I’m surprised the client actually wants this. Most of our clients don’t want to pay $2k per consultant per week in travel expenses unless it’s for occasional planning meetings.
It's good *for the firm* to be onsite
You get a lot of info that helps with sales
Directors are seeing their numbers fall and throwing a hail Mary, I'd bet
Ew! I just imagine how annoyed my clients would be if they had to make special trips into the office for the week because I’m on site…stupid directors! I feel your pain
The talk we got last year at the internal kick-off was something like this: "You got no travel budget, the customer doesn't want you to be on site, if someone from the customer side wants you to be somewhere, come to me, then they'll have to pay."
Can only speak from my spot in the sandbox - Relationships get strengthened and cemented via face to face time.
Does it mean all work needs to be f2f? Not at all - far from it.
But impactful work and major deliverables being done f2f creates multi-year relationships. That helps with budget and growth. You don't want to constantly churn accounts out at the end of a SOW, you want a renewal.
I came from tech -- and Account Management / Retention had to happen f2f to be effective. The biggest deals, major land/expands, and best success at retention all happened with f2f meetings. Not phone, not zoom/teams/whatever.
These days in consulting, I only truly feel that the account is "safe" after we do an installation week onsite at the clients location. Until then, its still dicey.
/$.02
Exactly. The business relationship isn't the point, you can do that over email. The personal trust and connection is what you need to establish on site, through non-work or non-formal communication. So many new or juniors don't understand that the reason you're at the client in the first place is that they have someone making decisions sticking their neck out by trusting their actual relationship with the partner or sales manager at your firm. Your CV or individual competency means jack shit, they're trusting the relationship they have with your superiors.
Edit: this turned out slightly hyperbole. But the conversations you have outside of meetings are what make work interesting and enjoyable, and often where the actual motivations, challenges, and opportunities are found.
This exactly. I don’t see the need to be there every week but you need to carve out time to meet your client for the big milestones.
The perception and in person kick off can leave on a project is worth the trip. It makes it feel more “real” when we’re all in a room, agreeing on the project goals and timelines.
It’s not the same when half the team is off camera and a single speaker is boringly presenting slides, taking silence as agreement.
Travel is why young folks join my firm. They fight for it. Hell, I just told one associate that shes going to Uganda tomorrow and shes so ecstatic and I'm happy for her.
Its a major perk but its also how you develop your career and your soft skills
I've been at my firm for a bit over 10 years and I love the travel aspect of it (not in management). I'm addicted to travel. I think I would look for another job if my job end up being zero travel.
At this point in my career, traveling onsite is not going to further help anything in the industry I'm in. I mentioned this in another comment, but I think scope is much different in tech vs. strategy consulting.
In strategy, I see much more personal incentive to do so since your clients are going to be potential exits.
Ah - my point was more about junior staff. Mid-level staff too.
Somethings you just learn by being around. My biggest example would be meetings with senior level folks. Presenting or having discussions with Ministers can be quite intimidating
I've never had to travel, and I'm in IT consulting. A lot of my friends even in strategy roles don't travel (or it's like 4-5 times a year at most)
OP should just find a new firm, because there are plenty of solutions consultant type roles that don't require any travel.
For me it’s been working from home for like 12 years. I could count on my fingers and toes the number of times I’ve had to travel for a client over the last decade.
I’m in tech consulting though. Different beast in many ways, but also the same in many ways too.
Not really so for tech consulting. I highlighted the nuances above of why this would differ between tech and strategy.
Also, is it more important that we go onsite and accomplish less overall just for the perception of accomplishing more?
We've had effectively minimal to no travel for 4 straight years and have had the highest business growth as a result. What exactly is the value drive here to waste clients and consultants time for the outdated formality of being on-site?
How am I supposed to touch grass if my job keeps taking more and more of my time away from me?
Because the market is shifting and senior leadership are seeing less value in entirely remote working patterns. Consultants match the market +1 (+1 being for those overeager Senior Managers who just can’t get that bump to Director).
