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Marakon is the quintessential boutique management consultancy. It was established in 1978 by a Washington University finance professor and three Wells Fargo banking executives.
Its original remit was financial strategy, especially capital investment and portfolio management. Today, it spreads a gospel of ‘Managing for Value’ (MfV) to help companies in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia and the Americas adapt to ‘a new economic reality’.
In June 2009, Marakon found itself adapting to economic reality when it was acquired by Charles River Associates (CRA). Typical of consulting behemoths, it would almost be easier to define CRA by what it does not do – suffice to say it claims expertise in everything from aerospace & defence through forensic services to transfer pricing. With Marakon in the fold, CRA adds strategic consultancy to its practice list.
Marakon has retained its boutique ethos, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with other top-tier consulting firms. Respect for the work done by its 80-plus, UK- and US-based consultants is so strong that benchmark firms such as Boston Consulting Group keep one eye on its progress.
Marakon is a pure strategy consultancy, leaving the econometrics and logistics to giants such as McKinsey & Company. The essence of its strategy is ‘MfV’, a tailored approach that has been tweaked since the 1980s when Marakon came up with the idea of incorporating a charge for business capital into performance measures.
With value-based measures as its touchstone, the firm expanded its strategy to include resource allocation, performance management and executive planning – ‘the art and science of management’.
Marakon's client-base is distinct from CRAI's, despite some recent overlap, and includes top management teams across the following industries: aircraft, banking, food, insurance, luxury goods, manufacturing, mining, oil & gas, paper, pharmaceuticals and telecommunications.
13th place in Consulting Magazine’s Best Small Firms to Work For 2011
Growth markets for Marakon include consumer goods, healthcare, financial services, oil and gas, chemicals and industrials. It is also making a concerted push into the pharmaceuticals arena. Associates can expect immediate project exposure with responsibility from day one.
Marakon has tentatively put pins in its world map.
While its footprint is likely to remain the same for the foreseeable future, Marakon has tentatively put pins in its world map, centred on Asia. No doubt it would derive satisfaction reclaiming the territory it relinquished during the recession, especially offices in Singapore, Hong Kong, Sydney and Dubai.
Marakon is in the top 10% in terms of pay for management consultants.
Other benefits include:
Marakon shares its offices with CRAI on floors 24-26 of 99 Bishopsgate. The skyscraper is the 40th tallest building in London and briefly held the record for the fastest elevators in Europe.
The view from the meeting rooms on the 26th inspires awe and an urge to grab hold of something. New associates with vertigo will hope they’re seconded to the New York office on Times Square and not to CRAI’s Boston office at the top of John Hancock Tower.
Marakon was previously based on The Strand and had views of Nelson’s Column. Associates galled by the move away from London’s social epicentre to dead-on-the-weekend Bishopsgate can take some consolation from their luxurious new surroundings. The biscuits in the meeting rooms are also a cut above a digestive.
Even if they like a digestive, the people at Marakon aren’t the type to kick up a fuss. One associate couldn’t praise their colleagues enough, describing them as ‘Fantastic, really outgoing; everybody’s intelligent and wants to drive the firm, but they’re down to earth and there’s no ego. It’s chilled out.’
The boutique ethos informs interaction between colleagues, resulting in a flat structure that may be missing at other consultancies. It’s a friendly, supportive environment with colleagues encouraged to share ideas. The project team, for example, usually comprises five people – a partner, a principal and three associates – all making equal contributions to a project’s progress.
There’s no two years and out policy. Some of the best people have been around for 15 years.
This culture of support is also in evidence in the firm’s approach to developing its people. While larger consultancies favour a ‘two years and out’ policy, some of Marakon’s consultants, indeed its best people, have been there for 10, 15, even 30 years. Should a consultant decide they do want to contribute their skills to a specific industry, the firm’s reputation means the exit options are as good as any in the consulting field.
Travel is an integral part of life as a Marakon consultant – back and forth between their own office and the client’s. The firm oversees global projects from offices in New York, Boston, Chicago and London so the back-and-forth can be significant. The firm offsets this to some extent by letting consultants work from home, where appropriate. There’s also good administrative support to shoulder some of the burden.
Marakon has other ways of making sure their consultants are fresh for the fight. After a year’s service, all employees are entitled to take two months of unpaid leave per annum. They are also encouraged to take a sabbatical every couple of years which can be as long as three months. There are no restrictions as to how people spend their time on these breaks.
Consultants here enjoy an active social life, albeit an ad hoc one, with no committees in charge of organising things. Perhaps this is because events happen at the start, midpoint and end of every project, usually revolving around fine food and fine wine at random locations. The team on a recent account were whisked off to Lisbon to celebrate the end of an assignment.
Marakon’s London office collaborates with Business in the Community to arrange six-month work placements for consultants in non-profit and government agencies. It also runs its own ‘Marakon in the Community’ programme, contributing to renovation projects, sending teams to help at places such as the Dyslexia Institute and mentoring pupils in local schools: ‘Every six months or so we do a sort of “Dragon’s Den” for sixth formers who want a career in business.’
Somebody at Marakon is responsible for selecting which schools are visited by Marakon’s ‘dragons’. The consultant interviewed for the purposes of this Employer Insight oversaw graduate recruitment. In both cases, as they went on to explain, these are duties associated with what Marakon calls ‘firm-building roles’. This can account for up to 20% of associates’ and consulting associates’ time:
‘We all do a firm building role. So, I help out with graduate recruitment, I write the content, go to graduate careers fairs and I’m the contact for people who send in emails. Other people deal with IP, writing articles or commentaries, devising training programmes or developing the website. We tend to do a lot of our own stuff in-house.’
Marakon’s diversity team has set up networking programmes for women and holds an annual conference for female consultants.
We don’t work like a lot of other consultancies. There's no push to move out to industry or into business school, although we strongly recognise those benefits at the same time. Some of the best people here have been around for 15 years - amazing people.
Marakon's reputation in the job market is very strong - most people here get a call from a head-hunter in the first six months.
There’s no up and out either. In banking, for example, you either get promoted or you have to move on. There’s a genuine focus on development and you go as fast as you are able to.
Joseph Poore, Marakon consultant
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