How Accenture Was Excluded From Vault’s 2021 Top 50 Rankings

The Vault Top 50 Consulting Firms list has been used by prospective consultants for almost 20 years to evaluate potential employers. Yet, the list made waves this year for excluding one of the world’s largest consultancies – Accenture.

For the past decade, Accenture – one of the world’s most popular consulting firms – has been in or around the top ten on the list. But in 2021, the Vault top 50 consulting firms ranking did not include Accenture. It is not clear why the firm was excluded from the list.

Accenture Excluded From Vault’s 2020 Rankings Of Best Firms To Work For

In 2020, the Accenture consulting ranking was #11. In 2019, it was #10, and in 2018, it was #14. But in the 2021 version of the Vault Consulting 50 ranking, Accenture is nowhere to be found. How did this happen? By all accounts, Accenture is a prestigious firm that offers interesting work and a notable brand name – not at the level of the MBB firms, but in the tier below nonetheless.

Considering Accenture’s Global Prestige, Why Did Vault Exclude The Firm?

What is clear is that Vault ranks firms according to the following factors:

• 30% prestige
• 15% firm culture
• 15% satisfaction
• 10% compensation
• 10% work-life balance
• 10% ability to challenge
• 5% overall business outlook
• 5% promotion policies

In other parts of Vault’s site, Accenture receives extremely high rankings on many of these factors. In fact, it is ranked #1 in prestige – dubious if you ask us, but all the more confusing since Accenture then doesn’t make the top 50 list. Some sources suggest that Accenture requested to be removed from the rankings. There has been no official statement from Vault or Accenture on the issue.

Conclusion

Accenture may think that Vault’s yearly ranking undersells the quality of the firm, and thought being absent from the list was a better option than receiving a disappointing ranking yet again. If Accenture considers itself to be on the level of McKinsey or Bain, rather than Putnam Associates (the 2021 #10 consulting firm), perhaps it prefers the industry banter associated with its removal to showing up around #10 again!

Additional Reading:

• Accenture: Will It Rise Above All Other Consulting Firms?
• Accenture Firm Profile
• Top 25 Consulting Firms