gartner magic quadrant for financial management consulting services

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Magic Quadrant for Financial ManagementConsulting ServicesPublished: 19 December 2011

Analyst(s): Jacqueline Heng

This Magic Quadrant assesses the financial management consultingcapabilities of 10 global consulting firms. Use this Magic Quadrant to identifyand evaluate the right consultants to support your finance functionconsulting needs.

What You Need to KnowDeep understanding of a client's finance organizational environment remains a key reason why afinancial management consultant is able to continue its strategic business relationship with a client.Transformation of a finance organization is strategic and typically a long arduous journey, with manypainful lessons learned between the consultant and client. A deep relationship is formed, and veryoften CFOs are reluctant to switch consulting firms. Hence, a key nuance of the market is thatrelationships intrinsically drive value, something that at times is difficult to quantify and discern.From Gartner's ongoing conversations with CFOs, we have seen that CFOs know exactly what theywant to reap from each consulting firm and will use multiple firms they have deep relationships withto help them through their transformation. New entrants will find it difficult to break into newrelationships with CFOs; however, referrals from CIOs or even purchasing officers (with whom suchupstarts may have had good prior relationships that may have yielded a deep understanding of theclient's environment from past projects) can help with an entrance into the realm of the CFO.

That said, CFOs will indeed switch their consulting firm when the following occurs:

■ The consulting firm lacks a needed deep finance understanding, as well as the ability andcapability to work out the intricacies and links with specific finance areas, such as audit, tax,risk or sustainability.

■ The consulting firm has a gap in its on-site geographic reach.

■ The customer experience or (less often) the chemistry between client and consultant was sonegative that the CFO is willing to drop the consulting firm from the next project.

■ When good senior consultants or partners with strong in-depth industry expertise move fromone consulting firm to another, the CFO may choose to move with these consultants because oftheir consulting strengths.

■ An alternative consulting firm offers a lower price for the same service offering.

Finance function clients reading this research should read the profile write-ups of each consultant inthis Magic Quadrant to match their finance function needs. Each consultant has strengths indifferent areas and should not be ignored just because it is not found in the Leaders quadrant.

Magic QuadrantFigure 1. Magic Quadrant for Financial Management Consulting Services

Source: Gartner (December 2011)

Market Overview

This is a mature market. The consultants evaluated here have deep strengths in the areas theydifferentiate and position in. Finance function clients are fully aware of how to leverage thesestrengths for their needs. These consultants all have good relationships with their clients at thesenior partner level; have good supportive programs, such as CFO forums and published thoughtleadership pieces; and have a good understanding of the marketplace. While better efficiency andcost savings are constant requirements, what has changed are the following:

■ The increasing entanglement of business issues with finance issues (for example, riskmanagement issues wrapped around finance issues).

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■ The dependency on increased use of technology (such as ERP, corporate performancemanagement and business intelligence [BI]) in conjunction with advisory services to providecost savings and efficiencies in process improvement.

■ The heavier reliance on the consulting firm to provide forums, ideas and shared dialogues forclarity of information and issues.

■ The finance environment is no longer limited to just the finance function, but it includes allaspects of the organization's different business functions as well, including information on salesand revenue from its supply chain, sustainability attitude, risk management factors, and soforth.

Geographic Spread of Deep Finance Experts and Strategic Finance "Thoughtware" AreFundamental

In the financial management consulting market, having a deep finance practice, with core financestrategic strengths, is fundamental. Although it seems counterintuitive for Gartner to state anobvious fact, consulting firms that want to succeed in the leadership space cannot ignore having alarge, consistent, well-spread-out (geographywise) and skilled finance resource that understandsand is able to interpret financial data and understands the complexities of taxation. In addition, theyshould extend their financial portfolio offerings to include an active and wider set of integratedfinance strategy offerings and an active incubator engine of finance research and knowledge to helpCFO clients and internal finance consultants be engaged in current finance issues. Clients have toldGartner that they are increasingly encountering in projects more business-oriented consultants whodo not question the data nor the methodologies enough and lack an in-depth understanding offinance.

Finance and regulatory consultants, such as KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), Deloitte, andErnst & Young, have the advantage of leveraging their deep knowledge and resources from theiraudit, finance, tax, treasury, regulatory, supply chain, sustainability and risk practices andleveraging their reputations as authorities (being advisers to regulatory authorities) on finance andrisk matters. CFOs regularly seek advice from these consultants on strategic finance and risk issuesthat are not just focused on optimizing finance function processes, especially if they do not havethese deep finance capabilities in-house. At the same time, these consultants have been investingin their optimization consulting capabilities.

Business consultants are increasingly looked upon as equally good alternative competitors,especially in the finance optimization area. Moreover, some larger clients have good in-housefinance expertise to create their own finance strategy to fill in the gaps where business consultantslack in or would have used a finance consultant firm earlier in the project.

Where business consultants are more successful in the financial management consulting space,compared with their business consulting peers, is when they have widened their finance strategyportfolio to encompass a richer finance strategy, risk and compliance experience and haveincreased on-site geographic resources to meet and support current and new client demands. Theability to grow these additional finance offerings from a supplementary offering into a stronger

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finance support offering, as well as the ability to interlink and integrate these portfolios, is a value-add for the client to experience a more complete finance consulting experience. Consultants withstrong finance tools have the ability to encase strong finance processes around it to reduce humantasks and produce efficiencies, but this cannot replace finance "thoughtware" (or thoughtleadership). The overall strength of the consulting firm's finance positioning lies in how seeped it isin strategic finance issues and what conversations a C-level finance client has with a consultant toresolve strategic finance problems that are not just focused on operational issues.

On-site geographic presence remains an important aspect for this coverage as investments flow outof mature economies from the West to the emerging markets in the East, especially in situations ofconsultants moving with clients into these new markets. Cultural and language challenges can posereal disadvantages to a consultant.

