Pros
Boutique consultancies can be magical - at one point, the firms under the ISG banner were likely very magical indeed (Compass, TPI). For younger folks at the beginning of their career, ISG will offer a broad array of experience and opportunity that a larger consulting firm simply cannot.
Cons
There are several major problems with ISG: First, leadership. ISG is actually a group of investors who bought at the wrong time (2007) and paid too much and promptly loaded the firm up with debt. Their plan was to flip the company, but were caught without a chair when the music stopped. So they have pursued a more equity development strategy to "increase EBIDTA." That's fine, except consulting is highly perishable - these guys want annuity income. So the consulting business is a stepchild. Make no mistake - the leadership has stripped employee benefits to the bone to fund the executive suite (bonuses are not paid; profit sharing contribution was reduced from 12.5% to 3%; conferences haven't been funded in years; annual raises are virtually non-existent, etc.), Second. ISG has lost most of it's core people - mid management is well meaning, but not strong players. When ISG purchased the firm, they slashed compensation for their top performers by over 30%, which drove a lot of people out the door; and created lousy morale. This has been compounded over the years by chronic and severe underpayment of bonuses (average of about 10-cents on the $1 of bonus; at the same time the CEO's pay package increased 60%). Third, culture. It's hard to run a virtual company. You have to give people a chance to meet one another from time to time. This firm has not held an in-person conference in 5-years. Exception are analyst-level employees who must go to one of the offices on Fridays (think long and hard before joining as an analyst within the gravitational pull of Stanford, CT).. Finally, overall strategy is meaningless. The core of ISG was 25-years of consulting. From an investment perspective, Consulting revenue is problematic because its highly perishable whereas selling data streams is more consistent. For years, ISG's leadership has been transforming the firm from consulting revenue to annuity revenue which has been modestly successful. But it grossly de-emphasizes the people aspect of the work. And Consulting is suffering, especially because the top brain-trust has walked out the door. Even though consulting is still highly profitable to ISG, it is treated as a wicked stepchild.
