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McKinsey Plans to Eliminate About 2000 Jobs in One of Its Biggest Rounds of Cuts

bloomberg.com

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Re: McKinsey Plans to Eliminate About 2000 Jobs in One of Its Biggest Rounds of Cuts

#21

Post by blululu »

kneebonian wrote: post #3

Honestly I'm now wondering how much of these "startegy/management consultants" jobs could be automated with AI. I mean from my understanding their primary work product is a slide deck.

I enjoy a good laugh at the expense of management consultants, and I honestly thought that chat GPT really reminded me of their style. But while slide decks are the only tangible thing consultants produce, they represent a very small amount of the value that consultants bring. Until you can get an AI to navigate cutthroat C-level politics, and defend a strategy from attacks by internal factions that trying to undermine any rivals then I don't think AI will be able to do much.

Re: McKinsey Plans to Eliminate About 2000 Jobs in One of Its Biggest Rounds of Cuts

#22

Post by throwawaybye »

alephnerd wrote: post #2

Makes sense. McK's back office practice has really grown over the past decade with (imo) little to show for it. Their whole QuantumBlack offering is utter bullshit, and they had a couple other back office boondoggles. Also, doesn't help that companies don't hire Management Consultants as much anymore AND implementation firms like Accenture, WITCH, Deloitte, and EY have climbed up the value chain to offer bundled Mana…

Seems like you work in the industry. What do you think about BCG with their Gamma side? How do they compete with as a package?

Re: McKinsey Plans to Eliminate About 2000 Jobs in One of Its Biggest Rounds of Cuts

#23

Post by JohnFen »

turdprincess wrote: post #15
JCM9 wrote: post #13

McKinsey’s brand has taken a beating these last few years with the company going from scandal to scandal. The NY Times has been doing a whole string of stories on the firm’s questionable business practices and ethics. Funny though how it sounds like, per their own admission, McKinsey badly mismanaged running their own internal operation and woke up to realize they need mass layoffs. Sort of causes one to question how…

But wouldn't they basically have no choice but to scale up their own workforce if their client's business is booming? It wouldn't be a good look to say "hey actually we can't take your project on because we believe a recession is coming". Consulting could be even more "boom and bust" than normal companies since consulting budgets might be the first thing to get cut when times get tough.

> It wouldn't be a good look to say "hey actually we can't take your project on because we believe a recession is coming".

Why not? I'd trust a consultant who demonstrably trusted their own judgement like that even more, and even if they were wrong on that particular call.

I may have to find a different consultant because that one couldn't take me on, but I'd be more likely to consider checking on them later to see if circumstances have changed enough to bring me in.

(Just to be clear, I'm talking about business consultants generally. Certainly not McKinsey specifically)

Re: McKinsey Plans to Eliminate About 2000 Jobs in One of Its Biggest Rounds of Cuts

#24

Post by motohagiography »

throwwwwaway wrote: post #6

Wonder if they hired Bain or BCG to figure out how many to layoff

And when do the announcements come from Bain and BCG as well, as if this isn't due to market conditions, it's due to their specific network being edged out.

I'd wonder if it signals a shift in consulting in general, as a big part of their value prop was you became part of the network when you hired them, but for some reason McKinsey is letting on that they are short those relationships.

When the smart money with as insider knowledge as it gets radically hedges the success and growth of their customers, that sounds like an economic leading indicator.

Re: McKinsey Plans to Eliminate About 2000 Jobs in One of Its Biggest Rounds of Cuts

#25

Post by alephnerd »

throwawaybye wrote: post #22
alephnerd wrote: post #2

Makes sense. McK's back office practice has really grown over the past decade with (imo) little to show for it. Their whole QuantumBlack offering is utter bullshit, and they had a couple other back office boondoggles. Also, doesn't help that companies don't hire Management Consultants as much anymore AND implementation firms like Accenture, WITCH, Deloitte, and EY have climbed up the value chain to offer bundled Mana…

Seems like you work in the industry. What do you think about BCG with their Gamma side? How do they compete with as a package?

I don't work in the space anymore, but I work in an adjacent sector so I still interact with EMs and Partners.

