Top management consulting firms in Virginia, ranked by ChatGPT answers

Places ChatGPT showed

• McKinsey & Company · 4.0★ · Business management consultant

If by “best” you mean firms with strong management/strategy consulting capabilities and a meaningful Virginia/DC-area presence, the landscape is particularly strong in Northern Virginia.

A useful shortlist is:

• McKinsey & Company — Broad strategy and management consulting, including transformation, organization, operations, and government-related work. Its Washington office serves the broader Virginia/DC market.
• Boston Consulting Group — Strong in corporate strategy, transformation, operations, and organizational strategy; its DC office serves the Northern Virginia market. Vault's 2026 management-consulting survey places BCG among the leading firms in the practice.
• Bain & Company — Major strategy and management consultancy, particularly relevant for corporate strategy, performance improvement, and private equity. It doesn't have the same Virginia physical presence as some firms below, but is a significant option for Virginia-based clients.
• PwC Strategy& (US) LLC - Arlington — Strategy consulting combined with PwC's broader implementation, technology, finance, and transformation capabilities. Its Arlington office is directly in Northern Virginia.
• Deloitte Consulting — Especially substantial in the Virginia/DC market, with capabilities spanning strategy, operations, technology, human capital, and public-sector consulting. Deloitte is among the leading firms in the 2026 management-consulting survey.
• Booz Allen Hamilton — A particularly prominent Virginia-based consulting firm, with deep expertise in government, defense, national security, technology, and transformation. In the 2026 Vault survey, Booz Allen was the leading firm in public-sector consulting.
• Guidehouse — Strong presence in Arlington and extensive government, healthcare, financial-services, and regulated-industry consulting. Recent federal-contract data also shows Guidehouse among Virginia's largest management-consulting vendors.
• McChrystal Group — Alexandria-based boutique focused on organizational performance, leadership, strategy execution, and team effectiveness.
• Dean & Company — McLean/Tysons-based boutique strategy firm specializing in corporate strategy, growth, pricing, market entry, and new-product strategy.
• North Highland Worldwide Consulting — Arlington-based management consultancy with an emphasis on strategy-to-execution, transformation, and organizational change.
• Slalom Consulting — Tysons-based consulting firm combining business strategy, technology, and transformation/implementation.

How I'd break them down

One important distinction: “best” depends heavily on whether you're hiring a firm as a client or looking for a consulting job. The large firms dominate general management/strategy consulting surveys, while Virginia has some unusually strong specialists because of its proximity to Washington and the federal government. For example, recent federal-contract data puts Deloitte, Booz Allen, Guidehouse, and ICF among the largest Virginia-based vendors in federal management consulting.

If you're looking for a consulting job in Virginia, I can also give you a more useful shortlist of 10–15 firms ranked by career opportunities, compensation, prestige, work-life balance, and likelihood of hiring in Virginia/DC—without conflating that with which firms are best for clients.

Places ChatGPT showed

• Blue Ridge Partners · 5.0★ · Business management consultant
• Dean & Company · Corporate office
• West Monroe - Washington DC · Business management consultant
• Slalom Consulting · 5.0★ · Business management consultant
• North Highland Worldwide Consulting · 5.0★ · Business management consultant
• Performance Management Group, LLC · 5.0★ · Business management consultant
• Veracity Consulting · 4.8★ · Business management consultant
• McChrystal Group · 4.3★ · Business management consultant

If by mid-size you mean roughly 50–1,000 employees, Virginia has a good mix of boutique firms and larger consultancies. I’d focus less on generic “top firm” lists and more on whether the firm regularly works with companies of your size and can provide hands-on implementation.

