With the downturn in Dubai, is there a risk that the office out there will close?If so, what happens to all the UK staff that relocated out there? When PA closed the Sydney and Singapore offices, did they repatriate the UK staff that lost their jobs?

No. The recent reshuffle has led to the creation of a 'Gulf Practice'. This suggests that PA are looking to bring together all the pockets of work in the region and develop a solid business out there. If you are worried I suggest you speak to the new practice head. SS

They've got a Dubai office?

Who are PA?

an organisation that claims to be 'global' but in n many cases just has offices with one or two people in each country. Now some people may call that 'global' but its not really.

This chain is so pathetic that not even BOP man has waded in.

No need to close the office - they bought it off-plan on the Palm Jebel Ali island - will be complete in 18-months or so (well that's what their developer tells them anyway!)They're currently working out of a Bedouin tent off the main highway!

who are PA?

The Dubai office was originally run out of the BOP practice, which is always an auspicious start. The usual over-ambitious growth targets were set for the partner there. Once the office started to struggle, through no fault of his own, he was given the boot by the caring employer that we have.Now all the various barrel scrapings of Middle East work have been consolidated into a Gulf region unit, with a sparkling shiny new leader. So all is well…I give it 12 months before the whole thing comes crashing down, and the CVs of yet more PA consultants flood the market.

Distinct lack of knowledge of the facts there!

That has never stopped BOP man talking complete and utter rubbish before.

Seems to be accurate and fact-based actually, deny it all you like. What in BOP man's first three paragraphs is untrue? Only the fourth paragraph is an opinion.

I know PA and BOP Man's analysis has more than a ring of truth around it.

I agree with the company cheerleader that BOP man is not always 100% accurate, but he /she is not usaully far from the truth. Why does this sole cheerleader keep posting under different names? It’s very obvious who you are.Our remaining BOP partners (I say "remaining" as four have been fired / managed out in as many years) have all the people skills of Ghengis Khan, and deserve everything they get on this forum.

Why do people from BOP whinge so much?

Because we haven't had a pay rise in 2 years, no partner promotions in 5 years, and nothing but crummy work.

ANother BOP person - here's a couple of useful websites for you.www.jobserve.com, www.monster.co.uk.Sorry they are a bit general but I am not sure what use you actually are so can't provide more specific sites.

"Sorry they are a bit general ..."Isn't that the problem in BOP ? Everyone is just too general - no real skills. Explains why we can't sell any decent work

This is just a broad observation, but most of the posts (or rants) come from people who work for six companies: PA, Acn and the big four. Now most of the threads are nonsense: stuff like which consultancy has the fittest birds, or why is it that I'm paid £1,000 less than someone else or why am I doing pointless process mapping stuff for Buckingham County Council. This begs the question: is working for these companies one big doss? I mean back in my MBB days (Bain in fact) I knew absolutely no one who posted on this or any other forum: purely because we were so busy working your butts off for money-hungry partners and even if we did have the time, posting nonsense threads wasn't particularly worthwhile. Now here's the supposition: is it that people who work for MBB (although I don't know how things are like in Boston or Mck, but I'd imagine fairly similar) are just above posting nonsense here or is it something about working for aforementioned six firms give you a predilection for posting crap here.Neter

PA Consulting's track record in international expansion would be farcical, were it not for the number of staff they have left high and dry over the years.Whether it be the French office, the Finnish office, the Australia office, or the Singapore office - they open these places up with great gusto and then dump all the staff within three years when PA's world beating reputation in the UK public sector fails to win enough business.PA is the only consultancy of any size not to have grown in size during the boom decade from 1997 to 2007. I, for one, long ago gave up complaining about how awfully PA treat their people and left to work for a decent consultancy. A word of warning to anyone from PA trying to escape - having PA Consulting on your CV is a real liability if you are applying to other companies. PA are just too generalist.

There are plenty of posters in my MBB firm, but we just know to post under other firms' names when we want to let off steam.