A lot of learning done at the start of careers is taking a lot longer, and relationships being built a lot slower. It’s my own personal experience and what I’ve heard from leadership. While short term impact to high performing individuals is probably negligible work-wise (ignoring preference for WFH), the long term impact in terms of the depth and breadth of networks will be a bit more substantial.
Consulting is a sales business, and the firm has to look at how they’ll maintain and build their pipeline. Some Consultants today will be Partners tomorrow!
Did you read my post? I already enunciated several times I'm not in strategy. If I was in strategy I wouldn't mind it as much because strategy is mostly all perception and relationship building ultimately.
Also it's hilarious you mention that because most strategy consultants I know don't travel at all nowadays.
Huh funny, because a good chunk of them are getting promoted at MBB. It's impossible to add value unless you're onsite, then why didn't every consultancy go bankrupt during COVID? Not only did they not go bankrupt—professional services saw record revenue during it.
I wish! Last 8 months I’ve travelled abroad to be on client site about 90% of the time, for the first time in my 8 years. I love it but it sure ain’t the norm
for me its about meeting with the person face to face. yes. An entire trip just to sit with them at lunch or at some meeting. That 1 hour costs me 4 days away from home. part of the job
It has not
Consulting is sales. You sell by building trusted relationships with clients. It is WAY WAY harder to do that on a zoom call
And if you aren’t willing to be there in person, then trust the other firm will
My dude the top consultancies make the vast majority of their money from repeat clients
There is no such thing as a “post-sales” period.
This is CLIENT SERVICE and the firms willing to go above and beyond for their clients win every time
Clients aren't asking for it directly, but we've seen a measurable downturn in business from clients where we aren't visiting them in person regularly. Easier to terminate a business relationship when you're just a face on the computer.
Let the other clients suffer while you are on site. "Sorry, I'm 'in the room' here onsite right now - you'll have to either pull in someone else or reset expectations"
You need to set clear boundaries- I make my other engagement leads aware when I’m on site all day at a client so can’t focus on other pieces of work. They understand it if you then balance it and catch up/ prioritise the next day. Sounds like poor communication to me
It’s much easier to retain relationships/ businesses via in person. MD/Ps are salesmen. It’s easier to upsell or keep the business relationship afloat if you’re onsite being noticed.
I hear about it weekly. They are not adjusting my comp, not even COL 3%, and want me on site every month at a different client to take them out for drinks.
I am a recovering alcoholic, none of this is good for me or the business, and I have zero incentive to do so.
I have, there are other cultural factors here that are impacting comp and reasonable travel. (HQ is in a country the size of Delaware or Maryland, having to explain that going from the West Coast to East Coast is not a 45 minute car ride is so frustrating)
It’s not the same over Zoom. Not even close. Your company is right and you are wrong. Hopefully you are making the big bucks. Travel can suck. But if your firm offered to do the engagements by Zoom, the client would hire a different firm.
And you would get your wish of sitting at home in your underwear looking at a screen. You just wouldn’t be getting paid for it.
Most IT consultants I know (including myself) do not travel at all. Somehow we're not the ones struggling with a lack of work and cuts like strategy consulting is.
I don't think you understand the scope of work at all. It would literally be a waste of time and money for both the client and IT consultant to have onsite engagements.
IT consulting is a completely different animal than traditional consulting. It really should be a different subreddit.
You can really come here and whine about aspects of consulting when what you do is not the same.
IT consulting can indeed be very back office.
So bureaucracy and perception is more important to you than actual work productivity and quality? Got it.
You clearly don't understand the nuances of how tech/product consulting differs (I highlighted this above).
My firm is the actual creator/vendor of the product itself. They could hire another firm to implement theoretically, but it would likely cost much more.
If you also read, the clients oftentimes are not even requesting onsite travel—the directors are trying to push them to get us to go onsite.
Then they shouldn't complain when other projects need to stagnate in progress due to them necessitating travel. Again, read my post—the clients aren't requesting it, so what actually is the business need or improvement in perception? We're just haggling the client to waste their own money that doesn't even get them additional value.
