Real product design, in the purest sense, has tended to come through inventors, with entrepeneurs spotting opportunities for product innovations. Failure rates are high, often for reasons other than product design (e.g. financial). Accenture/IBM mainly do big ticket systems integration, with process innovation that is new to their client's rather than the market. Deloitte's are not really known for this, although they would get involved more on the financial side. Similarly PwC offer advisory to small/medium sized companies (e.g. second tier funding, & some of these clients would be growing rapidly due to successful product innovation). HP, I imagine, would have people looking at product design/innovation because they sell technology products in a very competitive market. This would be own product innovation and probably dealing with external designers. You might look at companies like 3i, who support a portfolio of NPD's, they are a very interesting company and even if you do not get hired you would get a better understanding of product design and innovation in the real world. The no work experience so no work dilemma is boring, and you are right to think about other ways in and other options. Ultimately if people without work experience never got hired the global economy would cease to exist. Corporates often control their supply right back to the earliest stages these days, so another way might be to ask what type of products are you interested in and then research & target large players in that field (if it was PC's & related products then maybe target HP, Toshiba, Apple etc. etc.)
