How McKinsey Lost Its Way in South Africa
nytimes.com
How McKinsey Lost Its Way in South Africa
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Re: How McKinsey Lost Its Way in South Africa
#2[deleted]
Re: How McKinsey Lost Its Way in South Africa
#3https://asiancorrespondent.com/2011/10/what-drove-rajat-gupt...
https://www.cnbc.com/id/41853809
Many McKinsey partners were consumed by greed and exposed during the 2008 banking meltdown and aftermath. This NYT piece is essentially a pr whitewash despite all the details and acceptance of failings. There are plenty of good people lower down at McKinsey but people like Rajat Gupta did a lot of damage to McKinsey's credibility worldwide imo.
Re: How McKinsey Lost Its Way in South Africa
#4https://asiancorrespondent.com/2011/10/what-drove-rajat-gupt... https://www.cnbc.com/id/41853809 Many McKinsey partners were consumed by greed and exposed during the 2008 banking meltdown and aftermath. This NYT piece is essentially a pr whitewash despite all the details and acceptance of failings. There are plenty of good people lower down at McKinsey but people like Rajat Gupta did a lot of damage to McKinsey's cre…
> Rajat Gupta did a lot of damage to McKinsey's credibility worldwide
This claim is correct, but I think we can reference better sources . The SEC complaint [1] "alleges that, among other things, Rajat K. Gupta tipped his business associate Raj Rajaratnam, Galleon Management’s founder and managing general partner, to confidential information Gupta learned in the course of his duties as a member of the Board of Directors of The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. The complaint alleges that Gupta disclosed material nonpublic information concerning Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs in September 2008, and concerning Goldman Sachs’s financial results for both the second and the fourth quarter of 2008. Rajaratnam used the information he learned from Gupta to trade profitably in certain Galleon hedge funds" [2]. Somewhat pertinently, Gupta did not violate his responsibilities to Goldman Sachs as a McKinsey officer, but as a GS Board member.
[1] https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2011/comp22140.pdf
[2] https://www.sec.gov/litigation/litreleases/2012/lr22582.htm
Re: How McKinsey Lost Its Way in South Africa
#5Ok, I find this very problematic - along the lines of 'Hey, our country is massively corrupt and dysfunctional, and these Westerners came in and didn't do really anything really wrong or corrupt, there are other actors who are clearly to blame, but let's blame the Western Colonialists!
This is a bad meme.
First - don't trust McKinsey or any consultants to implement anything unless it's been done before and clear. They're smart people who make slides. Sometimes they have specific knowledge.
Second - it seems as though they were a little aggressive on pricing, who can blame them? It's not their fault - whoever was on the procurement and oversight side on the fence is definitely the guilty/stupid/corrupt party on that one. There doesn't seem to be any indication that McKinsey cheated on that, I mean, literally they are even admitting 'maybe we could have charged less' like a self-aware faux pas? Would we expect that of any business anywhere?
It seemed they knew there was some risk and tried to investigate it legitimately, and then backed away ultimately when things were known. So that's not so bad.
And yet - it looks like there were obvious corrupt actors in this - Gupta's - surprise (!) who where knowingly and specifically trying to screw over the system!
--> So why isn't this article about the Guptas?
Shouldn't the headline be: "Indian-South African Gupta family swindles South Africa yet again?"
The evidence in the article doesn't really indict McKinsey of anything other than 'knowing maybe they shouldn't have been getting into something risky'. Sure. But they're clearly not the bad guys, and not even 'knowing enablers'.
The problems in this area have little to do with McKinsey.
Re: How McKinsey Lost Its Way in South Africa
#6>Since President Trump took office, McKinsey has greatly expanded consulting for Immigration and Customs Enforcement through that agency’s office of “detention, compliance and removals.”
Now ICE need the consultants for that! I wonder whether McKinsey had anything to do with that risk assessment software update discussed today?
Re: How McKinsey Lost Its Way in South Africa
#7Ok, I find this very problematic - along the lines of 'Hey, our country is massively corrupt and dysfunctional, and these Westerners came in and didn't do really anything really wrong or corrupt, there are other actors who are clearly to blame, but let's blame the Western Colonialists! This is a bad meme. First - don't trust McKinsey or any consultants to implement anything unless it's been done before and clear. The…
Sorry, McKinsey:
- Partnered with a local provider (Trillian) after minimal/token due diligence (despite ample reason to be extraordinarily suspicious, and in contravention of internal policy), to win an unprecedentedly lucrative contract;
- Even when the Gupta ownership connection to Trillian was revealed internally, refused to amend the terms of the engagement;
- Only dropped Trillian when forced by public scrutiny;
- And then tried to cover up the entire debacle, actively misleading investigators and journalists.
What part of this has "very little to do" with McKinsey, exactly? It's quite clear that ethical and/or legal scrutiny was lessened, no doubt given the size of the potential prize on the other side.
Re: How McKinsey Lost Its Way in South Africa
#8Ok, I find this very problematic - along the lines of 'Hey, our country is massively corrupt and dysfunctional, and these Westerners came in and didn't do really anything really wrong or corrupt, there are other actors who are clearly to blame, but let's blame the Western Colonialists! This is a bad meme. First - don't trust McKinsey or any consultants to implement anything unless it's been done before and clear. The…
In my experience with consultants, McKinsey and their ilk do similar things in many other countries, too, and not just the poor African ones. It is not uncommon for government officials to retire to lucrative positions at these consultancies, in return for earlier favors.
South Africa is different because their very liberal post-apartheid constitution gives journalists and whistleblowers a large amount of protection. They also have a good culture of investigative journalism, thanks to the anti-apartheid movement.
Re: How McKinsey Lost Its Way in South Africa
#9Ok, I find this very problematic - along the lines of 'Hey, our country is massively corrupt and dysfunctional, and these Westerners came in and didn't do really anything really wrong or corrupt, there are other actors who are clearly to blame, but let's blame the Western Colonialists! This is a bad meme. First - don't trust McKinsey or any consultants to implement anything unless it's been done before and clear. The…
> Ok, I find this very problematic - along the lines of 'Hey, our country is massively corrupt and dysfunctional, and these Westerners came in and didn't do really anything really wrong or corrupt, there are other actors who are clearly to blame, but let's blame the Western Colonialists!
That's the long and short of it. I read that article twice now and all comes down to 'South African law forced them to get a local partner' - a partner which turned out to be not so great - and 'The contract which was in objective terms great for the client (you only pay if you get a benefit) didn't look great because people in SA didn't like that a foreign company got so much money' -- that's about 99% of what this is about: We do not like the outcome of what we brought upon ourselves, so lets blame someone else. And if that someone happens to be from the West - even better.
Re: How McKinsey Lost Its Way in South Africa
#10Ok, I find this very problematic - along the lines of 'Hey, our country is massively corrupt and dysfunctional, and these Westerners came in and didn't do really anything really wrong or corrupt, there are other actors who are clearly to blame, but let's blame the Western Colonialists! This is a bad meme. First - don't trust McKinsey or any consultants to implement anything unless it's been done before and clear. The…
Yeah I really fail to see how a service provider should be held responsible for the misdeeds of its clients. Unless anything in those slides they sold suggested anything illegal, which I haven’t heard to be the case, I don’t see why McKinsey would be more guilty to providing them advice than Lenovo would be guilty of supplying them with laptops and the local water company with water. It’s not like an auditor who is signing off on the behaviour of its clients. Even banks have been deputised into quasi law enforcement. But not consultants.