Vantaggi
Like most jobs, experience and learning are depend on luck. The teams are fixed, analysts will be working with the same principal consultant and team mates most of the time. The learning opportunity depends on whether the project is interesting and whether the principal is great at teaching and sharing. Unfortunately, good people and talents leave the company pretty quickly, and the data-collecting/ market research projects may involve a lot of grind work. Great thing is that there is plenty of exposure to learn project management, because you may need to run entire project independently with minimal supervision/guidance, which includes managing vendors, interviews, and project budget.
Svantaggi
A small company that aspires to grow big but still lacking in many ways. Employees are severely underpaid. The rate of pay is way below the industry standard. The revised promotion criteria is rigid and lack transparency. Management play favorites blatantly and do not recognize achievement of other employees. It is not surprising to see people leave within a short time, and lack of diversity among the employees. The Economist brand name may help open doors, but very limited. The brand recognition is low. Career outlook for the job leavers may be limited for the fresh grads. Without any prior job experience, it is almost impossible to jump to any top consulting firm from this company. Also, a lot of times analysts have to pay out of own pocket for projects before getting the reimbursement from company. I have seen junior analyst and field work made negative income in the first month of work. In short, word of advise is that make sure you know your rights, and you know your worth before committing yourselves to this firm. If you think this is a consulting firm, think again.