BCG Gamma is similar to QuantumBlack, but BCG's Lighthouse is much more comparable to QuantumBlack.

That said, in general BCG hasn't seen the same level of scope creep as McK has. BCG has also had a strong Life Sciences, VC, and Tech Due Dilligence practice because of VCs origins in Boston (YC was originally in Boston for example).

That said, I do think BCG and Bain will also do some back office culling now that McK has opened the door.

Re: McKinsey Plans to Eliminate About 2000 Jobs in One of Its Biggest Rounds of Cuts

#26

Post by geodel »

Seems its for backend jobs. Consultants are not affected by this. 2 things come to mind:

1) McKinsey did numbers and found consultants are meeting numbers but support functions are not.

2) Consultants doing consultancy for eliminating redundancies could't see that consultants can ever be redundant unless they are offloaded to clients.

Re: McKinsey Plans to Eliminate About 2000 Jobs in One of Its Biggest Rounds of Cuts

#27

Post by xyzzy123 »

c0nsumer wrote: post #17
Sytten wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha yes, the famous cyber security experts that dont know what an HTTP request is but will run a nessus scan, charge 10k and tell you you are secure...

Quite a lot of years ago, when I was much younger (and incredibly naive about "consultants") and doing onsite support, I was tasked with helping out some security consultants as they ran some sort of pentest, in case they needed some assistance with the client computer they were assigned. We chatted, and despite their being clearly disinterested in their work and talking to me (instead going on and on about which bar…

There is a large market for useless security work from companies that need to demonstrate that some kind of security activity has taken place but don't particularly care about security as an "end".

In these situations everyone is just "going through the motions", the PM who hired them, the pentesters, the devs who dutifully put pointless findings in the backlog, compliance people tracking stuff in their register...

The only thing worse is not having a process at all.

Re: McKinsey Plans to Eliminate About 2000 Jobs in One of Its Biggest Rounds of Cuts

#28

Post by version_five »

c0nsumer wrote: post #17
Sytten wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha yes, the famous cyber security experts that dont know what an HTTP request is but will run a nessus scan, charge 10k and tell you you are secure...

Quite a lot of years ago, when I was much younger (and incredibly naive about "consultants") and doing onsite support, I was tasked with helping out some security consultants as they ran some sort of pentest, in case they needed some assistance with the client computer they were assigned. We chatted, and despite their being clearly disinterested in their work and talking to me (instead going on and on about which bar…

I've worked in various consulting roles, and one thing that's always been true is the "rank and file" don't like you and think they know better, can do better, and already know or have thought of everything you do. They miss that you're hired by leadrship, for other reasons (see my other post in the thread). I'd actually be worried (and it's happened) when the line employees like you as an external consultant and think you're adding value. It means you're engaging at the wrong level and probably not getting at the root of what you're there to address.

Re: McKinsey Plans to Eliminate About 2000 Jobs in One of Its Biggest Rounds of Cuts

#29

Post by prepend »

This seems more like economic belt tightening and would be odd if it’s just McKinsey.

McKinsey consults so they hire when clients need more and fire when clients need less.

We’ll see if this just ends up being an economic indicator that big companies that can afford high bill rate consultants have less money to spend.

Re: McKinsey Plans to Eliminate About 2000 Jobs in One of Its Biggest Rounds of Cuts

#30

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

JCM9 wrote: post #13

McKinsey’s brand has taken a beating these last few years with the company going from scandal to scandal. The NY Times has been doing a whole string of stories on the firm’s questionable business practices and ethics. Funny though how it sounds like, per their own admission, McKinsey badly mismanaged running their own internal operation and woke up to realize they need mass layoffs. Sort of causes one to question how…

> Mass layoffs generally don’t follow strong management execution.

I realize that's a common sentiment on HN, but it's not really among executive leadership in US businesses. Sure, nobody wants to do layoffs, but then you're essentially left with 2 choices:

1. Potentially underhire despite growing business opportunity.

2. Potentially overhire to take advantage of business opportunities that may not eventually come to fruition.

What people who hire management consultants care about is that they have the decisiveness to take action when needed, and having significant layoffs is not really a ding one way or the other.

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