Virginia firms worth considering

• Blue Ridge Partners — McLean. Particularly relevant if your priority is profitable growth, pricing, sales effectiveness, or value creation. The firm explicitly targets middle-market companies and private-equity portfolio companies.
• Dean & Company — McLean/Tysons. A boutique strategy firm focused on corporate strategy, growth, pricing, market entry, and competitive positioning. This can be attractive if you want senior-level strategy work rather than a large implementation team.
• West Monroe - Washington DC — McLean/Tysons. A larger business-and-technology consultancy that combines strategy with implementation, including operating-model, process, data/analytics, technology modernization and AI work.
• Slalom Consulting — Tysons. Another option for business transformation, technology, operating-model changes, and implementation. Its regional model can be useful for companies that need consultants who stay involved through execution.
• North Highland Worldwide Consulting — Arlington. Particularly oriented toward strategy-to-execution, organizational change, and complex transformation.
• Kaizen Consulting Group — Richmond. A smaller firm explicitly focused on middle-market clients, with strategy, implementation, growth, profitability, and ownership-transition/M&A advisory.
• Performance Management Group, LLC — Richmond area. More hands-on and smaller-firm oriented, with services spanning strategy, implementation, leadership, execution and efficiency.
• Veracity Consulting — Richmond/Glen Allen. A good candidate when the management problem has a significant technology, process-improvement, or digital-transformation component.
• McChrystal Group — Alexandria. More specialized around organizational performance, leadership, operating models, and how teams/processes/technology work together.
• One Consulting — Fredericksburg. A smaller Mid-Atlantic practice specifically describing its target as regulated mid-market firms and government contractors, with operating-discipline, leadership, and post-award scale-up work.

How I'd narrow it down

There are also many smaller Virginia consultancies: GoodFirms currently lists 48 management-consulting firms in Virginia, while Clutch's Richmond listings show firms ranging from 10-person boutiques to large national consultancies.

If you tell me (1) your company's approximate revenue/employee count, (2) industry, (3) Virginia location, and (4) what you need help with—strategy, growth, operations, M&A, HR, technology, etc., I can narrow this to a shortlist of 5 firms with typical engagement size, relevant experience, and why each might fit a mid-size company.

Places ChatGPT showed

• Curtis&Co · 5.0★ · Business management consultant
• MG Operations & Strategy Partners · 5.0★ · Business management consultant
• Management Science & Innovation, Inc. · 5.0★ · Engineering consultant
• MCL & Associates Inc. · 5.0★ · Business management consultant
• BPRP Consulting · Consultant
• Thought Logic Consulting · Consultant
• Veracity Consulting · 4.8★ · Business management consultant

If your priority is operations and process improvement, rather than general strategy consulting, Virginia has several firms worth considering. I’d segment them by the type of work they appear strongest in:

A few particularly relevant choices

For a traditional operations-improvement engagement: Curtis&Co is one of the more directly aligned options. Its stated capabilities include operational excellence, Lean/continuous improvement, process modeling/mining, analytics and large-scale transformation.

For manufacturing or supply chain: I'd look closely at MG Operations & Strategy Partners and Streamline Industrial Consulting. The former emphasizes supply-chain and operating-model transformation, while the latter is more industrial-engineering/hands-on in orientation.

For Lean/Six Sigma process improvement: MCL & Associates, BPRP Consulting, and Source One Consulting are particularly explicit about process-improvement methodologies. Source One, for example, specifically advertises Lean Six Sigma/DMAIC project management and organizational process improvement.

For federal/government operations: Management Science & Innovation, BPRP, Zweiback Group, and Guidehouse are worth investigating. Zweiback explicitly offers business-process improvement and optimization, while Guidehouse's government work includes enterprise effectiveness, performance management and business-process improvement.

For a smaller, hands-on boutique: ThinkOps, MCL, Streamline, and BPRP may be more appropriate than a large consulting organization if you want consultants working directly with frontline teams rather than a large transformation program.

One important distinction: “best” depends heavily on the problem. A manufacturer trying to improve OEE and throughput needs a different consultant from a healthcare organization redesigning administrative workflows or a federal agency doing enterprise process reengineering.

If you tell me your industry, approximate company size, location in Virginia, and the specific process problem (e.g. cost reduction, Lean/Six Sigma, supply chain, back-office workflows, ERP/process redesign), I can narrow this to 3–5 firms and compare their relevant capabilities, typical client profile, and likely engagement fit.