Holistic Consultants Are Needed

Financial management consultants are evolving to be more holistic, with expertise in verticals,finance, risk, business, technology know-how and, above all, knowing how to delight the client. Aspart of our research for this Magic Quadrant, client references told Gartner that the top five mostimportant factors they consider when selecting a financial management consultant are thefollowing:

■ Strong consulting competence (a combination of personal style/personal chemistry, problemdiagnosis skills, responsiveness, true advisory skills, professionalism and long-term relationshiporientation that separates a professional management consultant from someone who doesconsulting only sometimes)

■ Team members proposed for projects (this emphasizes team dynamics)

■ Value for money of contracted service (this is in the contracting terms)

■ Project management skills

■ Strong and deep business process consulting background

Additionally, the team's chemistry with the client's team is important, coupled with geographicfactors; at times, language can become a real challenge (see "Case Study: Benefits and Pitfalls ofSeeking Faster Financial Close and Better Management Information"). We can summarize this asdelighting the customer. This can be interpreted as the type and quality of the pool of consultants"needed now."

The unfortunate reality is, globally, there is a shortage of such holistic consultants available.Additionally, trying to forecast needed consulting resources and keeping talent are challenges tothis business. It is not uncommon for consulting firms to attract capable consultants fromcompetitive firms through benefits such as increased salary. Poaching, scaling up and down of aconsulting team due to the consulting pipeline and longevity of projects, and movement ofconsultants from one firm to another are the unfortunate nature of this business.

Practice leaders of consulting firms must work out the best short-term solutions within theirorganizations to plug these gaps of capabilities and make it transparent to the client; plugging


teams with large volumes of junior consultants can have its own problems. Consulting firms need tominimize the small and often annoying distractions that emerge from the use of junior consultantson client projects. During client interviews and reference checks, clients have told Gartner of how, inthe short term, consulting firms have tried to minimize this practice. Some examples include notpaying for junior consultants' time and using only senior consultants to interact with clients.

CFO Outreach and Support Programs

Incubative thinking and research are available from every consultant in this Magic Quadrant in theform of CFO support, training and outreach programs. This is actively leveraged by clients, bothCFOs and CIOs. This may be in the form of CFO research findings, roundtable forums, CFO andCIO communities, and thought leadership pieces. This has become an essential value-add for theCFO to further understand the hot topics and issues surrounding the finance function. Someprograms are more sophisticated and have been running longer than others. Gartner sees thatthese programs as being of fundamental value-add to the client and internally for the consulting firmto grow in knowledge; however, these programs can turn into marketing and sales "noise" andhence will no longer be seen as a value-add to the client but as an annoyance. Consulting firms withthese support programs need to keep from overloading the CFO with information, anddifferentiation needs to be made from one consulting house to another; otherwise, efforts in thisspace will not be valued by the CFO.

Investments in Innovation

In this Magic Quadrant, we primarily evaluate consultants on their ability to help finance functionclients discern, link, integrate and troubleshoot the upfront finance function, as well as their ability toprovide advice on how technology will impact differing business environments and not their abilityto implement technology. Hence, a leadership in finance is key to this analysis.

However, due to the heavier reliance on process efficiencies, clients are also looking at howinnovative a consultant is in its offerings. During our interviews, more than half (67%) of referencessaid that a consultant needed to have innovation capabilities to support the finance function, towhich 63% of these clients ascribed an extremely important rating. Additionally, 53% of clients saidthey would disqualify a consultant during the selection process if the consultant did not have aleading innovation capability. This is all despite the fact that, in reality, the project in question maynot have needed any form of demonstrable simulation. Clients still need to know that the consultingfirm is at the top of its game in coming up with new, creative and automated measures for the clientwhen needed. Hence, Gartner looked at this factor as a consulting firm having the ability tocontinually invest in the creation of innovation.

Market Definition/Description

This Magic Quadrant is focused on global financial management consulting project-based servicesfor North America, Europe, Asia/Pacific, Japan and Latin America. Solution implementation servicesand outsourcing are not assessed in this Magic Quadrant.

These sets of services include offerings such as:


■ Finance transformation

■ Change management

■ Performance improvement

■ Business process improvement

■ Finance advisory

■ Governance, risk and compliance (GRC) in the finance function

■ Finance and accounting (F&A) shared services

In this Magic Quadrant, Gartner is focused on finance management consulting services that beginwith the consulting phase and encompass any type of consulting directed at improving orenhancing the finance function and its performance. This research evaluates service providers onlyon their project-based finance management consulting services. It does not evaluate them on theirmanaged service or outsourcing projects or stand-alone IT implementation projects. Nor does itevaluate them in areas of corporate finance, such as tax and treasury strategy, capital markets, andacquisition and divestiture activities. However, a consultant's capabilities in these areas may impactan overall client satisfaction experience with the offered consulting services as this coverage isfocused on the finance function.

Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

This research evaluates service providers only on their project-based financial managementconsulting services. These service providers should have the following:

■ Evidence of strategies and methodologies that have been applied in client engagements:

■ At least 15 referenceable financial management consulting service deals

■ A minimum threshold of at least $220 million in overall financial management advisory globalrevenue

■ A global company, with commitment to the F&A marketplace in financial managementconsulting services:

■ Market share and clientele with presence in more than two major regions (North America,Western Europe, Japan, Asia/Pacific or Latin America)

■ An ability to serve clients globally

■ A physical financial management consulting practice present in more than two majorregions (North America, Western Europe, Japan, Asia/Pacific or Latin America)

Consultants were excluded if they did not meet the functional or revenue criteria or if they wereunable to provide adequate referenceability.

This Magic Quadrant includes all vendors in a given sector; that is, consulting services, which beginwith the assessment phase and lead into the design and build phase of a life cycle perspective.


Companies considered for evaluation in this Magic Quadrant research are those that act as advisorsand may also provide implementation services that encompass most or all levels of a solution, asoutlined above. Further, providers will also be evaluated in more detail, using a combination ofquantitative and qualitative criteria. Note that vendors cannot elect to be excluded from a MagicQuadrant, assuming they meet the inclusion criteria.