I love BOP man. His extrapolations are the work of a true shortsighted process man."I do process mapping for local government" means everyone in PA does low value work. It is in no way a reflection of others confidence in his own abilities. "The partners in BOP UK are rubbish" (He works for a really small part of the company which has a whole count of 2 partners. Didn't he tell you that when he posts under 3 aliases on every topic?) equals PA partners are all rubbish and have no insight. "Some excellent people lost their jobs". Having seen BOP UK's numbers for a few years, maybe they weren't that good. No really."PA are finished" - except it is having a very good year and will pay good bonuses."The one person who supports PA is a corporate apologist"...except I rarely post on here so there's more than me. It's not the best place to work at the moment, but there are many other places a lot worse off than PA. If you had contacts in the industry ( ie not comment websites) you'd know. Anyway, keep sticking the knife in and saying how crap it is to work there. At least others who comment on PA who have since left had the skill/ talent to find a job elsewhere - one suspects your "deadend" job is all of your own making. Ho ho ho

"It's not the best place to work at the moment"The one nugget of truth in the entire rant

Why can't we all just love each other and get along in this great big employee-owned melting pot?

Just thought I would add that I enjoy "value adding work in manufacturing with PA" which as you all will know is how our global country competitors have current account surpluses!If you find your work uninteresting the buck stops with you Bopman......do dome thing about it! Retrain in something that is needed.....Happy Christmas

BOPman - why are you still in PA?

I am still in PA because I think the organisation has a lot to offer, if only we could get decent leadership.When Monty Burnes stepped down a few years ago, there was a missed opportunity to change into growth mode. Instead we got more of the same, steady as she goes, milk those public sector clients, types of attitudes. (Lots of Smithers' types)I am not sure that the deplorable screwups over the T5 baggage handling, losing THAT memory stick, and the callous way that the redundancy rounds were handled (with more to come) would have happened under a better quality partner group.What the company needs is a set of partners with a bit of commercial acumen to turn this business into a world beater.Shooting the messenger on here will achieve nothing but a slow death

BOPman - you make statements as if they are fact. Not the case. I am not going to correct your ramblings on T5, memory stick etc.Do you not recognise that your constant negative posts about PA could be harming PA?If the messenger was giving a balanced and correct view of PA then I agree it should not be shot. There are positive things going on to take PA forward yet you choose to ignore them.

"Positive things to take PA forward"I guess you're referring to the recent organisational changes? Would be interested to hear of any initiatives.

PAer - try to read past the first couple of lines when things are sent out.

Santa's Little Helper - the "PA Way" and its poor "leadership" is doing more long term harm to PA than BOP Man could ever do. While that still exists then it will churn out "BOP Mans" in their hundreds. Get to the root cause.....

Could it be that PA Consulting are the only company that have suffered from the Zombie economy for the past 15 years? Or is it just a vague hope from the PA partners that everyone else will suffer from PA's complete inability to grow in size?

I find it very refreshing that CEOs of FTSE 100 companies take the time out of their busy days to give us all the benefit of their vast leadership experience.

"Change your ways PA, change your ways before it is too late. There is not much time left......"Whoooo ** that's supposed to be a ghost noise, you get the drift!

The irony is that there isn't much time left for PA, in reality. Now that the share price has started to fall, someone else is bound to come in and buy the partners out

Oh my word. The above comments offers a truly horrific understanding of how PA is structured and how basic economics work. Somebody please put BOP staff out of their misery.

The only people in BOP who need to be put out of their misery are those who lead the practice.Anyone who has made Assoc Partner (and most of the MCs) over the past 5 years have been ruthlessly managed out. At some point the senior leadership in PA needs to question why this pattern of chronic underperformance continues under the stewardship of BOP's two partners.Once the public sector cuts come in next year, this will hopefully bring matters to a head, and result in some new leadership once BOP sales figures fall flat.Looking at JM's replacement though, PA have not been very radical in bringing in the fresh radical leaders required to revatilise the business.

I'd be interested to know the stats for Assoc Partner retention generally. All the ones I knew who came into PA from outside had very short tenures.

BOP man - I have never come across someone who whines so much. I also sense some bitterness. Has PA not spotted the great talent that you clearly are and put you on the fast track? I bet when they look for a new chairman they will be demanding that you take the role.

The "PA Way" and their idiosyncratic notion of "ethics" have brainwashed the long-serving senior leaders over many years. Many newcomers with something to offer have come and gone in rapid succession after hitting their head against the poverbial brick wall. It was the most miserable, hateful place I ever worked.

Anon - I am in PA and don't recognise the place you describe. If that is how it felt for you then it was just as much about you as it was the company.

