Associate - Zero Based Budgeting, Service Operations

Job Description

Who You'll Work With

You’ll work in one of our North American offices as part of the Operations practice. As a member of McKinsey’s global Operations Practice you will be responsible for blending strategic thinking with hands-on implementation, advising on developing and defining operational strategies to help our clients in solving the world's toughest problems.

Service Operations is a rapidly growing service line with deep expertise in operations within service industries and service functions such as sales, business support functions and customer care. Blending strategic thinking with hands-on practicality, our team of consultants and experts work to develop and implement strategies that solve our clients' most critical problems on a global scale. Our team acts as the trusted advisor to senior leaders and help change mindsets and model behaviors while guiding an organization and its leaders through change and implementation to achieve sustainability of their programs.

In this role, you'll work with McKinsey's Corporate and Business Functions (CBF) & Zero-based productivity (ZBP) practices in North America. The CBF & ZBP teams work alignside our clients to identify their growth potential, develop the appropriate cost structure, and implement financial governance model to achieve the potential. Typically, we work with CFOs to refine the financial processes and procedures to bring transparency in decision making processes. To support the effort we may redefine functions and transform cross-functional processes so that organizations can deliver services as an effective partner to the commercial and operations team. Our cross-disciplinary approach disregards the status quo and help our clients imagine what could be.

More about ZBP? The most influential names in operations turn to us to transform their core business and build resilience. Throughout industries and entire value chains, we help clients drive productivity, powered by digital technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, automation, and advanced analytics.

What You'll Do

You will be responsible for blending strategic thinking with hands-on work, advising on developing and defining operational strategies to help our clients around the world solve their most critical problems.

You will help clients optimize all elements of their finance organization, including operating model design, sustainable cost reduction, financial systems architecture, and full scale finance transformation. You will make meaningful,hands-on contributions to multiple projects across a dynamic set of situations in a way that utilizes your deep knowledge of functional transformations.

In this exciting collaborative culture, not only will you have the opportunity to work directly with clients, you will also share your expertise and insights with colleagues globally, thereby expanding our knowledge and refining our approaches in the field of corporate & business functions.

The ideal candidate will leverage automation and digital processes to help our clients realize significant performance improvements quickly. You will push both your coworkers and our clients in thinking about challenging situations in new and transformative ways.

Qualifications

• Experience with Zero Based Budgeting and/or 5+ years’ of extensive experience within sales or operational finance (e.g. revenue growth management, finance transformation, financial systems optimization, etc.)
• Strong communication skills – demonstrated ability to break down complex structures into digestible and relevant points for clients and colleagues, at all levels
• Confident and high-energy to effectively work in teams with those in all levels of an organization
• An advanced degree in Finance, Accounting, Economics, Business, Operations or superior academic achievement in a related field is strongly preferred
• General knowledge of major business trends and awareness of new technologies and tools
• Willingness to travel up to 80%