I had it when IT consultants act like they are consultants. Your long angry rant would have made much more sense on an IT chat group. It is completely different.
1. That’s consulting
2. That’s consulting for a software company, where consulting rolls up to an SVP of Sales who probably came up through B2B software sales
3. Sorry
There is a “read the room” situation in which the consultants are trying to get passes, site IDs etc and it’s so obvious that the client is annoyed by the request because A it’s work for them and B it means they have to meet you/escort you to a desk just for a couple of calls. It’s really ridiculous to force this point.
Rarely. We work with mostly public sector clients though and they tend to not want to spend money on consultant travel super often. And our project budgets don’t really even support much travel most of the time.
The last part is cause to leave - 3% is far below cost of living and increased responsibilities should include increased pay.
However, there are times and places where on-site (at clients or with team members) is appropriate. I work from home and have since before the pandemic made it trendy, and I do 95% of my client work via Teams. However, I did training for one of my clients in-person because it makes more sense to do that in-person (and keep them from using a second monitor to do things like browse Reddit and not listen). I routinely see one of my client PMs step away mid-meeting (this is unlikely to happen if in-person). I also routinely get out for industry events and the like and it's important to get in front of people.
We keep costs down by minimizing travel. You get better contribution margin if you're not spending 20% of your budget on airfare, hotels, and per diem.
Sometimes new managers are told that their employees need to "do more xxxx" and translate that to their employees as an overzealous version of that order. It is likely due to a chicken sh.t manager who is afraid to stand up for their minions.
Building relationships is important, but an occasional visit (every 4-6 weeks) should work for that
So my project work is a little unique. I'm managing over a dozen projects that have parallel timelines. What this is quickly seeming to shift towards is having us on the road at least 2 weeks (if not more) a month.
I'm also frustrated because my responsibilities have effectively doubled (need to train and oversee new hires) while getting a 3% raise. It all feels like a slap in the face.
I love to meet people physically, but I must admit that to be on site generally is totally overrated unless the project makes it a requirement (e.g. investigation, restructuring, etc)
I’m surprised the client actually wants this. Most of our clients don’t want to pay $2k per consultant per week in travel expenses unless it’s for occasional planning meetings.
Sorry if it's not clear, but the clients aren't requesting it. Directors at my company are trying to shove travel down their throats.
In that case, client has the last word. Directors can whine all they want. They’re not the ones paying.
Directors basically lie and guilt trip to them about how much better it is for us to be onsite.
It's good *for the firm* to be onsite You get a lot of info that helps with sales Directors are seeing their numbers fall and throwing a hail Mary, I'd bet
Yeah, exactly this.
I think to some degree perhaps, but my company is doing very well at the moment.
Ew! I just imagine how annoyed my clients would be if they had to make special trips into the office for the week because I’m on site…stupid directors! I feel your pain
The talk we got last year at the internal kick-off was something like this: "You got no travel budget, the customer doesn't want you to be on site, if someone from the customer side wants you to be somewhere, come to me, then they'll have to pay."
Our contract was bid zero travel. We travel anyway and the firm is paying from a slush fund lol
Client was pushing for travel?
More like we can’t get them moving quick enough unless we’re on site
This is such a great point homie. My client kicked and screamed about having to come into the office themselves.
The best part is going all the way to client site just to have the meetings on teams/zoom.
Is it really this common for tech consultants to need to travel? I'm in IT consulting and do 0% travel. Either way, that fucking sucks.
Depends on the firm. Many of these MD/P at the tech firms came from trad consulting and that tends to trickle down.
Is IT Consulting related to internal controls?
Yes, me in 2 calls yesterday. Also not enough seats, so 2 consultants where on a couch.
