Management Consultancy In Thailand

[Introspection]

I'm about to start with a company called Accenture in management consultancy.

Are there a lot of oppportunities for farangs in this line out in Thailand and what sort of salary should I expect if I was to relocate out there rather than be on the usual 3-month contract after going a bt further up the ladder? any particular areas that are more or less in demand?

Edited October 18, 2006 by Introspection

[eljeque]

Take a look at the International Executive Recruitment firms that are located in Bangkok. They would give you a far better idea. If you wanted to leave after a short period of time with yuor company, other firms might wonder if you are not pleased about working with Thais, and might be a bit cautious.

YOu must alos think about your knowledge of the whichever specific industry you are involved in as it functions in Thailand. Call it: Country Specific Knowledge.

Have you read much on the country yet? I believe it would really be in your best interests to read as much on the country as you can prior to coming here. It is also beneficial to learn as much of the language as you can. ALthough in an international company, many of the upper level workers will speak English, the more Thai you know, the more you will be respected.

Good luck

[Casanundra]

You would probably be better off setting up a a management training school offering master classes in certain management subjects that are pretty much in their infancy here. Some ideas off the bat would be:

IP Law, Taxation Law, IT and Technology Law, Business Process Re-engineering, Purchase Ledger systems, Supply Chain Management etc...

That sort of thing... but the key is to be adding value and knowledge to the Thai's

[samran]

I'm about to start with a company called Accenture in management consultancy.

Are there a lot of oppportunities for farangs in this line out in Thailand and what sort of salary should I expect if I was to relocate out there rather than be on the usual 3-month contract after going a bt further up the ladder? any particular areas that are more or less in demand?

Ah, Accenture.....

Where are you starting with them? Here in Thailand or somewhere else?

Starting salaries for grads here are about 30K for a company like that. Not sure if they are hiring too much these days though. Where I work seems to be a lot of ex-Accenture people.

The Thai office seems to be a source of cheap labour for the rest of the region. Train the thai staff up a bit, pay them peanuts, and send them to work in OZ or singapore.

[Gerry290]

if its Accenture, be prepared to work long hours.

I know a few guys in Ireland who work in Accenture in the IT consultancy area, and they work them 12 hour days and more.

Great company to build up your experience in, and in time if you climb the ladder you will be well looked after, but they will get their pound of flesh out of you for your first few years. but hey...if your ambitious and a hard work....that should be no issue for you!

In fact I think your lucky to get a job with a company of the calibre of accenture.

They would not give me a job, back about 10 years ago. In ireland, you have play Rugby and have a posh accent to get a job with them, back then they were called Andersen Consulting. and they took on the best of the best uni grads. its was a great thing to get a job with them back then.

[Introspection]

Yeah it's Accenture in th UK i'll be working with. The work-life balance is something that's an issue in most consulting jobs especially early on in the career, but I don't mind as it's generally rewarded well financially and in terms of career progression.

I'm more curious about further down the line when I have experience. Would there be a lot of opportunities in Thailand in other consulting companies and what sort of money are folk being paid? I couldn't see myself living in London forever and had always wanted to settle in Asia.

[thaihome]

After about 10 years or so experience, the goal would be to be transferred to Asia on full expat package. With this, you get your full home country salary, overseas uplift (20-40%), housing allowance, car/driver, yearly paid home leaves, and if you have kids, paid education. If working in high cost area, such as Singapore, Shanghai, or HK, you also get a cost differential allowance.

There are thousands of expats throughout Asia working on these types of packages. You can't get rich anymore like the "Good ole days", but it is a nice living.

TH

[Introspection]

Yeah that sounds exactly what I'm after, glad to hear there are opportunities for expats there and obviously appreciate that it's only with expertise in your field that you would get sent there.

I've already expressed an interest in doing a VSO project with them out there which would be great too.

Thanks for the help.

[samran]

Yeah it's Accenture in th UK i'll be working with. The work-life balance is something that's an issue in most consulting jobs especially early on in the career, but I don't mind as it's generally rewarded well financially and in terms of career progression.

I'm more curious about further down the line when I have experience. Would there be a lot of opportunities in Thailand in other consulting companies and what sort of money are folk being paid? I couldn't see myself living in London forever and had always wanted to settle in Asia.

I've worked for them in a previous life and I still have mates who do.

A few tips: make sure you know what you want to get out of it, otherwise you'll be bouncing all over the place gaining no real marketable skills. If you want to do SAP for example, the let HR know. If you have a mentor, use the relationship. If they are useless, junk them and get a new one.

