Firstly, not every start up has the budget to engage MBB. Secondly, MBB will not waste time on small engagements when they have bigger fish to fry. Thirdly, most startups are run by founders who actually more or less understand the business they're building.

The consultants only come in when companies start to get large and bloated and the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing. Notice a pattern? Yes, essentially its the blind leading the blind.


A major reason why strategy consulting is being criticised is because it is rather difficult to quantify the value that they bring. Hence giving rise to suspicion that they're peddling no more than a few slide decks thrown together at exorbitant prices.

As for your last point, many MBB alumni are indeed parachuted into high growth companies, with mixed success. After all, its very easy to be a third party commentator but not so easy to run the ship. A rough analogy can be seen in politics - it's very easy to be an opposition party, but when you're actually in government, guess what, you actually have to deliver results.