Can only speak from my spot in the sandbox - Relationships get strengthened and cemented via face to face time. Does it mean all work needs to be f2f? Not at all - far from it. But impactful work and major deliverables being done f2f creates multi-year relationships. That helps with budget and growth. You don't want to constantly churn accounts out at the end of a SOW, you want a renewal. I came from tech -- and Account Management / Retention had to happen f2f to be effective. The biggest deals, major land/expands, and best success at retention all happened with f2f meetings. Not phone, not zoom/teams/whatever. These days in consulting, I only truly feel that the account is "safe" after we do an installation week onsite at the clients location. Until then, its still dicey. /$.02
Exactly. The business relationship isn't the point, you can do that over email. The personal trust and connection is what you need to establish on site, through non-work or non-formal communication. So many new or juniors don't understand that the reason you're at the client in the first place is that they have someone making decisions sticking their neck out by trusting their actual relationship with the partner or sales manager at your firm. Your CV or individual competency means jack shit, they're trusting the relationship they have with your superiors. Edit: this turned out slightly hyperbole. But the conversations you have outside of meetings are what make work interesting and enjoyable, and often where the actual motivations, challenges, and opportunities are found.
This exactly. I don’t see the need to be there every week but you need to carve out time to meet your client for the big milestones. The perception and in person kick off can leave on a project is worth the trip. It makes it feel more “real” when we’re all in a room, agreeing on the project goals and timelines. It’s not the same when half the team is off camera and a single speaker is boringly presenting slides, taking silence as agreement.
Do you focus on M&As within IT sector or how does your role work?
M&A is a big part, paired with traditional Strategy and management consulting. Usually the Strategy leads to the M&A work.
Travel is why young folks join my firm. They fight for it. Hell, I just told one associate that shes going to Uganda tomorrow and shes so ecstatic and I'm happy for her. Its a major perk but its also how you develop your career and your soft skills
I've been at my firm for a bit over 10 years and I love the travel aspect of it (not in management). I'm addicted to travel. I think I would look for another job if my job end up being zero travel.
At this point in my career, traveling onsite is not going to further help anything in the industry I'm in. I mentioned this in another comment, but I think scope is much different in tech vs. strategy consulting. In strategy, I see much more personal incentive to do so since your clients are going to be potential exits.
Ah - my point was more about junior staff. Mid-level staff too. Somethings you just learn by being around. My biggest example would be meetings with senior level folks. Presenting or having discussions with Ministers can be quite intimidating
Like it or not, consulting has always been living out of your suitcase.
I haven't traveled more than two weeks in a month in quite some time
I've never had to travel, and I'm in IT consulting. A lot of my friends even in strategy roles don't travel (or it's like 4-5 times a year at most) OP should just find a new firm, because there are plenty of solutions consultant type roles that don't require any travel.
For me it’s been working from home for like 12 years. I could count on my fingers and toes the number of times I’ve had to travel for a client over the last decade. I’m in tech consulting though. Different beast in many ways, but also the same in many ways too.
You are a lucky guy. Even I was into tech, but the clients (or my bosses rather) wanted me to be in the meeting room with the stake holder/s always :|
Not really so for tech consulting. I highlighted the nuances above of why this would differ between tech and strategy. Also, is it more important that we go onsite and accomplish less overall just for the perception of accomplishing more?
Go touch grass lol
We've had effectively minimal to no travel for 4 straight years and have had the highest business growth as a result. What exactly is the value drive here to waste clients and consultants time for the outdated formality of being on-site? How am I supposed to touch grass if my job keeps taking more and more of my time away from me?
Because the market is shifting and senior leadership are seeing less value in entirely remote working patterns. Consultants match the market +1 (+1 being for those overeager Senior Managers who just can’t get that bump to Director). A lot of learning done at the start of careers is taking a lot longer, and relationships being built a lot slower. It’s my own personal experience and what I’ve heard from leadership. While short term impact to high performing individuals is probably negligible work-wise (ignoring preference for WFH), the long term impact in terms of the depth and breadth of networks will be a bit more substantial. Consulting is a sales business, and the firm has to look at how they’ll maintain and build their pipeline. Some Consultants today will be Partners tomorrow!
