Is it fair to say that ... Consulting is the oldest profession ;)
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Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?
51–60 of 197 posts
Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?
#52With labor becoming fungible in the eyes of c-suites, the holders of institutional knowledge are the libraries of the consulting firms. Consulting firms also have tech talent that traditional businesses had no access to in the past, so any large scale data driven related project is done with consultants. However: 1. The costs are insane and probably we reached the point where the benefits do not justify the prices th…
The economics of consulting are pretty raw: they basically arbitrage the hourly rate of folks. They pay you X and then bill you for X*1.3 (minimum). Folks are starting to realize they could just go direct to the customer, and the recent non-compete uncertainty has made a dent in the quality of talent these places have on their bench. Not to mention most of the talent at these shops are just window dressing for cheap…
I’m pretty sure my average multiple is 6x
Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?
#53Used to be at BCG. I think it's worth bearing in mind that relatively little consulting revenue -- even at the top strategy shops -- comes from pure strategy work anymore. You can push much, much more volume and absolute impact through by running big merger integrations, digital transformation, and other large scale change projects at big companies. It is basically a better business to become something like a premium…
It’s true in the IT analyst business too. While there are people in 1-10 person firms who earn a living, they’re mostly not getting rich and this is a long term trend line with a lot of consolidation of medium sized firms over time. To be reasonably successful you probably need a real focus and be good at selling.
Had a conversation with an ex-Gartner analyst—now at a product company—and his comment is that even at the big analyst firms, comp isn’t great at least below senior management.
Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing about John Oliver is obligatory
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…
??? John Oliver has always does a great job of understanding and communicating an issue in depth. He is exactly the opposite of everything you are accusing him of.
Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?
#55Current McKinsey here. I don’t think anyone expects the current difficulties to last indefinitely. Its fairly well established that consulting struggles during times of economic uncertainty (but does fine when things are outright bad or good).
Would there be any advantage for anyone to state they feel the opposite to your view publicly? Seems like a career limiting move.
I mean we’re not allowed to say anything either way
Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing about John Oliver is obligatory
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 scientists have proven to be trustworthy, if (IFF!) the right incentives system is in place. (Edit: and talking heads, of course; my claim is that John Oliver and his team of researchers and writers is more trustworthy due to the effort that they put into making things as accurate as possible, while funny as well... All while elevating the quality of newscasters by showing attribution to what they are saying and connecting the dots on why it is relevant to the viewers).
But we are living at an awkward stage of civilization: the very rich are backing political leaders who make a religion out of economic systems and don't view them as useful tools to balance development and inequality.
Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?
#57The big firms just need to be big and known. There value delivered isn’t in the PowerPoint explaining that cutting costs and increasing revenue will increase profits. The value added is that companies buy a stamp from a famous firm when they deliver staff cuts, reorganizations or other controversial news.
As such it doesn’t really hurt to go for scale. They’re a standards org for headcount reduction.
Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?
#58I 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."
Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?
#59With labor becoming fungible in the eyes of c-suites, the holders of institutional knowledge are the libraries of the consulting firms. Consulting firms also have tech talent that traditional businesses had no access to in the past, so any large scale data driven related project is done with consultants. However: 1. The costs are insane and probably we reached the point where the benefits do not justify the prices th…
This is a surprising take, considering the consultants I’ve worked with never took the trouble to learn anything about the business despite sitting shoulder to shoulder with us for weeks, and then proceeded to give us spectacularly terrible technical advice. “You need machine learning for this. Trust us, we’ve done this before.” They hadn’t, and it became clear they’d wasted our time and hadn’t listened to a word we…
There is nobody left, old enough, to remember that the last project with that consulting firm failed.
Re: Have McKinsey and its consulting rivals got too big?
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nothing about John Oliver is obligatory
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…
If only you did your own research on how John Oliver does his research.