Added

This is a new Magic Quadrant. Protiviti is the new addition to the consultants assessed for thiscoverage area. The first assessment of this coverage area was a MarketScope, published inDecember 2009. This assessment was converted into a Magic Quadrant to discern thedifferentiation in strengths.

Dropped

No vendors were dropped since this is a new Magic Quadrant.

Evaluation Criteria

Ability to Execute

The following are the criteria that we considered in the evaluation of vendors' ability to execute inthis Magic Quadrant (see Table 1 for the weightings associated with each criterion).

Product/Service — Core goods and services offered by the consultant that competes in/serves thedefined market. This encompasses current service capabilities, quality, feature sets, skills and soforth, whether offered natively or through OEM agreements/partnerships as defined in the marketdefinition and detailed in the subcriteria.

Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, Organization): — Viability includes anassessment of the overall organization's financial health, the financial and practical success of thebusiness unit, and the likelihood of the individual business unit to continue to invest in the product,continue offering the product, and advancing the state of the art within the organization's portfolioof products.

Sales Execution/Pricing: The consultant's capabilities in all presales activities and the structurethat supports them. This includes deal management, pricing and negotiation, presales support, andcontracting expertise.

Market Responsiveness and Track Record: This includes the consultant's ability to respond,change direction, be flexible and achieve competitive success as opportunities develop,competitors act, customers' needs evolve, and market dynamics change. This criterion alsoconsiders the consultant's history of responsiveness.

Marketing Execution: The clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of programs designed to deliverthe organization's message to influence the market, promote the brand and business, increase


awareness of the products, and establish a positive identification with the product/brand andorganization in the minds of buyers. This mind share can be driven by a combination of publicity,promotional activities, thought leadership, and word-of-mouth and sales activities.

Customer Experience: Relationships, products and services/programs that enable clients to besuccessful with financial transformation deals being evaluated. Specifically, this includes the wayscustomers receive financial transformation consulting support, strategic account support and any ITconsulting transition support to ensure that financial transformation delivery is in lock-step with theirbusiness. This can also include ancillary tools, customer support programs (and the quality thereof),availability of user groups, service-level agreements and so forth.

Operations: The ability of the organization to meet its goals and commitments. Factors include thequality of the organizational structure, including skills, experiences, programs, systems and othervehicles that enable the organization to operate effectively and efficiently on an ongoing basis.

Table 1. Ability to Execute Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation Criteria Weighting

Product/Service Standard

Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, Organization) Standard

Sales Execution/Pricing Standard

Market Responsiveness and Track Record High

Marketing Execution Low

Customer Experience High

Operations Standard


Completeness of Vision

The following are the criteria we considered in the evaluation of vendors' completeness of vision inthis Magic Quadrant (see Table 2 for the weightings associated with each criterion).

Market Understanding: Ability of the consultant to understand buyers' needs and translate theseneeds into financial transformation relationships. Consultants that show the highest degree of visionlisten and understand buyers' wants and needs, and they can shape or enhance those wants withtheir added vision.

Marketing Strategy: A clear, differentiated set of messages consistently communicated throughoutthe organization and externalized through the website, advertising, customer programs andpositioning statements.


Sales Strategy: The strategy for selling consulting services that uses the appropriate network ofdirect and indirect sales, marketing, service, and communications affiliates that extend the scopeand depth of market reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services, and the customer base.

Offering (Product) Strategy: A consultant's approach to product development and delivery thatemphasizes differentiation, functionality, methodology, and feature set as they map to current andfuture requirements.

Business Model: The soundness and logic of a consultant's underlying business proposition.

Vertical/Industry Strategy: The consultant's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings tomeet the specific needs of individual market segments, including verticals.

Innovation: Direct, related, complementary and synergistic layouts of resources, expertise orcapital for investment, consolidation, or defensive or pre-emptive purposes. The consultant'sreputation as a "thought leader" and innovator also will be evaluated.

Geographic Strategy: The consultant's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings to meet thespecific needs of geographies outside the "home" or native geography, either directly or throughpartners, channels and subsidiaries, as appropriate for those geographies and markets.

Table 2. Completeness of Vision Evaluation Criteria

Evaluation Criteria Weighting

Market Understanding High

Marketing Strategy Low

Sales Strategy Standard

Offering (Product) Strategy Standard

Business Model Standard

Vertical/Industry Strategy Standard

Innovation High

Geographic Strategy High


Leaders

Leaders are performing well today, with a clear vision of market-building competencies to sustaintheir leadership position in this space. The consultants in this quadrant generally share superior


market understanding, vision, comprehensive methodologies and road maps. They have the globalgeographic reach to support their on-site clients and have well-communicated and well-marketedsales offerings. They also have the ability to advise regulators and assist financially stricken leadingbusinesses in crisis.

Challengers

Challengers execute reasonably well today, but they have yet to capitalize on their vision. Forconsultants in this quadrant, increased attention to sales and marketing, increasing their financeportfolio of offerings, and building up the number of on-site finance consultants will help improvefuture alignment to existing clients and new prospects.

Visionaries

Visionaries have a clear vision of market direction and are focused on preparing for that, especiallywith innovative technology solutions, but they still can improve the scale and scope of servicedelivery. For the consultant in this quadrant, time and attention to executing visionary service anddelivery plans will help it capitalize on its vision with new prospects.

Niche Players

Niche consultants typically focus on particular market segments, such as Europe-based clients,public-sector clients, or manufacturing sector or midsize organizations and often support only thoseservices that apply to those targeted segments. For this Magic Quadrant, there are no NichePlayers.