I know mates who have been to India, China and Hong Kong after about 5 or 6 years in, but not Thailand unfortunately. Also, quite of Brits use it as a way to migrate to OZ...and vice versa. Funny little world!

[Introspection]

Thanks, I hadn't considered that actually but I'm sure I'll find out quite quickly which areas I'm really interested in. Human Performance is where I'd like to specialize in after a period of time.

Any industries/service lines that are particularly relevant for Asia?

[steveromagnino]

Thanks, I hadn't considered that actually but I'm sure I'll find out quite quickly which areas I'm really interested in. Human Performance is where I'd like to specialize in after a period of time.

Any industries/service lines that are particularly relevant for Asia?

I think you'll find quite quickly that you can establish what the big earning centres are, and then you'll see what areas can be best to concentrate on. I've always felt being a big fish in a small pond is the best way to extract good billings; and thus consulting on general strategy was never my thing, as there are many fish far bigger and far smarter than me.

I've had to listen to some Accenture presentations (also known to all attending as the lots of shaded 3D oval bubbles presentation) and I think in the lwo to mid level you'll struggle to outperform a Thai in value for money to the client unless you have specialist expertise; my impression is that things like supply chain management and whatever are bread and butter to most management consultants but Accenture are cheaper than some others, so SCM might be a good concentration. By the time 10 years are up, you'll be competing against Thai graduates that have a solid western education and whatever, so who knows might be a little tough.

If you have that specialist knowledge in 'something' then it also means you could easily leave accenture and go to some other crowd with that knowledge too. As someone else said, country specific knowledge, or get into management consulting on your own and traning; however Thai clients place some importance on reputation, so pull someone out of McKinsey and at the end of the day they are just another putz looking for work with a nice CV.

As an example of the sort of thought process, in Thailand being a place where lots of things are manufactured, some sort of supply chain management might actually be useful, especially if it was in a growing area like say auto parts, so develop expertise to be the guru of emerging markets engine supply chain management (I have no idea of whether this is actually the case, and no idea how you would learn anything about making stuff like this in the UK, but that is the sort of thought process).

Not sure that HR is the way to go, always struck me as a dollar wasted being that I have yet to meet anyone anywhere that consulted on HR that was any good. However, getting good at workplace restructuring might be one area; lots of potential fun in laying people off which always is easy money out of a client. Watch your back though, that was my first fun job out of university to map out staff requirements and ended up resulting in 200 people getting made redundant. Oh yes, great fun indeed.

Biggest thing is to try to find a good mentor who can guide you on how to get knowledge in emerging markets with manufcturing export led economies; link in with a few good clients and you'll be set. Alternatively, get a solid grounding in several areas and you might end up making a good import GM/Biz dev type guy.

Good luck.

Edited October 20, 2006 by steveromagnino

[samran]

Just to add to Steve's post.

The area you are wanting to go into when I was there had a reputation at being at the 'touchy feely' end of things, something that is hard to quantify from a business perspective.

In Thailand, I don't think the HP aspect of things has really taken off. The mindset to a large extent is, get them cheap and pack them in. Lay them off when you don't need to. In otherwords, touchy feely hasn't arrived in Thailand yet.

You might get yourself in the position where you get to be some sort of HR guru, and then get posted out here as a regional manager, but that would require you to hitch your cart to a company at some point.

[steveromagnino]

Just to add to Steve's post.

The area you are wanting to go into when I was there had a reputation at being at the 'touchy feely' end of things, something that is hard to quantify from a business perspective.

In Thailand, I don't think the HP aspect of things has really taken off. The mindset to a large extent is, get them cheap and pack them in. Lay them off when you don't need to. In otherwords, touchy feely hasn't arrived in Thailand yet.

You might get yourself in the position where you get to be some sort of HR guru, and then get posted out here as a regional manager, but that would require you to hitch your cart to a company at some point.

Every company I have worked for has either laid off the HR department in entirity at some point, or simply didn't have one.

I can see a day when hopefully the HR time wasters are put out to pasture and all shot; the only useful things in HR are recruitment, monitoring and low level training; everything else the line managers can do. Otherwise employees can be empowered to look after themselves.

I guess some sort of appraisal and performance management system would be the best bet; although I think atually doing something constructive rather than talking rubbish is a better thing to concentrate on :-)

[samran]

I can see a day when hopefully the HR time wasters are put out to pasture and all shot; the only useful things in HR are recruitment, monitoring and low level training; everything else the line managers can do. Otherwise employees can be empowered to look after themselves.

I'd love to see that day too Steve. When the revolution comes my friend...

