Consulting proposals from top-tier consultancies like McKinsey, Bain, and BCG are typically closely guarded secrets. However, now and then, an RfP response finds its way into the public domain. Most are for government projects, disclosed under transparency requirements.
For your convenience, we've rounded them up here, along with short summaries of each document.
Please note: Many of the proposals here are responses to government RfPs, and as a result often long text-heavy documents structured according to the specifications of the RfP. These proposals are quite different from typical consulting proposals that tend to be shorter, more visual, and often delivered as a slide deck.
Proposal guide & template
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At the State of New Jersey's request, McKinsey submitted this 36-page proposal in December 2023 on how it could assist the Department of Treasury in New Jersey on conducting a comprehensive review of the Department of Military and Veterans Affairs (DMAVA), and provide recommendations for the structure, functions, and personnel of two separate cabinet-level state agencies, Military Affairs and Veterans Services.
McKinsey won the project.
Cost: $3,994,610
Duration: 24 weeks
Great inspiration for: How to use a a framework as the basis for a project plan, how to show a comprehensive workplan and timeline without making it too complex, and how to effectively show team resumes.
McKinsey submitted a 47-page proposal as a response to quotes from Washington State Department of Enterprise Services for support on organizational development, change management, strategic planning, and management and business analysis incl. leadership development.
Cost: Not disclosed
Duration: Not disclosed
Great inspiration for: How to list fairly generic process elements that seem compelling and tailored, e.g., in their section on strategic planning.
At the State of New Jersey's request, McKinsey submitted this 16-page proposal in April 2020 on how it could assist the New Jersey Office of Emergency Management in navigating the pandemic.
Cost: $2,475,000 on top of original project price of $2,718,651.68
Duration: Extension of 12 weeks on top of original project
Great inspiration for: How to divide a project into work streams with clear objectives, activities, and key deliverables. This proposal shows how McKinsey breaks up their fee according to work streams, team size, and project duration.
As a response to calls for proposals, McKinsey submitted this 73-page technical proposal in November 2014 on how it would 1) conduct a comprehensive review of the Boston Public Schools system, 2) assess the effectiveness, quality, and efficiency of Boston Public Schools, and 3) make recommendations to improve Boston Public Schools operations and practices.
Cost: The technical proposal was accompanied by an undisclosed pricing proposal. The price of the project was $660,000 according to QUEST, a grassroots organization of parents in the Boston Public Schools system.
Duration: 8 weeks
Great inspiration for: How to include the client's perspective upfront, how to include relevant work/case experience, how to demonstrate knowledge of the situation in a concise, bullet-point format, and how to create a simple yet thorough skills matrix.
As a response to calls for proposals, McKinsey submitted this 18-page cost proposal in November 2013 to the State of Louisiana for an efficiency optimization project within Health, Public Services, and Economy.
Cost: $10,989,894
Duration: 75 days (11 weeks)
Great inspiration for: How to divide a project into relevant content clusters and coordinate across the project with a PMO (program management office), how to break down project costs in both deliverables and hourly rates, and how to structure a strong narrative on how to run a project of this size and scope without getting lost in details.
As a response to calls for proposals, McKinsey submitted a 165-page proposal in July 2013 to help the State of New Jersey develop a statewide program to increase resilience of the New Jersey energy distribution system.
Cost: $2,280,793.59
Duration: 15 weeks
Great inspiration for: Unfortunately a lot of the proposal has been redacted. But it can still serve as inspiration for how to argue for a fixed price rather than hourly.
A short written proposal prepared for a consortium of New Zealand energy companies. The aim of the project was a report that "creates a whole-of-electricity-sector view to enable the bringing together of an independent view of the best pathway to a low carbon energy system".
The document only includes the core of the proposal (context & problem, proposed solution, timeline, objectives, and scope). Proposal specifics like the proposed project delivery approach, fees, and next steps are not included.
Cost: Undisclosed
Duration: 4 months
Great inspiration for: How to structure and write a clear and short proposal.
