Nobody is ever going to convince me that competent leadership needs some jack-of-all-trades consultants to improve their business. No chance in he-l an outsider has a clue compared to in-house institutional knowledge and experience.
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To do the NEEDFUL and REVERT
Citi rarely pays consultants in this context. Firms constantly come to us and offer to do "free" work to help us with some sort of "problem." The reality is its mostly a veiled sales pitches for companies that do pay them. You hand over tons of data and then the build a solution for the problem with your data points that includes buying the services of the company they represent.For example (Im making this one up) they can say we can cut 200 head count across the firm by using a new AI tool that writes SOPs automatically. We do this for a couple of reasons 1 the senior leadership of banks and consultants all are in their own private club and if people turned down "free" work it would look bad. 2. They usually show you what our peer banks are doing which is actually helpful; they aren't just doing this to Citi.
Yes really waste of money to pay recent grads who work at these Firms. They do not know the business. They are intelligent but do not add value.
Consultants don’t appear under the headcount line. Plus Citi push for free work outside hours, I laughed When they proposed it to me…. But you make valid points, most are unemployable elsewhere.
Probably helps justify RIF while also keeping vacancies open, as they can point the finger that some 'consultants' advised they downsize here and upsize there.