Places ChatGPT showed

• Capital Edge Consulting · Business management consultant
• ENcompass Consulting Group LLC · Consultant
• Road Map Consulting, LLC · 4.3★ · Professional organizer
• Deep Water Point & Associates · Consultant
• Mercury Consulting · Business Consulting
• Federal Schedules, Inc. | FEDSched · 5.0★ · Consultant
• One Consulting LLC · 5.0★ · Consultant
• Integrity Management Consulting, Inc. · Business management consultant

Yes. Virginia—especially Northern Virginia—has a large GovCon consulting ecosystem. A few firms that explicitly work with government contractors include:

• Red Team Consulting — Ashburn. Focuses on capture management, business development, proposal development, and federal opportunity strategy for government contractors.
• Capital Edge Consulting — Vienna. Specializes in government-contract compliance, indirect rates, cost/pricing, DCAA readiness, audit support, and contract-related financial systems.
• ENcompass Consulting Group LLC — Chantilly. Works with contractors on BD/capture, proposals, certifications, contract management, and federal-market growth.
• Road Map Consulting, LLC — Alexandria. Provides federal procurement and GovCon consulting, including acquisition, program management, proposal development, and contract lifecycle support.
• Deep Water Point & Associates — McLean. Focuses on federal-market strategy, growth, capture, competitive positioning, and M&A advisory for organizations selling to government.
• Mercury Consulting — Leesburg. Particularly focused on GSA Multiple Award Schedule and other government procurement vehicles.
• Federal Schedules, Inc. (FEDSched) — Herndon. Provides consulting around obtaining, managing, and growing federal contracts, including GSA-related work.
• One Consulting LLC — Fredericksburg. Focuses on post-award operational scale-up, management systems, leadership, documentation, and compliance-friendly operating processes for government primes and subcontractors.
• Integrity Management Consulting, Inc. — Tysons. Government-focused management consulting with experience in acquisition, program management, analytics, and federal mission support.
• Pinnacle Government Consulting — Ashburn. Its stated industry experience specifically includes government contracting/consulting, with services including acquisition and contract support, process improvement, efficiency initiatives, and DoD financial-management support.
• Faunce Associates — Virginia-based management consulting firm serving the GovCon community, particularly business development, capture, proposal, and project-management support. It says it has supported both small and large federal contractors.
• Vincia Consulting — provides federal contract acquisition, pricing, proposal management, and GovCon business strategy, with a particular focus on defense contractors and the Defense Industrial Base.

If you're looking for a particular type of consulting

Virginia's GovCon cluster is particularly concentrated in Northern Virginia; Fairfax County's economic-development materials identify management consulting, strategic planning, systems integration, technical consulting, and related services as major parts of the region's government-contracting ecosystem.

If you tell me whether you're a government contractor looking to hire a consultant, a consultant looking for GovCon clients, or looking for an employer, I can narrow this to the most relevant 10–15 firms and include company size, location, specialties, and website links.

Places ChatGPT showed

• Guidehouse · 4.3★ · Consultant
• PwC Strategy& (US) LLC - Arlington · Business management consultant
• Boston Consulting Group · 4.4★ · Business management consultant
• McKinsey & Company · 4.0★ · Business management consultant
• Slalom Consulting · 5.0★ · Business management consultant
• Protiviti Government Services Inc · Business management consultant
• Kearney & Company, P.C. · 4.4★ · Certified public accountant
• Dean & Company · Corporate office
• McChrystal Group · 4.3★ · Business management consultant
• North Highland Worldwide Consulting · 5.0★ · Business management consultant
• FTI Consulting · 4.5★ · Business management consultant

If by “reliable” you mean firms with an established track record, substantial local presence, and capabilities beyond a single niche, Northern Virginia has several strong options. I’d separate them by the kind of consulting you need rather than treating one firm as universally best.

Strong established options in Northern Virginia

• Guidehouse — McLean/Tysons
• Particularly strong for government, healthcare, financial services, infrastructure, and national security.
• Offers strategy, operations, organizational transformation, technology, analytics, and managed services. Guidehouse says it has about 18,000 employees globally and maintains a particularly deep Virginia presence.
• A particularly relevant choice if your organization works with federal, state, or local government.
• PwC Strategy& (US) LLC - Arlington — Arlington
• Strategy consulting backed by PwC's broader capabilities.
• Good fit for corporate strategy, transformation, operating models, deals, and large organizational initiatives.
• The Arlington office gives it a genuine Northern Virginia presence.
• Boston Consulting Group — Washington, DC, serving the NoVA market
• Strong option for corporate strategy, growth, transformation, and complex strategic problems.
• BCG's DC operation serves clients throughout the capital region, including Northern Virginia.
• McKinsey & Company — Washington, DC, serving the NoVA market
• Particularly relevant for enterprise strategy, organizational transformation, government, and large-scale change.
• McKinsey's DC office specifically works across public, private, and social sectors.
• Slalom Consulting — Tysons
• More implementation-oriented than a pure strategy boutique.
• Good for business/technology transformation, operating-model changes, digital initiatives, and implementation.
• Its Tysons office serves the broader DMV region.