Vendor Strengths and Cautions

Accenture

Accenture's finance and performance management services cover the three domains of corporatefinance, enterprise performance management and finance operations. These domains cuthorizontally across Accenture's five vertical sectors of communications and high tech, financialservices, health and public services, products, and resources. Accenture markets its services tolarge organizations — the G1000; it does not typically target small or midsize companies. Itscorporate finance coverage is wider compared with its non-Big Four business consulting peers,because it includes tax, postmerger integration, trading operations and real estate. Accenture alsooffers a broad array of finance operations, shared services, analytics, performance managementand risk management services. It has an extensive client-facing presence globally across all majorcountry markets.

Strengths

■ Market understanding — Accenture's financial management consulting services cut acrossfinance operations, corporate finance, performance management and risk to help enterprisesestablish high-performing finance functions. Accenture does not deliver audit-related services


since it is not an accounting firm. Since Gartner's 2009 analysis of this market, Accenture hasinvested in a larger range of corporate finance services to include Accenture Real EstateSolutions and Accenture Benchmarking Solutions. It also expanded its GRC and financepostmerger integration offerings. Clients who choose to work with Accenture know what theyrequire from Accenture in terms of its ability to integrate and deliver finance, business andtechnology expertise.

■ Geography — Accenture has one of the more extensive on-site consulting teams globally andspecifically an on-site presence in the markets of Asia/Pacific.

■ Market responsiveness and track record — Accenture has proved time again that it has theability to scale up and down quickly in terms of resources on its projects. In addition, Accentureis quick in reading changes in the marketplace and quickly addresses gaps in its capabilitiesthrough building up its internal consulting teams.

■ Customer experience — Accenture's consultants generally scored high ratings for clientcollaboration. Clients cited a strong perception that Accenture was "there for them" in the longterm, and its emotional intelligence factor is strong, particularly in patience and understandingof client problems. This is one of Accenture's differentiators, cited by many clients. Thischaracteristic is something that fundamentally permeates Accenture's corporate culture acrossthe workforce.

Cautions

■ Operations — Accenture needs to build up its junior consulting team in terms of hiringconsultants who have both finance and business acumen. Its leaders need more juniorconsultants with fundamental levels of finance acumen and comfort with "finance speak."Additionally, it needs to build consulting competency in this rank of junior consultants in orderfor clients to have a consistent experience with Accenture.

■ Sales execution/pricing — When Accenture's client references were asked if they would switchto lower-priced consultants with the same offerings, their responses suggested an above-average likelihood of switching.

Capgemini

Capgemini's financial management consulting service team goes to market from a vertical industryperspective that spans both commercial and public sectors, with an emphasis on performancemanagement and analytics, operational effectiveness, and corporate service models. Capgemini'scorporate culture of collaboration and leveraging group assets from its business processoutsourcing and technology divisions is something it imparts to its engagements with clients. Thefinancial management team is part of its overall Capgemini consulting practice, the strategy andtransformation brand of the Capgemini Group. Its strong focus on business consulting is supportedby comprehensive models, methodologies and approaches like its Accelerated SolutionsEnvironment, Global Process Model, APQC benchmarking, and Finance and AccountingFundamentals solutions book. Capgemini's finance strategy offerings extend into pre- andpostintegration merger and acquisition (M&A) activities, shareholder value analysis, treasury,


business continuity, internal controls, and compliance, enabling it to support clients who look forend-to-end services.

Strengths

■ Innovation — Capgemini's capabilities in building up new innovative finance blueprints (such asthe Capgemini Global Process Model) and technology solutions is encouraging. Its pervasiveuse of analytics has received positive traction. Capgemini acquired BI Consulting Group andProsodie to build up its BI and cloud capabilities and is extending its groupwide focus on digitaltransformation toward the finance function.

■ Customer experience — Capgemini clients cite their longevity with the company because of itsculture of client intimacy. Its clients also use the word "flexible" to describe Capgemini'sstrengths locally. Capgemini's differentiation is clear in its local and flexible approach, and itsconsultants strive to delight their clients. Due to its smaller teams, Capgemini is more nimble,with fewer challenges related to escalation of processes and problems.

■ Sales execution/pricing — When Capgemini's clients were asked if they would switch to lower-priced consultants with the same offerings, their responses suggested an above-averagelikelihood to not switch.

Cautions

■ Geography — Capgemini still has a very strong European footprint, relative to its peers.Capgemini is leaner in markets outside this region, such as Australia, India and the U.S.Capgemini's on-site geographic coverage is improving in markets with its newer presence inChina and Latin America (and it's starting to build presence in markets such as the Middle Eastand Vietnam). For a sustainable long-term vision, Capgemini needs to aggressively improve itslocally based consulting presence by building and training on-site resources in new markets,particularly since European clients have a renewed focus on moving deeper into regions suchas Asia/Pacific and the Middle East.

■ Marketing strategy and market understanding — In the last few years, Capgemini has beenconservative in its approach to new markets and new offerings due to keeping a stringent eyeon the bottom line. Gartner sees annual progression in the strides it is taking, but Capgeminineeds to aggressively reinforce its marketing strategy to current and potential new clients tocapitalize further in growth markets. Capgemini needs to articulate, market, deploy, launch orpilot newly developed solutions quickly to markets outside Europe, especially since the leadingcompanies from new emerging markets are constantly seeking new solutions to leapfrogcompetition. This is even more important as investments flow away from Europe due to theeconomic situation.

■ Market responsiveness and track record — Capgemini needs to build up a structured riskmanagement strategic consulting practice to create thought leadership and tightly link riskissues to compliance and the finance function. Risk resources are available now within the firm,including enterprise risk management, anti-money-laundering and business continuity solutions,and they are strongly supported within its financial services vertical. However, building up and


integrating a core and large global team of risk competencies and resources completelydedicated to focus on risks issues in all sectors is essential.

