Booz Allen Hamilton: An insider guide - Gymkhana

“Our government clients want the benefit of commercial best practices, whileour corporate clients want the special expertise we’ve developed through ourgovernment work. The tighter linkage between our business units multiplies thefirm’s power. Every team brings the full power of Booz Allen to bear on everyengagement,” a recruiter tells us. “Every commercial engagement is staffed withindustry experts and functional experts in strategy, operations, and IT. Even ifit’s a corporate strategy job, every engagement would have people with thosebackgrounds.” Still, according to most insiders, the division remains distinct.The FirmIn April 2004, one of Booz Allen’s recent initiatives, Global Assurance, becamethe global resilience natural team, a government-side group that deals with issuessurrounding homeland security for business. Booz Allen does similar work,across the firm for both commercial and government clients under what it calls“enterprise resilience,” integrating security into strategic corporate planning.Beyond security, Booz Allen is the logical choice for companies that want tosucceed in an area where the firm has earned top-dog status: working with thegovernment. “We’re seeing an increasing number of companies that want helpdeveloping a plan to do more work with the government,” says one insider.This trend is also evident abroad: “In Europe we have a growing public-sectorbusiness with some major clients in the U.K. and German governments,” saysan insider. ”This is exciting because we are doing the same type of work forthem that we do for commercial clients—and we are ahead of the game in theconsulting field in this.”Insiders see analysis, both quantitative and qualitative, as another of BoozAllen’s competitive strengths. According to one insider, “All consulting firms dothe same kind of work, though perhaps we put more emphasis on analysis andthe research behind our recommendations as opposed to just pulling them outof the sky.” Another tells us, “When we crack a problem, we really crack it. Wesweat a lot of details to get a right answer.”11