Unfortunately, they 'smarter' of the HR types have turned themselves into senior management lapdogs, the tools of destruction and management control to be applied to the rest of the firm, rather than themselves.

Being all buddy buddy with the big boss, they are protected, and I have noticed, have not done too badly at giving themselves above average pay rises.

[Introspection]

Steve and Samran, you both raise some really interesting points and i think the best thing for me to do would be to express and interest in Asia from the outset when I start at Acc. and do my own research on emerging markets.

It's interesting what your saying about the HR side of things and lay-offs though as Accenture HP were, as far as I'm aware, responsible for hugely downsizing BT's HR and reducing the complexity of various other companies HR.

With what your saying in mind it might be the way to go as often what HP at Accenture involves is automating HR processes and reducing the need for large complex HR processes (instead using technology) which, based on your thoughts on Thailand, is what businesses would want here. Do you see what I mean?

[samran]

thats not quite what I am saying.

My point is, HR will protect themselves to the extent that they'll use the Human Performance people to come in and downsize everyone else...except themselves.

Then they'll turn around to senior management and say: "see, job well done". Human Resources stikes again by improving efficency...everyone's but their own.

[steveromagnino]

It's interesting what your saying about the HR side of things and lay-offs though as Accenture HP were, as far as I'm aware, responsible for hugely downsizing BT's HR and reducing the complexity of various other companies HR.

With what your saying in mind it might be the way to go as often what HP at Accenture involves is automating HR processes and reducing the need for large complex HR processes (instead using technology) which, based on your thoughts on Thailand, is what businesses would want here. Do you see what I mean?

You are onto something there; the keys to being a good management consultant are threefold:

- get in tight with someone senior who will do what you say, and ideally earn their respect and in Asia, their friendship and trust, and also trusted confidante status

- find a suitable scapegoat and repeatedly blame them or their department for most of the problems in the company, then immediately deliver benefit to the bottom line by laying them off - laying off people is always a good one, as it usually takes at least a year before the effect of what they really actually did is felt by the company. There is a slight deviation to this where you can repeatedly blame one group but a little unconvincingly so that senior staff don't agree, then more convincingly fire another smaller/lessor group ; the added benefit of this approach, is if anything goes wrong with implementation, you can then blame the first group with an 'I told you so' smug grin

- act like a consultant onsite: create as many powerpoint presentations as is humanly possible, with complex charts and (if you are at Accenture) you must use lots of arrows and oval shapes with shading and quadrants; note that if you leave Accenture and go somewhere else you will need to learn how to make your presentations look like that company's except for BCG where everything can be animal stuff; anytime any one suggests something outside your scope, dump the idea into the mysterious 'phase 2', most importantly always begin to ask the client to do something for you using this exact phrase 'can you just do this for me, it will only take a minute....' then while you are enjoying martinis with the boss, and some poor sucker about to be fired just from being in the wrong dept is working until 11pm to do some pointless time in motion study, right at that moment.... you are ready to be a consultant.

More seriously, being able to automate and eliminate HR departments through decent control is a guaranteed money spinner, because almost everyone hates their HR departments worldwide. Specifically, if you were to learn about automated payroll systems, semi automated recruitment, climate surveys and appraisals, that would stand you in good stead.

Mind you, I just did all those things at my major client, so it isn't like it is rocket science. Plenty of people capable of doing this stuff, however if you can do my 3 steps well enough, then I am sure you will be beating clients off. Well, beating them off with a stick. You can beat off clients if you want, there is another sub forum for that sort of stuff For some big companies here with 10,000 people the ability to reduce HR costs just a little is MASSIVE business for them.

p.s. As a management consultant, perhaps you can explain to me, why is a bad business a 'dog' in the BCG matrix? Dog is a man's best friend. Convince me, and Samran will get you a job. Maybe.

p.p.s. Yeah right.

[steveromagnino]

thats not quite what I am saying.

My point is, HR will protect themselves to the extent that they'll use the Human Performance people to come in and downsize everyone else...except themselves.

Then they'll turn around to senior management and say: "see, job well done". Human Resources stikes again by improving efficency...everyone's but their own.

Yep, I totally agree. The only way to do this is to win a CEO's trust, and convince them to do a project such as HP while at the same time surrepticiously examining HR dept efficiency, and setting the stage to get rid of them all.

Shum hamburger chainsh yush frozen hamburger meat. But a Wendeysh all our hamburgersh are made from fresh beef. It is simply amazing what a memory I have for old Kiwi advertising. And no HR department has even found me a job based on that. Useless, the lot of them.