CSC

CSC's overall corporate value proposition for finance advisory services has a strong emphasis onbusiness transformation and technology through its Catalyst methodology and approach and use ofits proprietary repeatable business solution blueprints. Like most of its peers, CSC's overallcorporate strategy is vertically driven, focused on the public sector; financial services;manufacturing/aerospace and defense, technology and consumer services, health services, andchemical, energy and natural resources. CSC's financial management consulting services cover theareas of finance strategy and transformation, monitoring and management activities, and meetingcompliance requirements.

Strengths

■ Market Understanding: Clients cited CSC's good understanding of the technology landscapeand technical skills tied to finance processes. CSC continues to strengthen its businessoperations coverage (through acquisitions such as Vixia in Sao Paulo) in core operationsservice, specifically in the insurance, reinsurance and financial services areas.

■ Innovation: CSC was ranked top when all clients were asked to rate a list of consultants basedon their strong innovation capabilities to the finance function. CSC's innovation is validatedthrough its numerous blueprint frameworks with prebuilt solutions and its capabilities inproviding and managing data-sensitive cloud services to government agencies.

■ Market Responsiveness and Track Record: CSC has the distinct advantage of drivingdifferentiation through its cloud-based activities. It can educate CFO clients, for example, andalleviate their fears concerning risk and security for finance in the cloud by harnessing itsexpertise and best practices in providing cloud services to various ministries of defensedepartments worldwide.

Cautions

■ Geography: CSC's references provided a lower rating for the company's geographic reach,which supports Gartner's view that, in terms of on-site financial consulting capabilities, CSC isnot as well-distributed across the globe when compared with its large business consulting teamworldwide.

■ Sales Execution/Pricing: When asked if they would switch to lower-priced consultants with thesame offerings, CSC's clients suggested an above-average likelihood to switch.

■ Operations: CSC needs to improve on its internal project team's collaboration with clients'internal teams as its ratings in this area were not strong. Many times, several different CSCteams will engage with a client's internal team, with consultants from finance, business andoptimization. Internal collaboration between these teams and with the client is important inproviding a smooth, easy and high-quality client interaction experience.


■ Customer Experience: CSC needs to increase its efforts on strengthening the analyticalcapabilities of its global consulting team, especially its consulting competence in terms ofdeeper finance and business understanding, as opposed to simply finance applications androte processes. Ratings from CSC clients validated this, with CSC receiving good scores ontechnical capabilities but lower scores on consulting capabilities.

Deloitte

Deloitte, as one of the Big Four accounting and finance firms, offers a full suite of finance advisoryservices. It was the only firm among its peers that did not sell off its advisory business and has beenin this area for more than 65 years. Compared with its peers in this particular area, Deloitte has thelargest consulting practice in terms of revenue size and number of full-time finance advisoryconsultants. It also has a large finance technology component. Deloitte also has global leadershipand regional structures in regard to managing a consistent and more integrated approach to itsglobal clients wanting global contracts and geographic scale. In addition, Deloitte has targetedmidmarket finance offerings in some country markets.

Strengths

■ Market Understanding: As one of the Big Four and an advisor to regulators and governments,Deloitte enjoys a reputation as having a complete finance vision, being able to advise oneverything related to finance. Its advantage of scale in terms of finance domain expertise alsoenables the company to encapsulate the emerging areas of risk and sustainability issues aroundthe finance function. Among the Big Four assessed, Deloitte is the largest in terms of size andrevenue of its financial management contribution.

■ Offering Strategy: Deloitte has deep, comprehensive financial management value maps andmethodologies (such as the Four Faces Framework, Finance Transformation AssessmentWheel, FAST methodology, Finance Transformation Diagnostic Tool and FinanceTransformation Capability Maturity Model), which its clients highly appreciate. Clients told usthat they appreciate Deloitte's vision and models and that they felt the company's consultantswere very knowledgeable and experienced.

■ Market Responsiveness and Track Record: Clients mentioned Deloitte as being flexible andadaptable. Over the years, Gartner has seen Deloitte acquiring targeted firms to eitherovercome gaps in its current offerings or for long-term strategic plans. Its most recentacquisition, Oco, is a SaaS business analytics firm.

Cautions

■ Customer Experience: Deloitte's clients provided lower ratings on cultural fit and geographicreach. On a positive note, Deloitte's competence is good; its clients repeatedly told Gartner thatDeloitte's consultants fully understood their business, requirements and culture.

■ Operations: Deloitte's clients provided lower ratings for collaboration between Deloitte'sconsultants and the clients' internal teams, although its project management skills yielded goodratings.


Ernst & Young

Ernst & Young is one of the Big Four accounting and finance firms and offers a full suite of financemanagement consulting offerings. Structurally, Ernst & Young is still a membership network ofglobal firms, but its operations are now fully integrated into its major regions of the Americas;Europe, the Middle East, India and Africa (EMEIA); and Asia/Pacific (with the exception of Japan). Itconsiders itself an expert in addressing and linking cross-functional finance issues (such as tax,treasury, performance process, regulation, risk and transaction issues) and does not look at financeissues in isolation. Ernst & Young also has strengthened its technology expertise. The company isvery clear in its message that technology implementation is not its core value proposition. Involvedwith projects relating to reporting, analytics and business performance management, Ernst & Youngexpects to be part of the implementation to see through the entire process it advises on. Thecompany services global, regional, national and midmarket clients.

Strengths

■ Market Understanding: As one of the Big Four and as an advisor to regulators andgovernments, Ernst & Young enjoys a reputation as having a complete finance vision, beingable to advise on "everything finance." Its advantage of scale in terms of the number of itsfinance domain experts also enables it to cover the related areas of GRC and emergingsustainability issues around the finance function. Its clients recognize Ernst & Young as anexpert in its field.

■ Marketing Strategy: Ernst & Young goes to market with a full suite of finance managementconsulting offerings and is clear in its value proposition that it is focused on performanceimprovement services and that it does not typically provide full-scale enterprisewide ERPimplementations for its clients. However, Ernst & Young works closely with its clients andindependent integrators and believes that the "win-win 2-provider model" that is developed withsystem integrators provides a seamless relationship to clients. The two-provider model enablesand enhances Ernst & Young's objectivity and aligns with the client's best interests byminimizing risk and structuring design and implementation discipline throughout the program.