Firms particularly worth considering for government

• Booz Allen Hamilton — headquartered in McLean and deeply embedded in the Northern Virginia/federal consulting ecosystem. Fairfax County identifies Booz Allen as one of the area's major professional-services employers.
• Guidehouse — especially broad across federal/state/local government, healthcare, defense/security, and infrastructure.
• ICF — strong in federal programs, energy, transportation, environmental policy, social programs, analytics, and program implementation. ICF describes its capabilities as combining policy/business expertise with technology and data science.
• Protiviti Government Services Inc — Alexandria-based and focused on public-sector management, risk, technology, and related consulting.
• Kearney & Company, P.C. — Alexandria-based, with a strong federal-government orientation around financial management, audit, human capital, analytics, and technology.

Smaller/boutique firms

If you want a more hands-on engagement rather than a large consulting organization:

• Dean & Company — McLean; boutique strategy consulting, including corporate strategy, growth, pricing, and competitive positioning.
• McChrystal Group — Alexandria; organizational performance, leadership, strategy execution, and team effectiveness.
• North Highland Worldwide Consulting — Arlington; particularly oriented toward strategy-to-execution, transformation, and organizational change.
• FTI Consulting — McLean; useful for specialized, high-stakes situations involving corporate transformation, disputes, investigations, risk, and financial matters.

How I'd narrow the list

One important distinction: “reliable” is difficult to infer from consumer reviews for B2B consulting firms. For a consulting engagement, I'd put considerably more weight on the specific partner/team, relevant case experience, references from comparable clients, contract structure, and whether the firm will actually provide senior people to the project than on Google ratings.

If you tell me what kind of organization you have (startup, mid-sized company, large corporation, nonprofit, or government) and what you need help with, I can narrow this to 5–7 Northern Virginia firms and compare their specialties, approximate engagement size, local presence, and typical client profile.

Places ChatGPT showed

• Fahrenheit Advisors · 5.0★ · Consultant
• CapTech · 4.8★ · Consultant
• Impact Makers · 4.4★ · Business management consultant
• Warren Whitney · 5.0★ · Business management consultant
• Veracity Consulting · 4.8★ · Business management consultant
• Curtis&Co · 5.0★ · Business management consultant
• Mosley Strategy Group LLC · 5.0★ · Business development service
• Richardson Strategy · 5.0★ · Consultant

Assuming you mean Richmond, Virginia, there are several strong options, but they serve somewhat different needs. I wouldn’t treat “best” as a single ranking; the right choice depends heavily on whether you need strategy, transformation, finance, operations, or technology.

Strong Richmond-area options

• Fahrenheit Advisors — Richmond-based advisory and management consulting firm. Its work spans strategy, operations, transformation, finance, HR, sales/growth, and interim leadership. A particularly relevant option for privately held and middle-market companies.
• CapTech — Richmond-founded consulting firm with a strong management + technology orientation. Particularly relevant for digital transformation, data/analytics, process improvement, program leadership, and technology implementation.
• Impact Makers — Richmond-headquartered management and technology consultancy focused on strategy, organizational transformation, data/analytics, cloud, and complex change execution.
• Warren Whitney — A long-established Richmond firm focused on strategy, finance/accounting, HR, and IT, including fractional/interim leadership. It specifically serves privately held and nonprofit organizations.
• Veracity Consulting — Richmond-metro firm combining business consulting, process improvement, digital transformation, and technology delivery.
• Curtis&Co — Boutique Richmond management consultancy emphasizing operational excellence, Lean/continuous improvement, analytics, automation, process modeling, and systems implementation.
• Mosley Strategy Group — Smaller boutique focused on business growth, strategy, positioning, and execution, particularly for established business owners.
• Richardson Strategy — Boutique option for small-business strategy, revenue operations, CRM, and sales/marketing processes.

There are also large national firms with Richmond offices. Deloitte, for example, has a Richmond office and provides broad consulting capabilities for large organizations. Current Richmond consulting directories also identify firms such as BDO, SYLVAIN and SingleStone among the area's management/strategy consultants.