[Introspection]

p.s. As a management consultant, perhaps you can explain to me, why is a bad business a 'dog' in the BCG matrix? Dog is a man's best friend. Convince me, and Samran will get you a job. Maybe.

p.p.s. Yeah right.

Hmmm, because a dog has little in the way of independence and relies upon other people for almost everything, something that is definately not desirable in a business. Can i get a job now?

I actually applied to BCG but they don't process their applications till another month or two so If they give me an interview, I'll ask!

[steveromagnino]

Hmmm, because a dog has little in the way of independence and relies upon other people for almost everything, something that is definately not desirable in a business. Can i get a job now?

I actually applied to BCG but they don't process their applications till another month or two so If they give me an interview, I'll ask!

Not a bad effort :-)

McKinsey is the one you want to go for if you can; although their outfit here in Thailand is a dog in the true sense of the word; Samran, do BCG do much work in the developing markets? Accenture is a bigger player, I think you'll possibly enjoy it there :-)

If not, you can always move to Australia and work down there, or perhaps move somewhere nice.

[samran]

p.s. As a management consultant, perhaps you can explain to me, why is a bad business a 'dog' in the BCG matrix? Dog is a man's best friend. Convince me, and Samran will get you a job. Maybe.

p.p.s. Yeah right.

Hmmm, because a dog has little in the way of independence and relies upon other people for almost everything, something that is definately not desirable in a business. Can i get a job now?

I actually applied to BCG but they don't process their applications till another month or two so If they give me an interview, I'll ask!

You've gotten us started on HR departments.....don't get us started on BCG. Arrogant, overpaid and useless <deleted>.

If you want a job with them, prove to them you are a prick and they'll hire you on the spot.

Reminds me of the time while at the university job fair the head BCG guy in Melbourne came in to tell us about the wonderful restructuring work that they do. Help companies become more profitable etc etc etc. They told us about the wonderful 'strategy' techniques that they employ to do the job which magically can help everyone.

Just so happened that the head of BCG in Melbourne at the time was a major shareholder in a 'upmarket' shopping 'experience' on Collins St. It also just so happened that that store was losing money at a rate of knots.

I was so tempted to ask him in front of 300 odd eager young final year students "so what if I had a money losing, public relations disaster of a shopping store in central melbourne? What would you do to turn things around".

However, I didn't say anything, and it has been one of my life's major regrets......

[samran]

[McKinsey is the one you want to go for if you can; although their outfit here in Thailand is a dog in the true sense of the word; Samran, do BCG do much work in the developing markets? Accenture is a bigger player, I think you'll possibly enjoy it there :-)

The Thai govt organisation I used to work for hired BCG once.

If you include shoving useless western orthodoxy down peoples throats, then yeah they do work in emerging markets. Strategy is useless, as they have no idea about capacity building.

In my opionion, the PWC's of the world do better work in emerging markets work. ATOS Origin also do emerging markets work. Perhaps the holy grail for me would be emerging markets group, a deloitte off shoot based in washington DC.

They really cross the public private divide which you need in this part of the world.

But now, we are talking about developmental economics, which is a bit off what the OP wanted.

[Introspection]

Not a bad effort :-)

McKinsey is the one you want to go for if you can; although their outfit here in Thailand is a dog in the true sense of the word; Samran, do BCG do much work in the developing markets? Accenture is a bigger player, I think you'll possibly enjoy it there :-)

If not, you can always move to Australia and work down there, or perhaps move somewhere nice.

Unfortunately my lack of Oxbridge MBA kind of rules me out of Mckinsey & Bain etc., but I'm really happy to have got the job with Accenture and my friend who works there said they're currently trying to expand in Asia so if thats what I'm interested in it's definately a good company to be with.

[steveromagnino]

You've gotten us started on HR departments.....don't get us started on BCG. Arrogant, overpaid and useless <deleted>.

Just so happened that the head of BCG in Melbourne at the time was a major shareholder in a 'upmarket' shopping 'experience' on Collins St. It also just so happened that that store was losing money at a rate of knots.

I was so tempted to ask him in front of 300 odd eager young final year students "so what if I had a money losing, public relations disaster of a shopping store in central melbourne? What would you do to turn things around".

However, I didn't say anything, and it has been one of my life's major regrets......

Absolute classic. You should have asked him. Maybe you can ring him up and ask him now, it isn't too late :-)

I recall one firm I worked for had what they called the BCG approach to downsizing.

1. Line everyone up alphabetically

2. make everyone number off 1 -2 3 1 2 3 etc

3. Group all the 3s together and tell them they are fired

4. Divide the annual salary bill of all the 3s in half, and charge that to the client