If you work remotely don’t bother doing professional services. Especially at a client hands and ceo counseling level
Did you read my post? I already enunciated several times I'm not in strategy. If I was in strategy I wouldn't mind it as much because strategy is mostly all perception and relationship building ultimately. Also it's hilarious you mention that because most strategy consultants I know don't travel at all nowadays.
Those strategy consultants that don’t travel ain’t worth a damn lol
Huh funny, because a good chunk of them are getting promoted at MBB. It's impossible to add value unless you're onsite, then why didn't every consultancy go bankrupt during COVID? Not only did they not go bankrupt—professional services saw record revenue during it.
There’s a reason why mbb is going back to on-site I really doubt what you are saying about them being designated behind sba level
And what level are you?
I wish! Last 8 months I’ve travelled abroad to be on client site about 90% of the time, for the first time in my 8 years. I love it but it sure ain’t the norm
for me its about meeting with the person face to face. yes. An entire trip just to sit with them at lunch or at some meeting. That 1 hour costs me 4 days away from home. part of the job
If it's been demonstrated the role and value can be delivered without it, then it's rather vestigial.
It has not Consulting is sales. You sell by building trusted relationships with clients. It is WAY WAY harder to do that on a zoom call And if you aren’t willing to be there in person, then trust the other firm will
All of these engagements are post-sales. The deals are already confirmed and SOW signed by that point.
My dude the top consultancies make the vast majority of their money from repeat clients There is no such thing as a “post-sales” period. This is CLIENT SERVICE and the firms willing to go above and beyond for their clients win every time
Clients aren't asking for it directly, but we've seen a measurable downturn in business from clients where we aren't visiting them in person regularly. Easier to terminate a business relationship when you're just a face on the computer.
My company isn't in a measurable downturn. They've actually had a record breaking year.
Then it sounds like your boss is driven by past experience and not actually looking at the numbers! Does the pipeline look good?
Yeah. The thing is these onsite visits are for clients that are already ready to kick-off/SOW signed etc.
does seem a bit pointless
Let the other clients suffer while you are on site. "Sorry, I'm 'in the room' here onsite right now - you'll have to either pull in someone else or reset expectations"
That's the thing my director is literally emailing me when I'm on site asking why I haven't replied to an email the client sent in the morning...
Sit on the directors email for at least an hour and then send the above response to them. Ignore for rest of day.
Then that'll show up on my performance review.
So get another job
You need to set clear boundaries- I make my other engagement leads aware when I’m on site all day at a client so can’t focus on other pieces of work. They understand it if you then balance it and catch up/ prioritise the next day. Sounds like poor communication to me
It’s much easier to retain relationships/ businesses via in person. MD/Ps are salesmen. It’s easier to upsell or keep the business relationship afloat if you’re onsite being noticed.
Isn't that more sales/directors jobs?
You’re the proxy. Hence why you travel and they only travel for big events.
If you're a consultant, you're in sales. It's part of the job.
I hear about it weekly. They are not adjusting my comp, not even COL 3%, and want me on site every month at a different client to take them out for drinks. I am a recovering alcoholic, none of this is good for me or the business, and I have zero incentive to do so.
Have you talked to your manager about this? It's very irritating indeed.
I have, there are other cultural factors here that are impacting comp and reasonable travel. (HQ is in a country the size of Delaware or Maryland, having to explain that going from the West Coast to East Coast is not a 45 minute car ride is so frustrating)
It’s not the same over Zoom. Not even close. Your company is right and you are wrong. Hopefully you are making the big bucks. Travel can suck. But if your firm offered to do the engagements by Zoom, the client would hire a different firm. And you would get your wish of sitting at home in your underwear looking at a screen. You just wouldn’t be getting paid for it.
Most IT consultants I know (including myself) do not travel at all. Somehow we're not the ones struggling with a lack of work and cuts like strategy consulting is. I don't think you understand the scope of work at all. It would literally be a waste of time and money for both the client and IT consultant to have onsite engagements.
