How does BCG operate in order to improve business processes?
The Boston Consulting Group, or BCG as it is more commonly known, is an American company specialising in management consulting. Its Global Headquarters are located in Boston, Massachusetts, and it is part of the ‘Big Three’ consulting companies alongside McKinsey and Company and Bain and Company.
BCG was first developed in 1963 by Bruce Henderson when the Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company decided to take their hand to consulting. In fact, one of the other two members of the big three, Bain and Company, was established off the back of the Boston Consulting Group as it was established by the previous Vice President of BCG.
What makes BCG different from McKinsey?
Although there are numerous similarities between BCG and McKinsey including holding staff who are curious and hard-workers, a fast and high-performance pace, and a strong problem-solving approach. However, BCG operates on more of an individual level whereas McKinsey is more focused on producing results at a top management level and focusing on major firms rather than smaller ones. McKinsey has a ‘one firm’ approach, whereby it is expected that you are able to ask any of the 30,000 employees across the firm for help and you will be able to access it.
BCG is focused more on analytics than McKinsey is.
At McKinsey, they are more focused on structured problem solving, as well as communicating in an effective and persuasive way. BCG are less focused on the overall picture, and instead have a more focused approach. They instead search for a partnership with a client at all levels of the business, rather than just at the ceo level.
How has BCG become so successful?
At Eloquens, we were intrigued by what methods BCG use, how this allows them to differentiate themselves from other market players, and how they create real and valuable change for their clients.
According to BCG’s website, their strategy can be split into three key elements:
- The first aspect of the BCG strategy is a ‘Rich Insight into the Strategic Environment,’ which involves a comprehensive analysis into business processes. Here it is necessary to assess where profit is likely to be in future, and what combination of consumer and market choices has the greatest opportunities for adding value in relation to rival firms.
- Next, it is necessary to undergo a ‘Candid Assessment of the Business’s Real Competitive Advantages.’ which involves assessing the potential of a business based on factors including intellectual property, business costs and position in an ecosystem. Measuring the business in relation to their competitors is key so that the consultant is able to see the path that the business could possibly take to establish sustained future growth.
- The next necessary step is to complete a ‘Direct and Agile Connection Between Strategy and Execution.’ which, after assessing potential leads, considers how the enterprise can set and go about their goals. The goal of this section is to create a veritable path to establish active change within the corporation.
Evidently, BCG utilises their BCG matrix, where elements of the business are split between Stars, Question Marks, Cash Cows and Dogs.
However, even including their frameworks and strategy processes, BCG promises clients that they will provide a unique and creative process that will revolutionise the client’s business. BCG truly offers a unique experience for clients in every case as they promise to provide a unique framework for each client. Therefore they have a much more creative approach to problem solving within the consultancy sphere, pushing its consultants to think ‘outside the box’ for each problem that they face. This allows BCG to have great adaptability and better solve each problem, rather than purely taking the same approach for each client, which might work effectively for some – but create more problems than they solve for others.
For customer experience, BCG makes several pledges to promise clients the best customer experience possible.
This, in BCG’s words, means to ‘Measure business impact’, ‘Innovate the customer experience – from scratch’, ‘Deliver customer journeys – front to back’, ‘Activate a customer-first culture’, ‘Syncronize and unify customer engagement across channels’.
How can your business become more like BCG?
At Eloquens, we are always trying to allow businesses to acquire the skills that highly successful enterprises have implemented to allow them to achieve improved results for their bottom line.
In fact, we have an entire category on our website that is dedicated to the BCG framework, as linked here.
Discover how you can get started…
Interested? Check out a few examples of Best Practices on Eloquens.com below
Lillian Wilcox
Marketing and Author Acquisition Officer
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