Download the proposal here
In May 2022, BCG submitted this 79-page detailed proposal to the Commonwealth of Virginia as a response to a request for proposal (RfP). The proposal was to assist Virginia’s Division of Purchases & Supply with analyzing its current procurement spend and transforming its capabilities to realize cost-savings both near-term and long-term.
Cost: $495,000 for Phase 1, followed by a proposed share-in-savings fee for Phase 2
Duration: 90 days
Great inspiration for: How to include exhibits from PowerPoint slides in a Word-format, how to effectively summarize key challenges in the space (and thereby demonstrate deep understanding and expertise in the area) and contrast this to specific client findings, how to showcase unique approaches to various issues and analyses.
Download the proposal here
A 121-slide BCG proposal (in German) from 2012. The proposal, created for The Association of German Private Banks (BdB), was aimed at developing a new payment system for the German market
Cost: €695,000
Duration: 7 weeks and an optional extra 2 week roadshow
Great inspiration for: How to structure and design a large slide-based proposal. It's interesting to note that more than half of the proposal is slides on the situation and challenges.
An older but very effective Operational Excellence proposal developed by Bain. The project aims to identify options to reduce the University's addressable operating cost structure by as much as $100 million through more efficient operations.
Cost: $3,000,000
Duration: 6 months
Great inspiration for: How to structure a proposal utilizing the SCR framework and the Pyramid Principle. The result is a proposal that is easy to understand despite its complexity.
A very detailed 185-page proposal submitted as a response to an RfP created by the Board of Regents at the State of Iowa. The Board seeks management consulting support to perform a comprehensive, system-wide review of Iowa’s public universities. This proposed review includes identifying opportunities to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and increase revenue for Iowa’s State System of Higher Education.
Cost: $1,400,000 for Phase One and $1,049,550 for Phase Two
Duration: 4 weeks for planning in Phase Zero, 10 weeks in Phase One, and 11 weeks in Phase Two
Great inspiration for: What it takes, in terms of details and pre-work, to win a large government consulting project.
Six consulting firms (Accenture, Deloitte, Ernst & Young, KPMG, McKinsey, and Public Consulting Group) got invited to submit detailed proposals for helping the Georgia Department of Community Health develop two waiver applications to send to the federal government, seeking to expand Georgia's Medicaid program and offer a private health insurance marketplace through an alternative to the Affordable Care Act.
All but McKinsey submitted proposals. Based on the detailed proposals received, Deloitte, EY, and Accenture were shortlisted and invited to make a short pitch. The three pitches can be found here:
The state ultimately picked the proposal from Deloitte Consulting. While the three decks' overall quality and design could be much better, Deloitte's deck is at least clear and concise.
When creating a new presentation or project report it can be helpful to see how others have done it in the past. We have collected a number of real McKinsey decks, BCG decks, and Bain Decks from around the internet for you to review, analyze, and learn from.
Or explore consulting fees in more depth in our blog post on how consulting firms price their projects including updated rates from houses like McKinsey, BCG, and Deloitte, and real examples from proposals.
This collection gathers 14 real proposals from McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and Deloitte, free to download. They include McKinsey’s proposals to the State of New Jersey and Boston Public Schools, BCG’s proposal to a New Zealand energy consortium, and Bain’s proposal to UC Berkeley.
A complete proposal covers the situation assessment, the proposed solution, timeline and scope, team resumes, and a pricing breakdown. The work is structured into work streams, each with clear objectives, activities, and deliverables. The best proposals apply the same SCR storyline and Pyramid Principle used in final reports.
Because public institutions are subject to transparency rules that private companies are not. Proposals to state agencies and universities become public records after procurement. This also explains why they are more text-heavy than typical private-sector proposals.
It makes the client’s problem the center of the document, tailors the firm’s experience to the specific project, goes deep on the project plan, and presents pricing in a digestible breakdown. During our years at Bain and BCG we wrote hundreds of proposals, and the pattern holds across every industry.
Study them for structure and tone rather than copying them. The proposals remain the property of their authors. The Slideworks Consulting Proposal Template, which includes a real sanitized winning Fortune 500 proposal, exists for exactly this use.