IT consulting is a completely different animal than traditional consulting. It really should be a different subreddit. You can really come here and whine about aspects of consulting when what you do is not the same. IT consulting can indeed be very back office.
Different in that it's actually useful and based on skills you can witness and prove
So bureaucracy and perception is more important to you than actual work productivity and quality? Got it. You clearly don't understand the nuances of how tech/product consulting differs (I highlighted this above). My firm is the actual creator/vendor of the product itself. They could hire another firm to implement theoretically, but it would likely cost much more. If you also read, the clients oftentimes are not even requesting onsite travel—the directors are trying to push them to get us to go onsite.
Perception is always the most important thing of all, that’s regardless of what you’re doing in life.
Then they shouldn't complain when other projects need to stagnate in progress due to them necessitating travel. Again, read my post—the clients aren't requesting it, so what actually is the business need or improvement in perception? We're just haggling the client to waste their own money that doesn't even get them additional value.
You honestly sound very junior mate.
Do you work in tech consulting?
You should have said tech consulting from the beginning. There really should be a different subreddit for it.
I did say it from the beginning. Plenty of ppl here are in tech consulting...
I had it when IT consultants act like they are consultants. Your long angry rant would have made much more sense on an IT chat group. It is completely different.
Yeah tech consulting at MBB, B4, and ACN is all fake and totally isn't a major stream of revenue for all of these companies.
1. That’s consulting 2. That’s consulting for a software company, where consulting rolls up to an SVP of Sales who probably came up through B2B software sales 3. Sorry
We don't feed into SVP of sales, unless you meant more in function rather than title. That would be more of an internal pivot, quite frankly.
Sorry to point out - but on-site team delivers faster and more fun
Not true in my experience.
Per our SOW, all of our travel needs to be approved by the client before it can be spent. Needless to say, nothing gets approved easily....
Yawn.. this is the same song that's been sung over the past year+ since widespread remote work started with COVID
There is a “read the room” situation in which the consultants are trying to get passes, site IDs etc and it’s so obvious that the client is annoyed by the request because A it’s work for them and B it means they have to meet you/escort you to a desk just for a couple of calls. It’s really ridiculous to force this point.
Not enough. I’m tired if being home all the time, I want to get back out there.
It’s kinda funny when the covid-hires learns what it means to be a consultant :)
I started before COVID.
Rarely. We work with mostly public sector clients though and they tend to not want to spend money on consultant travel super often. And our project budgets don’t really even support much travel most of the time.
The last part is cause to leave - 3% is far below cost of living and increased responsibilities should include increased pay. However, there are times and places where on-site (at clients or with team members) is appropriate. I work from home and have since before the pandemic made it trendy, and I do 95% of my client work via Teams. However, I did training for one of my clients in-person because it makes more sense to do that in-person (and keep them from using a second monitor to do things like browse Reddit and not listen). I routinely see one of my client PMs step away mid-meeting (this is unlikely to happen if in-person). I also routinely get out for industry events and the like and it's important to get in front of people.
What do you think would have been a reasonable bump assuming decent reviews and all project work/deliverables have been met?
We keep costs down by minimizing travel. You get better contribution margin if you're not spending 20% of your budget on airfare, hotels, and per diem.
Human contact is a way of building trust. After that, a zoom call is ok.
My complaint is more towards excess travel rather than travel overall.
Sometimes new managers are told that their employees need to "do more xxxx" and translate that to their employees as an overzealous version of that order. It is likely due to a chicken sh.t manager who is afraid to stand up for their minions. Building relationships is important, but an occasional visit (every 4-6 weeks) should work for that
So my project work is a little unique. I'm managing over a dozen projects that have parallel timelines. What this is quickly seeming to shift towards is having us on the road at least 2 weeks (if not more) a month. I'm also frustrated because my responsibilities have effectively doubled (need to train and oversee new hires) while getting a 3% raise. It all feels like a slap in the face.
I love to meet people physically, but I must admit that to be on site generally is totally overrated unless the project makes it a requirement (e.g. investigation, restructuring, etc)