I'm sure that in South Africa under the Apartheid regime the experience of non-whites didn't align with those of the white governing class and their friends, but that doesn't mean the injustices of the regime are as much the fault of the non-whites as the government! And indeed, many whites were ethical enough to speak out against the injustices of a system from which they personally were the beneficiaries(I recognise the extreme and imperfect nature of the analogy Anon2 - but it will make it easier for you to understand the point).

Anon - your ridiculous comparison of you not enjoying working somewhere and South Africa says a lot about your (overinflated) ego.

And another PA Consulting thread descends into farce - much like the company itself

Outsider - you should do stand up with that original and razor-sharp wit.

Outsider - you should do stand up with that original and razor-sharp wit.

There is many a true word spoken in jest. Perhaps this was a little too close to the truth for you?

Outsider - not even close. I don't and never have worked for PA. I probably never will as it is not the sort of company I would work in.I am just astonished that someone who is supposed to be a professional would describe a successful company that works for some fairly serious organisations as a 'farce'.

I would describe a company that caused the most public loss of secure government data in living memory, and also led the process design for the T5 debacle as a farce.As for serious organisations? Do you mean Southampton City Council?

No way will PA Consulting close the Dubai office! It is not possible for a top quality consulting outfit like PA to think of such a thing. Shame on anyone who doubts the strategic direction of the company.

Hasn't PA closed other offices recently?

Plenty of them - Helsinki and Sydney were the two most recent.

Hang on BOP Man, I thought that PA were supposed to be very prominent in Scandinavia, or at least that is what they told me when I had dealings with them. What has happened, is the buisness in decline?

Big in Denmark - weak in Norway and Sweden. Office closed in Finland in 2006.The company is a bit like Hamlet - focussed on Denmark and England;0)

It's interesting to see that PA still shows its 2006 headcount of 3000 on its wikipedia page.Are they trying to conceal the fact that their attempt at growth (through the ill-fated Hagler Bailly acquisition) was wholly unsuccessful, and that they have laid off a lot of staff over the last 18 months.I'm not online to check EIS but last time I looked I think the real figure was nearer 2300 so over 20% lower.

Anon - another great conspiracy unearthed. Well done. I am so dim I would have just assumed they hadn't bothered to change the wikipedia entry. I am just going to check under my bed for reds .....

I thought it had gone well below 2000 over the past year, with the layoffs and the recruitment freeze

Commie - you thought wrong.

So why did PA Consulting signularly fail to meet the growth targets set out by Jon and Bruce in 2004? Their aim was to increase the headcount in the company by 50%.Instead, as with so much else in PA, we have quietly gone backwards while our competitors continue to prosper.

Commie- probably because they have too many idiots like you in the company.

Commie - why are people like you so obsessed with the past? That was 6 years ago for goodness sake. If it is so bad why don't you go and join one of our prospering competitors? PA will be much better off without people like you thinking of any desperate excuse to post negative messages on here.

The idea that PA simply haven't bothered to update the headcount on their wiki page sounds feasible but is of course nonsenseA look at the wiki history page shows some 30 to 40 edits in 2009 alone so it is very actively maintained

Perhaps it still is 3,000, before you deduct employer's NI and the deferred elementThe publicly stated aim in 2004 was to grow the company from 3000 to 4500 by the end of 2007.Two years later, the organisation has actually contracted in size.Nice work guys!

Commie - so why don't you leave? Or are you the stereotypical whinger - going no further and blame everyone else rather than recognise you are rubbish?

Anon - of course it is nonsense because it is nowhere near sinister enough an explanation for people like you.

At the rate PA is going this thread might be better titled "will PA shut down the London HQ"?It's hard to conclude that PA is anything but an exceptionally poorly led firm - no other firm would claim that losing market share year on year in a growing market is anything but a sign of a lack of vision and poor execution.PA needs to refresh its senior management team and reinvigorate the firm with a strong vision and steps to modernise what is at times a painfully backwards and introverted organisation.If there's any doubt that PA's current leadership isn't seen as credible by staff one only has to look at the ratings on Glassdoor.com - PA staff rate the competency of the current chairman noticeably lower than peers at other firms rate their leaders.

