- In this video, I'll be breaking down
two real consulting slides from Accenture.
I'll show you what they did well
what they could have done better
and how you can build your own high quality
consulting style slides, coming up.
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Hi everyone, Paul here from the Analysts Academy
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The slides we'll be reviewing today
come from a presentation called FinTech New York
Partnerships Platforms and Open Innovation.
Which was given at the FinTech Innovation Labs
Annual Demo Day Event in New York back in 2015.
If you're interested in viewing
the full presentation yourself,
Accenture has made it publicly available
for anyone to download.
So check out the description for a direct link.
All right, here's the first of the two slides,
slide number three.
At the top it says FinTech Investment in the U.S.
nearly tripled in 2014.
And the second slide is slide number four
which says where the money is going.
And the reason why I wanted to review both of these today is
because they're obviously both very closely connected.
The first talks about how lots
of FinTech investments are being made.
And the second shows where those are going.
It's a pretty straightforward storyline.
As far as slides structure goes.
The first slide is about as typical as it gets.
You have the title at the top,
bullet points that support the title
and a chart on the right that provides the data
to support the bullet points.
This fits well with the pyramid principle,
with the title providing the main idea.
Bullet points providing the supporting idea
and the chart providing the data and details.
And this is all stuff that is simple to do
but helps the slide flow a little more smoothly.
Even something simple as putting the chart
on the right-hand side is gonna help
the readability of the slide.
Because we tend to naturally read from top to bottom
and left to right.
and you want your audience
to read the highest level ideas first
before going into the details
so that they know how to understand the details
and what to look for.
In this case,
reading the bullet points helps them see what
they should look for in the chart.
Now, if we really wanted to get technical,
this title probably isn't the best choice for the slide.
The reason why is because it talks
about a very specific period of the chart
The growth and investment value from 2013 to 2014
but the bullet points talk
about a number of different things.
The first and third ones are good.
First one gives some numbers about the growth in 2014
and the third one builds on it by saying
that it dwarfs the increase
that we're seeing the previous year.
Why this third bullet isn't right after the first
by the way is a mystery to me.
But anyway, then you have the second
and fourth that are relevant
but don't really fit with the title.
The second talks about the total growth
from 2010 and the fourth comes out of left field
to talk about FinTech deals in New York.
And it gives figures that aren't even in the chart at all.
Then on top of all this,
you have this line in the chart
that tracks the number of deals for each year
which doesn't seem to be an important part of the slide
according to the title.
You want the title to be a summary of your slide
so that the audience can understand your main point
all at once before they get into the details.
But with the extra bullet points
about the total growth over the last few years,
and about New York FinTech deals,
it makes me think the main point might be
something a little more general.
Honestly, the title is probably good enough
but if I were to write the title myself
I would instead say something like,
FinTech Investment in the U.S.
has grown rapidly over the last five years
with a big spike in 2014 or something similar to that.
That way I'm capturing as much of the slide as possible
and I'm not focusing too much on one aspect of the chart.
One thing I liked that they've done is to call attention
to the important parts of the bullet points
because as much as we want our audience to read
through the bullet points first,
the reality is this chart is pretty distracting.
So instead, they're gonna skim this section on the left
which makes the bolding all the more important.
What I would have liked to see here however,
is a reduction in the total number of words.
It's a bit cluttered and reading
through it is kind of difficult
and not a whole lot needs to be done here
even just cutting out a few words can go a long way.
For example, they probably could have shortened
compound annual growth rate to CAGR or cagr.
Then they could have also cut out these last free words.
And even just those two things
could have made a big difference.
Now moving onto the chart.
I think it does a good job of being clear and simple.
I like seeing column charts that have the numbers on
or above the actual columns
because it helps me see the details if I need to
but it's not overly distracting.
And they've done the same thing
with this line chart that represents the number of deals.
Another thing I like is the title of the chart.
This is gonna sound really simple,
but I like that it's kind of out of the way,
especially for a title like this
that just tells us what the chart is about
without giving any real insight.
By being a little in conspicuous,
it helps my eyes focus on the other parts of the slide
that are more important like the slide title
and the bullet text.
And of course the actual chart itself.
All right, now slide number two, where the money is going.
This is obviously a nice follow on to the previous slide.
And overall, I think it works pretty well.
It's in the same format with the title on the top.
Bullet points on the left and chart on the right.
The main difference here though
is the bullet points don't seem as closely connected
with the information in the chart.
The first bullet certainly is.
It talks about which areas are most popular
but the other bullet points just provide additional context
for some of the segments.
For example, this second one talks about opportunities
in the B2B payment space.
Then third is about lending.
And the last one is about automated advisory
which I assume fits under either the markets
or wealth management segments or both.
To be clear, these are completely okay
bullet points to have.
And in fact,
I think they provide good support for the overall message
of the slide, which is that payments,
lending, trading technologies and wealth management
are important areas for FinTech.
But my issue is I think they could have made
the connection with the chart a little more clear.
If it were me, I would have taken away the first bullet
and adapted it to become the slide title
because I think it's a more accurate summary
of the slides main takeaway.
Then for these next three,
I would have made the bullet text more closely
resemble the names of the segments.
So for example,
for this one,
I would have just said payments
then included detail about how companies
are reducing friction in the B2B payment space.
Then if I could figure out a way
I would have also made some sort of visual connection
with the segment in the chart.
For example, I could have changed the color
of this bolded text to match the color
of the segment and the chart.
Or I could have connected them with a line
or something like that.
I'd have to play around with it
but it could potentially help clarify the connection
which is my goal.
All right, now onto the chart,
which is what's called a 100% stacked column chart.
Overall I think it's pretty good.
It shows me very clearly that payments, lending,
markets and wealth management are all hot areas.
And again,
it shows me by number of transactions,
which has helpful context.
Another way they could have done this
and probably the way that I would have done it
is by using a horizontal bar chart
which would make it easier to compare the segments
against each other.
In other words, you'd be able to see each segment
side by side and show which bar is longer.
Here I can see the percentage breakdown,
but visually comparing isn't quite as intuitive.
With a bar chart though, I would probably cut out the data
on deal volumes because showing two bar charts
next to each other that have different units
could be confusing.
One thing they could've done better with this chart
is to put the names of the segments
right next to the column.
By using a legend like this,
you forced the reader to look back and forth
which is not as efficient.
If you're gonna use a legend though
putting them in the same order as they are in the column
which they've done here is definitely best practice.
Alright, that's gonna do it for today's breakdown.
There actually is one more minor mistake
on the slide that I didn't mention.
So if you find it, let me know down in the comments.
If you're interested in learning
how to analyze slides like this
or build your own consulting style slides from scratch,
make sure you check out our full courses
at theanalystacademy.com.
And again make sure you stay connected with us
here on YouTube, Instagram and LinkedIn
for more content, just like this.
Thanks for watching.
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