■ Market Responsiveness and Track Record: Gartner has seen Ernst & Young responding to themarketplace through its acquisitions, such as that of ISA Consulting (Americas) and PartakeConsulting (EMEIA) and the creation of its Analytics Solutions Center. The company has alsogreatly strengthened its technology team of resources and created standardized processbenchmarking toolkits.

■ Sales Execution/Pricing: Ernst & Young clients, when asked if they would switch to lower-pricedconsultants with the same offerings, suggested an above-average likelihood to not switch.

Cautions

■ Innovation: Ernst & Young continues to invest in innovation through acquisitions of analyticsolutions. It has recently built up its Analytics Solutions team and acquired ISA Consulting(Americas) in April and Partake Consulting (EMEIA) in May to strengthen its BI, businessprocess management and data integration services in response to market demand. As this


initiative is fairly recent, Ernst & Young's potential in this area is still to be fully leveraged byclients.

■ Geography: Ernst & Young continues to build its geographic scale and confidence among itsclients in smaller countries.

■ Customer Experience: Ernst & Young needs to build up the capabilities and consultingcompetence of its junior consulting workforce. On a positive note, Ernst & Young's clientspositively cite its change management skills, and having the same consultants on the projectbolsters familiarity with the consultants, which is an added benefit.

IBM

IBM's Financial Management practice is part of its Global Business Services team. Like its overallcorporate direction, IBM's Financial Management practice is vertically focused across five majorvertical segments: communications, distribution, financial services, industrial and public sector.

Its broad finance offerings cover the areas of organization design; strategy development; processdiagnostics and improvement; cost reduction and performance improvement; and system design,development and implementation, These offerings are complemented by finance-specific businessanalytic software, F&A process outsourcing and global financing.

IBM's finance strategy has a slightly wider perspective compared with some of its businessconsulting peers to include treasury, tax, cash and credit management, and analytics.

Strengths

■ Market Understanding: IBM has improved its spectrum of CFO finance strategy offerings with agreater emphasis on risk management, operations, cost reduction, efficiencies and businessinsight. It has a comprehensive set of management tools specifically for the finance and riskofficer, which includes the areas of performance management, treasury management, and cashand credit management risk integration.

■ Innovation: IBM's technology skills and R&D from its software labs are superior and have oftengenerated new automated solutions for its clients. In terms of innovation, IBM has producedenterprise management solutions such as the Finance Transformation Workbench, EnterpriseRisk Management Workbench, CFO Dashboard, Maturity Model Tool and Country FinancialRisk Assessment.

■ Market Responsiveness and Track Record and Customer Experience: IBM's references citedexamples of its consultants being flexible, skilled, responsive, dedicated and highly motivatedindividuals. IBM has acquired finance and risk-specific software firms, such as Cognos, Clarity,OpenPages, SPSS and, recently, Algorithmics to gain domain expertise and capabilities infinance-driven technologies.


Cautions

■ Marketing Strategy: IBM's client references seem less familiar with IBM's finance strategyconsulting, with the company scoring below average in the following areas: overall thoughtleadership in finance, financial management consulting vision and finance/audit acumen.However, Gartner is aware that IBM has improved its finance strategy offering portfolio toinclude treasury and tax. IBM will need to strengthen and articulate its finance strategyconsulting service message to the market and incorporate the newly acquired finance and risk-specific software and management tools.

■ Geography: IBM references provided a lower rating for geographic reach and cultural fit, whichsuggests clients may not fully understand the distribution of IBM's finance strategy consultingresources.

■ Operations: IBM references provided a good rating for the company's finance consultants.However, IBM's nonfinance consultants were rated lower, so IBM needs to build upcollaboration among its different teams and its partners working with clients to change thisperception. The number of contract consultants IBM uses on its projects (which makes teamefforts more challenging) may be contributing to this perception.

KPMG

KPMG did not participate or provide client references for this Magic Quadrant. Where referenced,respondent perceptions are opinions of all respondents interviewed and may not reflect KPMG'scurrent clients for financial management consulting services during the period of the research.

KPMG is one of the Big Four accounting and finance firms. Its financial management agenda isintegrated across three advisory segments: management consulting (finance is covered within thefinancial management practice); risk consulting (finance is covered within its financial riskmanagement practice); and transaction and restructuring (finance is covered under corporatefinance). KPMG considers itself particularly known for its approach to identifying and managingvarious forms of risk. The company also has robust tax advisory and audit services that enhance itsfinancial management offerings. Structurally, KPMG is a membership network of regional firms, butits operations are now fully integrated, and its services are provided locally and globally.

Strengths

■ Market Understanding: KPMG is an advisor to corporations, regulators and governments, andits portfolio of finance services and finance vision is complete. The company's advantage ofscale and finance domain expertise enables it to include the emerging areas of risk andsustainability issues around the finance function. Its clients recognize KPMG as an expert in itsfield. The company's acquisitions in 2010 included Grant Thornton's supply chain practice, IT/Net, and Hyperion consultant Analitica to strengthen its capabilities. In 2011, KPMG acquiredEquaTerra, building its strength in the shared services and outsourcing advisory area. KPMGgoes to market with IBM, HP and Tata Consultancy Services.


Cautions

■ Marketing Strategy: KPMG's current financial management strategy and messaging needfurther clarification for its potential clients and Gartner. Nevertheless, KPMG's financialmanagement consulting practice is still strong and remains competitive in the marketplace.

McKinsey & Co.

As part of its policy, McKinsey & Co. did not participate or provide any client references to thisMagic Quadrant. Where referenced, respondent perceptions are opinions of all respondentsinterviewed. They are not reflective of McKinsey & Co.'s current clients for financial managementconsulting services during the period of the interview since McKinsey & Co. did not provide clientreferences.