A practical shortlist by need

If you tell me what kind of company you have (industry + approximate revenue/employee count) and what you need help with, I can narrow this to 3–5 Richmond firms that are particularly well matched, including typical engagement size and relevant client experience.

Places ChatGPT showed

• MG Operations & Strategy Partners · 5.0★ · Business management consultant
• North Highland Worldwide Consulting · 5.0★ · Business management consultant
• Slalom Consulting · 5.0★ · Business management consultant
• Tower Strategy Group · 3.7★ · Business management consultant
• Curtis&Co · 5.0★ · Business management consultant
• Eagle Hill Consulting · 4.3★ · Business management consultant
• CrossCountry Consulting · 3.9★ · Business management consultant
• McChrystal Group · 4.3★ · Business management consultant
• Boston Consulting Group · 4.4★ · Business management consultant
• PwC Strategy& (US) LLC - Arlington · Business management consultant

If by “practical, measurable results” you mean firms that stay involved through implementation and can tie the work to metrics such as cost savings, cycle time, backlog reduction, revenue, EBITDA, or service levels, Virginia has several credible options. I wouldn’t treat any single firm as objectively “best”; the fit depends heavily on the problem and client size.

Firms worth putting on a shortlist

• MG Operations & Strategy Partners — Oakton. Particularly relevant for supply chain, operations transformation, and M&A execution. Its positioning is strongly execution-oriented rather than purely strategic.
• North Highland Worldwide Consulting — Arlington. Focuses on strategy-to-execution, transformation delivery, operating-model changes, and adoption.
• Slalom Consulting — Tysons. A useful option when business transformation needs to be connected to technology, data, and actual implementation.
• Tower Strategy Group — Alexandria. Combines strategy consulting with technology/AI and emphasizes moving from analysis into execution.
• Curtis&Co — Richmond. More operations-focused, with capabilities in Lean/continuous improvement, analytics, automation, process modeling, and systems implementation.
• Eagle Hill Consulting — Arlington. Particularly relevant for organizational/workforce transformation and federal-sector operational improvement.
• CrossCountry Consulting — McLean/Tysons. Stronger fit for finance transformation, transactions, risk, and technology-enabled business transformation.
• McChrystal Group — Alexandria. Concentrates on organizational performance, strategy execution, leadership alignment, and operating-model effectiveness.

There is unusually strong evidence from Virginia's own government

For large-scale transformation, Virginia's published transformation reports provide something more useful than generic consulting-firm rankings: documented outcomes.

The Commonwealth reports that its procurement transformation, involving BCG and Civic Initiatives, generated $105M+ in savings. Its VEC transformation, involving Accenture and others, cleared 1M+ work items, eliminated claims backlogs, and improved timeliness from about 20% to over 80%. A subsequent 2026 report shows BCG and Accenture continuing on transformation initiatives.

So for a large enterprise or government organization, Boston Consulting Group and PwC Strategy& (US) LLC - Arlington are worth considering, but I'd distinguish their scale and strategy capabilities from smaller firms that may provide substantially more hands-on senior involvement.

Smaller firms with especially explicit outcome orientation

A few Virginia boutiques make measurable execution a central part of their proposition:

• Gayle Consulting Services, Alexandria — reports quantified results including operational-efficiency and inventory-cost improvements and specializes in supply chain, ERP/WMS, Lean/Six Sigma, and operations.
• Varr Consulting Group, Stafford — emphasizes staying through implementation and measuring outcomes, with published case examples involving strategic-plan implementation and organizational/process improvements.
• The Hampton Group — focuses on operational excellence, process redesign, capacity, growth, and EBITDA, positioning itself as an operational partner rather than a strategy-only consultant.
• Zweiback Group, Arlington — combines management consulting, analytics, process improvement, workforce development, and implementation support, with a significant government focus.

How I'd evaluate them

Rather than relying on consulting-firm rankings, ask each finalist for three comparable engagements and require:

1. Starting metric — e.g., EBITDA margin, procurement spend, cycle time, backlog, inventory turns.
2. Target metric and timeframe.
3. Actual result, not projected benefit.
4. Client reference willing to discuss the result.
5. Who actually did the work — partners/senior operators versus junior consultants.
6. Implementation responsibility — recommendations only, PMO, or hands-on execution.
7. Fee-to-value relationship — preferably with a clearly defined value case before the engagement begins.