"backwards and introverted organisation"Couldn't have put it better myself. When I joined PA from a competitor - and since left them before the PA apologists abuse me with the 'loser' label! - I felt like I had travelled backwards in a time machine. I feel sorry for some of the decent people I knew there. Many of them had little experience of anywhere else to know how bad it was (hence the 'introversion' I suspect).

Please can someone at PA tell us when the headcount figure in the wikipedia page will be updated to show the correct 2010 figure?Or is the intention to keep it artificially inflated by over 25% or so?

Please please please change the wikipedia entry. It is vitally important that it is correct. I suggest someone in PA has the full time job of changing it every time someone joins or leaves.For the sake of anon who is clearly obsessed with it, if a potential client cares about the number of employees it will ask for the figure in the tender documents. If someone thinking of joining really cares they can ask. There are more important things to stress about.

I may need to change my user name now that the partners have finally decided to close BOP

BOP man - what crazy new name are you going to have to use?

BOP Man - surely in light of the new practice name you should call yourself Pop Will Eat Itself! Boom boom!

It is good to see that BOP has finally closed. As a practice, it was difficult to see what its purpose was - they've tried a bit of everything - finance, procurement, Lean / Six Sigma, etc, etc but failed due to a lack of leadership from the Chuckle Brothers supposedly in charge of leading the practice but really just ran it as a way to milk government clients and not letting anyone else in to share in the public sector trough.Let's hope that POO does better (but I doubt it)

Don't normally bother with PA threads, but could someone please confirm or deny the suggestion above, i.e. that PA have relaunched a troubled practice area by renaming it "poo".This is a joke right?

BOP man, how about Poo Bear?

Poo head?

Poo? PA have long been a pile of steaming brown smelly goo.

"I have noted your comments in recent days. It seems that genuine discussion of consulting and career topics on this forum is being hindered by the actions of a few, turning each genuine thread into the opportunity to belittle or whinge.To ensure the forum gets back to addressing professional discussion topics, we'll henceforth be deleting comments that aren't adding anything constructive to the discussions.I hope you see a noticeable improvement in the quality of discussion on the site, so that we can return to a focus on furthering your careers in consulting.""I'm very pleased with the first week of results. I'm sure regular readers will have noticed a marked change in the forum posts - there are genuine and detailed responses being posted to valid consulting careers questions; you can see from the calibre of those responding that engagement by experienced consultants is picking back up again.I'm happy to take the brunt of policing this - and any flak it may produce - as seeing the forum get back to hosting great content and community has made my week! "Enough said really.

Tony - can you please remove all criticism of PA from these boards? I have worked for PA for many years on top tier private sector clients, and got double digit pay rises and bonuses each year. Anyone who has got less than that is a moron

Looks like its closed already. So much for PA's commitment to the Middle East. A bit like the offices that they open in Oz or Singapore or France - they close them at the first sign of trouble and leave the staff to fend for themselves

It is alive and very well

It hasn't closed - but most staff have been moved to Abu Dhabi.

The prime office on the Sheik al Zayed road has closed, and most staff have been moved to Abu Dhabi. No notice, or no relocation assistance given. The old BOP partner that set up the practice has been shoved out of the company, and replaced by some really hopeless Government partners, most of whom spend all their time in the UK.

Is this true? Haven't seen or heard anything internally so a little sceptical I have to say - especially as only 2 months since we setup the Gulf Practice.

But then the PA management is hardly going to advertise the fact internally if this is true is it!?

All part of the move to the Gulf practice focus - nice bit of spin from the partners

Why is the headcount figure on PA's wikipedia page still showing a signifcantly inflated value from 2006?The point made above about how PA cannot dedicate a full-time resource to maintaining the headcount is clearly -- and no doubt deliberately -- fatuous.Having a figure that is several years old is deceitful. It's not as if the page is not regularly maintained: there have been well over 100 changes to the page since 2006.It would only take 5 minutes to update it. Why has that not happened?

Perhaps they are waiting until the end of the month before updating. If updated now, it might be 5% wrong within a few weeks.But, frankly, who cares anyway? Wikipedia is hardly reliable.

Gallup you are sooo right. Who cares. Anon - why are you so obsessed with knowing? Get a life.

Gallup - you are right. There are likely to be a lot more people leaving once the (greatly reduced) bonus figures are paid out. PA is dying on its feet, its very sad to see a former top 10 consultancy decline so dramatically, due to the greed of a few public sector partners.