McKinsey & Co.'s corporate finance advisory services cover the areas of alliances and jointventures, corporate and capital market strategies, initial public offerings, M&As and divestitures,value-based management, real-option valuation, and financial engineering. It has a separatepractice on risk. McKinsey & Co.'s business technology practice explores areas with clients relatedto technology-enabled service operations and ERP. The company offers an outreach CFO programthrough its thought leadership reports and online newsletters.

Strengths

■ Offering Strategy: When all clients were asked to rate a list of consultants on their objectiveadvice and independent services, McKinsey & Co. was ranked third.

■ Market Understanding: As a long-standing management consulting expert, McKinsey & Co. hassuperior vision and thought leadership in finance.

■ Geography: McKinsey & Co. is present in 98 global markets.

Cautions

■ Market Responsiveness and Track Record: McKinsey & Co. does not implement technologyand is very clear in its message on this. There is a gap in the full finance service experience, andstrategic partnerships are sometimes needed as a continuation of a project.

■ Sales Execution/Pricing: McKinsey & Co. is one of the highest-priced consultants assessed inthis Magic Quadrant. Clients who rejected McKinsey & Co. in a bidding situation said thecompany's being too expensive was often the top-of-mind reason.

Protiviti

Protiviti is a wholly owned subsidiary of Robert Half International. It has been in the finance advisorybusiness since 2002, and its creation was a result of the cessation of Andersen Worldwide.Protiviti's early offering started out with deep expertise in Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance andsolutions, and it now considers itself a business consulting and internal audit firm, with a specializedfocus on risk, advisory and transaction services. With its subsidiaries and membership firms,


Protiviti is present in more than 60 global markets. Protiviti makes no excuse for its smaller-scaleoperations but leverages its size to its advantage by staying focused on the needs of clients, whorepeatedly provide strong validation of this strategy. The company's finance coverage extendsacross finance remediation and reporting compliance, finance optimization services, performanceinformation management, and other finance-related services, such as cost and working capitaloptimization, IT effectiveness and controls, litigation restructuring and investigation, risk andcompliance, and internal audit and financial control services. The company uses its Protiviti Key asits consulting methodology and framework, which Protiviti considers a consistent problem-solvingapproach applied to all its global engagements. The company's practice cuts across the verticalsectors of finance, technology, media and communications, industrial products, energy, consumerproducts and services, healthcare and life science, and governments.

Strengths

■ Offering Strategy: Protiviti clients provided very high ratings on its methodologies, road mapsand independent advice. Clients also cited that Protiviti kept within the scope, budget andrelevance in its approach. When all clients were asked to rate a list of consultants that theyperceived offered objective advice and independent service, Protiviti was rated the highest.

■ Customer Experience: Protiviti clients are enthusiastic and extremely positive about thecompany's ability to cultivate client intimacy and its consulting competency. Clients citedexamples in which internal collaboration between a client's internal organization and Protiviti'sproject team was strong and tight. Where junior consultants would be a bane for mostconsulting firms, Protiviti has managed to keep client-facing interactions at least at the level ofsenior consultants (who generally are able to manage a client's expectations well). Beyond thecompany's size, Protiviti differentiates in that it is focused on what it can deliver in terms ofofferings and its ability to meet clients' needs in terms of budget and expectation management— a strategy that has been strongly validated by clients.

■ Sales Execution/Pricing: When asked if they would switch to lower-priced consultants with thesame offerings, Protiviti clients suggested an above-average likelihood to not switch.

Cautions

■ Offering Strategy: Although Protiviti is deeply entrenched and has a reputation as a financedomain expert, it is limited to a narrower range of services. Clients recognize the fact thatProtiviti's range of offerings is limited.

■ Geography: Although it has operations in more than 70 cities in more than 20 country markets,Protiviti is relatively small in terms of geographic reach (even so, clients said they have not feltthe impact of Protiviti's gaps in geographic reach). Protiviti has so far managed to ramp upteams of consultants fairly quickly and has found low-cost ways of flying consultants intocountry markets without going over budget. In the long run, however, Protiviti cannot continuewith this business and delivery model as it grows. While Protiviti agrees that it must continue tobuild a presence in the markets it serves, the company believes that it has presence in mostmarkets it needs to be in to support clients.


PricewaterhouseCoopers

Like its accounting and finance peers, PwC offers a full suite of finance advisory services.Structurally, its global practices are operated as a network of membership firms, but operationally,these networked firms work together closely to deliver a seamless global client experience. PwChas been aggressively closing gaps in its capabilities, including in analytics and technology areas,with acquisitions around the world. PwC works closely with alliance partners, such as SAP, Oracleand HP, to help strengthen its end-to-end technology implementation service offerings or when theyrequire PwC's expertise. PwC has its own set of tools, methodologies and frameworks. Thecompany services both global and midmarket clients and has targeted midmarket offerings in somecountry markets. Its practice globally has grown in size organically and inorganically, and thecompany has grown a significant practice in the Middle East. PwC leverages its global deliverycenters around the world.

Strengths

■ Market Understanding: PwC enjoys a reputation as an advisor to regulators and public sectors.Its portfolio of finance offerings and its finance vision are complete. PwC's advantage of scalein terms of the number of finance domain experts enables it to encapsulate the emerging areasof risk and sustainability issues around the finance function. Its clients recognize PwC as anexpert in its field. PwC continues to acquire firms to strengthen its capabilities, such as PRTM,Diamond and, most recently, ISH, which specializes in solutions for clinical systems andservices.

■ Innovation: PwC continues to drive investment in innovation through acquisitions of analyticsolutions for its clients. Its clients cited examples of good enterprise performance managementsystems and solutions and good decision support systems.

