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Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

economist.com

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Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#141

Post by FactKnower69 »

ljm wrote: post #107
OptionOfT wrote: post #61

It was a really interesting place to work at a Software Engineer. It made me understand the business. It made me understand that doing the right thing isn't valued. You do the thing that has the shortest ROI. It also made me realize that it is horrible to build software with people who expect short term deliveries like the usual McKinsey engagement. People who expect that the automation of an Excel file takes the sam…

I had a hard time working for an ex-McKinsey/Deloitte/MBA type a while ago for similar reasons: it was always favourable to push a quick hack to resolve an immediate issue, and literally nothing else mattered. If you had to fight fires all hours day, night and weekend to keep on top of it, then so what? That’s the job. Getting heart palpitations because the red circle came up on the Slack icon on your screen? That’s…

>If you had to fight fires all hours day, night and weekend to keep on top of it, then so what?

Same type of person who is completely incapable of understanding that doing more methodical, higher quality work now saves you the time wasted putting out fires later

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#142

Post by FactKnower69 »

mentalgear wrote: post #82

It's not just that they're too big—it's that they're morally corrupt and largely unregulated. These firms have been involved in everything from tobacco lobbying to the 2008 financial crisis to pushing opioids, and that’s just scratching the surface. Despite their role in these crises, they’ve faced zero accountability and continue to rake in massive profits. As for their supposed value (which comes directly from ex-e…

Don't forget fixing bread prices!

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#143

Post by geoka9 »

throw4950sh06 wrote: post #130
geoka9 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how any financial consultant/auditor works: an outside team sets up shop in one of your offices with your management's permission to ask any person in your company for any related information. Then they compile a report/financial statements, send it to your management and collect their fee.

Yeah, but that report is required by government to be done independently. That makes it very different.

Not every company has a group that reports directly to the top management and has access to all the employees/information in the company. Therefore the same people who do required audits are sometimes engaged by the management to prepare similar reports as consultants. I've read a few audit reports and they did sound like a set of recommendations to the management.

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#144

Post by lysace »

graemep wrote: post #139
lysace wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. "got" is more informal and less universal across variants of the English language than "become". Bad editing.

Given "got" is used in both British and American English and "gotten" is used only in American English (I do not think it is used in other variants either) I do not agree about "universal"

I meant to agree that "become" should have been used instead.

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#145

Post by metadat »

jncfhnb wrote: post #70
metadat wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false, the Big 4 are all in the auditing business, in addition to high-end management consulting.

McKinsey is not a part of the Big 4. The Big 4 refers to the big four auditing firms.

Thanks for the correction.

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#146

Post by [deleted] »

jncfhnb wrote: post #63
candiddevmike wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Its fairly well established that consulting struggles during times of economic uncertainty Only the bullshit kind of consulting McKinsey is known for, IMO. The value of someone coming in and repeating what the smart folks on the team are saying is no longer there. Plenty of boutique consulting shops are eating just fine right now. Delivering real results/solutions and being a SME is always in demand.

I don’t do that kind of thing but for what it’s worth The value of coming in and listening to what smart people are saying and then telling the C Suite to actually do it is hugely valuable when the organization is otherwise paralyzed by bureaucracy.

[deleted]

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#147

Post by FactKnower69 »

pphysch wrote: post #47
alexashka wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but go on taking the logical steps: why are the regulators in bed with so many of the major funds? You very quickly boil it down to morality and ethics. Americans have a broken ethics code that says the free market magically solves the need for anyone to be a good person - if someone's a selfish ass, the free market and 'competition' will magically fix it. Therefore I can be in bed with whoever I like, whenever…

Which contemporary cultures are not "extremely stupid", in your opinion?

you might start by narrowing it down to the ones that have managed to complete a public works project in the past 20 years

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#148

Post by chasd00 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #134
samdung wrote: post #58

I have a small story about McKinsey from friend of mine in the Indian Bureaucracy from about 10-12 years ago. McKinsey was doing some work for their dept. I asked him what they did. He said, "McKinsey asked us for lots of information. Then they put it into a dossier and gave it back to us."

> McKinsey was doing some work for their dept. I asked him what they did. He said, "McKinsey asked us for lots of information. Then they put it into a dossier and gave it back to us." Shifting context a bit, I used to experience school classmates complaining to me about some problem they had, and, when I repeated their information back to them, thanking me for being helpful. That didn't feel like it was helpful to me…

I’ve been doing tech consulting for about 15 years. At the senior levels, 30% of the job is like being a corporate therapist. Just listening to a client during a discovery phase go on and on and on and then saying it back to them causes all kinds of things to fall into place. It’s like helping someone do a puzzle, once you get them started and no longer overwhelmed by the scope of the problem off they go.

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#149

Post by stonethrowaway »

rolandog wrote: post #56
stonethrowaway wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Less than nothing. It has flipped to the other side in the bullshit of it all. Pundit hot takes have ruined quality dialogue. Frankly I’d rather have discussions with people who do their own research and form their own opinions, no matter how faulty those opinions may be (there is always room for improvement precisely because there is room for discussion), than to hear them regurgitate party-speak drivel shilled by a…

I disagree. The phrase "doing one's own research" has been co-opted by people doing conspiracy-windowshopping. It's designed to get lazy people stuck in the muck while sending them on a Shawshank-Redemption-style crawl through the sewers of the Internet... Only those who can cut through the bull — pun slightly intended — make it to the other side. You have to start trusting people at some point. Researchers and scien…

I agree with majority of what you’ve said. I think we are, predominantly, in agreement. Or at the very least we would overlap from time to time. I’ll skip on the John Oliver details because so much of what these programs focus on with research is telling you what to think by framing facts, omitting details and derailing discussions. I’ll focus on the other bits.

Both the nutty conspiracists and the people nodding along and cheering with TV shows fall to the same kind of self inflicted ignorance: their biases get the best of them and they won’t look for counter arguments or entertain alternative viewpoints or possibilities. Now, I don’t care about what biases those are in particular, but it’s worthwhile to ask both sets of people, upon listening to them make their case/statement, a somewhat simplistic and mildly derogatory question: “where did you hear that?” because both sets are looking elsewhere for authority on what to think or believe.

Many a time I’ve had to reel peoples fantastical takes in by plainly stating back to them their sources and walking them through the narrative they’ve constructed in their head and listening to people who - in many cases - are even in a lesser position to obtain accurate enough facts to make a solid case. Not the most welcoming party trick but it does work to help wake people up from a self-inflicted trance.

I’m reminded in all of this by the usefulness of something like an LSAT, where it’s asking you to recite back minute details of what has been said or happened, or what has not been said and therefore is presumptuous, without necessarily forming an opinion along the way.

You raise a good point on having to soften a hardline stance and trust people putting in the work.

Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?

#150

Post by chasd00 »

klelatti wrote: post #20

> Excitement among clients over this type of “generative” AI is also creating opportunities for new work. Mr Schweizer says that BCG has already completed hundreds of projects with clients around the technology. Accenture has booked $1.1bn-worth of generative-AI work in the past six months. During a gold rush teach people how to use their shovels.

I’m very close to Accenture and am suspicious of that $1.1B number. That’s 500 $2M projects, I just don’t see it. They must be very generous with the definitions. Like a $100M maintenance/operations deal that has a small genai POC as part of the scope and then putting the whole $100M deal in the genai bucket.
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