That distinction matters: a firm can be excellent at producing a strategy while another is substantially better suited to changing the underlying operation and proving the financial/operational impact.

If you tell me your industry, company size, and the result you're trying to achieve (e.g. reduce costs, improve operations, grow revenue, restructure, digital transformation), I can narrow this to a Virginia shortlist of 3–5 firms with relevant documented outcomes and typical engagement fit.

Places ChatGPT showed

• Performance Management Group, LLC · 5.0★ · Business management consultant
• Burton-Fuller Management · Business management consultant
• Sight Casting Consulting & Executive Coaching · 5.0★ · Consultant
• Vestigia Organizational Strategies · 5.0★ · Business management consultant

If by “executives trust” you mean locally rooted firms with strong evidence of senior-level experience, repeat client relationships, and executive/board-facing work, rather than simply firms with high online ratings, I’d put the following Virginia firms on a research shortlist.

There isn’t a reliable public dataset that measures “executive trust,” so I would not treat this as a definitive ranking. I looked for ownership/local roots plus evidence of work with CEOs, owners, boards, and leadership teams.

Strong Virginia-local candidates

• Performance Management Group, LLC — Powhatan/Richmond area. A locally based management consulting firm focused on strategy, implementation and leadership. Its published client references include CEOs and founders; one founder says PMG helped produce 1,000% growth in 2019, while other references describe strategic-planning work.
• Warren Whitney — Richmond. This is probably one of the clearest matches for what you're describing. It has been Richmond-based since 1989, is privately held, and was founded by Scott Warren and Katherine Whitney, who remain owners. Its model is unusually executive-oriented: fractional/interim leadership, advisory work and consulting across finance, HR and strategy.
  Warren Whitney
• Stanford Management Consulting — Fredericksburg. Founder/CEO Julia Demkowski has more than 30 years advising privately held businesses and leadership teams. She is a Certified Management Consultant (CMC) and former Chair/CEO of the Institute of Management Consultants USA, giving the firm unusually strong professional credentials for a boutique practice.
• LeadSpark — Richmond. A founder-led boutique formed by three executives with CEO, CFO and COO backgrounds. Its principals have substantial board and senior-management experience, and its documented clients include healthcare, nonprofit, government and commercial organizations.
  LeadSpark
• Burton-Fuller Management — Richmond. Woman-owned boutique specializing in executive coaching, leadership development, organizational development and team effectiveness. Its client base spans financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, universities, nonprofits and government.
• Sight Casting Consulting & Executive Coaching — Charlottesville. A particularly interesting option for CEOs and owners who want an operator rather than a traditional consulting team. Founder John Haydock brings senior operating, brand and entrepreneurial experience and works with founders, CEOs, boards and leadership teams.
• Vestigia Organizational Strategies — Bristow/Northern Virginia. A boutique organizational-strategy practice centered on leadership, culture, performance management and change. It may make more sense for an executive dealing with organizational effectiveness or leadership issues than for a pure corporate-strategy engagement.
• MCV Consulting — Virginia. A different niche: family-enterprise advisory. Founded in 2002, it works with business-owning families, boards, family offices and family councils on governance, succession, strategic alignment and ownership transitions.
  MCV Consulting

If “family-owned” is the key criterion

Warren Whitney stands out because there is unusually clear public evidence of local ownership and a long operating history. A Virginia Business profile identifies Katherine Whitney as co-founder, owner and director, and the firm describes itself as serving privately held businesses and nonprofits.

For family-business consulting specifically, MCV Consulting is more specialized: its entire practice is built around family enterprises, governance and multigenerational succession.

How I'd narrow the list

For an executive buyer, I'd separate them by need rather than attempt to declare a “best” firm:

One useful signal is that Virginia has 48 management-consulting firms in GoodFirms' September 2026 database, but most public directories don't distinguish genuine local/family ownership from simply having a Virginia office.

If you tell me what kind of executive you are (CEO of a 20–100-person company, PE-backed executive, family-business owner, nonprofit CEO, government contractor, etc.) and your Virginia region, I can narrow this to 5 firms with the strongest evidence of CEO-level client trust, including client references, tenure, ownership, specialties, and approximate firm size.