■ Market Responsiveness and Track Record: Clients gave PwC high ratings in the area of beingflexible and responsive to changes. Gartner has also seen that PwC is quick to respond tomarket changes by growing aggressively via acquisitions and adjusting its strategy where itmakes sense to address unexplored opportunities in services. PwC is forward-thinking and hasdemonstrated to Gartner that it continues to build on its strategy.

Cautions

■ Customer Experience: As PwC continues to ramp up and grow its pool of consultants acrossthe globe, it will need to pay particular attention to ensuring it is training teams to have deepconsulting competencies (as defined, a combination of personal style/personal chemistry,problem diagnosis skills, responsiveness, true advisory skills, professionalism, and long-termrelationship orientation that separates a professional management consultant from someonewho does consulting only sometimes), especially among its mid- and junior-level consultants. Itis not an easy task for any firm growing rapidly, as we've described in the Market Overviewsection of this report, but clients are especially appreciative of the intimacy and team effortapproach.


■ Operations: With a desire to increase resources in a project, PwC needs to fine-tune its internalteam in terms of collaboration with the client's organization. Its client ratings on collaborationand project management skills are lower than those of some other consultants.

Recommended ReadingSome documents may not be available as part of your current Gartner subscription.

"Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes: How Gartner Evaluates Vendors Within a Market"

"MarketScope for Global Finance Management Consulting Services"

"Q&A: The Top-Five International Lessons to Be Learned About IFRS and Finance TransformationAdoption by Japanese Businesses"

"Competitive Landscape: Finance Management Consulting Service Providers, Worldwide,2010-2011"

"Dataquest Insight: How Finance Performance Management Providers Should Position Their Valuein 2009 and 2010"

"Dataquest Insight: Where the Finance Function Will Be Investing in the Next Two Years"

"Dataquest Insight: Who Will Be the Preferred Providers for Financial Management Services in2010?"

"Market Insight: Five Reasons Service Providers Lose in Finance Management Consulting Bids"

"Market Definition: Outlining the Market for Consulting and System Integration Services in FinanceManagement and Operations"

"MarketScope for Global Enterprise Governance, Risk Management and Compliance ConsultingServices"

"Competitive Landscape: Enterprise Governance, Risk Management, Compliance ConsultingGlobal, 2011"

Evidence

The client reference Web survey was conducted between 13 June and 8 July 2011, with 107 totalcompleted interviews. The 15 evaluation criteria were analyzed across all the vendors evaluated;highlights of these evaluation criteria are provided in this research.


Vendors Added or Dropped

We review and adjust our inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants and MarketScopes asmarkets change. As a result of these adjustments, the mix of vendors in any MagicQuadrant or MarketScope may change over time. A vendor appearing in a MagicQuadrant or MarketScope one year and not the next does not necessarily indicate thatwe have changed our opinion of that vendor. This may be a reflection of a change in themarket and, therefore, changed evaluation criteria, or a change of focus by a vendor.

Evaluation Criteria Definitions

Ability to Execute

Product/Service: Core goods and services offered by the vendor that compete in/serve the defined market. This includes current product/service capabilities, quality,feature sets, skills and so on, whether offered natively or through OEM agreements/partnerships as defined in the market definition and detailed in the subcriteria.

Overall Viability (Business Unit, Financial, Strategy, Organization): Viability includesan assessment of the overall organization's financial health, the financial and practicalsuccess of the business unit, and the likelihood that the individual business unit willcontinue investing in the product, will continue offering the product and will advancethe state of the art within the organization's portfolio of products.

Sales Execution/Pricing: The vendor's capabilities in all presales activities and thestructure that supports them. This includes deal management, pricing and negotiation,presales support, and the overall effectiveness of the sales channel.

Market Responsiveness and Track Record: Ability to respond, change direction, beflexible and achieve competitive success as opportunities develop, competitors act,customer needs evolve and market dynamics change. This criterion also considers thevendor's history of responsiveness.

Marketing Execution: The clarity, quality, creativity and efficacy of programs designedto deliver the organization's message to influence the market, promote the brand andbusiness, increase awareness of the products, and establish a positive identificationwith the product/brand and organization in the minds of buyers. This mind share can bedriven by a combination of publicity, promotional initiatives, thought leadership, word-of-mouth and sales activities.

Customer Experience: Relationships, products and services/programs that enableclients to be successful with the products evaluated. Specifically, this includes the wayscustomers receive technical support or account support. This can also include ancillarytools, customer support programs (and the quality thereof), availability of user groups,service-level agreements and so on.


Operations: The ability of the organization to meet its goals and commitments. Factorsinclude the quality of the organizational structure, including skills, experiences,programs, systems and other vehicles that enable the organization to operateeffectively and efficiently on an ongoing basis.

Completeness of Vision

Market Understanding: Ability of the vendor to understand buyers' wants and needsand to translate those into products and services. Vendors that show the highestdegree of vision listen and understand buyers' wants and needs, and they can shape orenhance those with their added vision.

Marketing Strategy: A clear, differentiated set of messages consistentlycommunicated throughout the organization and externalized through the website,advertising, customer programs and positioning statements.

Sales Strategy: The strategy for selling products that uses the appropriate network ofdirect and indirect sales, marketing, service, and communications affiliates that extendthe scope and depth of market reach, skills, expertise, technologies, services and thecustomer base.

Offering (Product) Strategy: The vendor's approach to product development anddelivery that emphasizes differentiation, functionality, methodology and feature sets asthey map to current and future requirements.

Business Model: The soundness and logic of the vendor's underlying businessproposition.

Vertical/Industry Strategy: The vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills andofferings to meet the specific needs of individual market segments, including verticalmarkets.

Innovation: Direct, related, complementary and synergistic layouts of resources,expertise or capital for investment, consolidation, defensive or pre-emptive purposes.

Geographic Strategy: The vendor's strategy to direct resources, skills and offerings tomeet the specific needs of geographies outside the "home" or native geography, eitherdirectly or through partners, channels and subsidiaries as appropriate for thatgeography and market.


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