worked in the office until 1:30 am on a Sunday - Project staffing has some serious issues. Although consultants are expected to be staffed on two projects at a time, people are frequently staffed on more than two projects because of the lack of availability. In addition to project work, consultants are also expected to help with proposals, which are frequently urgent and given on a short notice. Sure, you can say you don’t have time but good luck with becoming a favorite of a partner - The worst part of this is your effort is not proportional to the recognition you received. You are expected to overwork and may be questioned if you raise any concerns. I was staffed on three projects at a time, all took a substantial amount of my time. When I raised my concern to the partner, the response I received was: “So what’s the problem? Don’t you have teammates?” 5. No emphasis of professional development - The initial one week STEP training is very superficial. Some of the topics covered were useful but the majority was irrelevant. A more proper training on the healthcare systems and industry-specific knowledge would have been helpful but it was glossed very briefly - Although the company provides additional training modules as part of consultant’s professional development, very little emphasis is placed on these trainings. I was signed on to take some mandatory trainings but every time right before the training, the partner of my project would just take me off the trainings, saying my time is needed for the project. Therefore, my trainings kept being postponed and I ended up never taking those trainings 6. Mediocre exit opportunity - Because of the nature of SKP projects, you rarely have exposure with clients and hence, you have limited exit opportunities. This applies to the project managers as well. At best, the team members are onsite for the kick-off and final, and are on the weekly call with the client contact. This simply is not enough opportunity for you to get to know client and vice versa. Unlike other companies where transitioning into industry is simple because of the client exposure, you will have to make your own case when you are looking for exit opportunities from SKP - Because of the brand name of SKP, you are also confined to the pricing and market access functions. It is great if this is the career you want but if not, you will have to create your own opportunities