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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?

#91

Post by terminalbraid »

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…

> they’ve faced zero accountability

https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2024/10/18/79...

Is that not an example of accountability directly for the things you're complaining about?

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

#92

Post by datavirtue »

neilv wrote: post #87
crazygringo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, a lot of organizations can't do this on their own . Which is why they hire a consultancy. Information is siloed, teams compete rather than cooperate, any team's own dossier is going to be seen as biased and unobjective. There's real value in hiring a neutral, competent vendor to come in, assemble the relevant information using best practices, and present a "dossier" with common-sense conclusions. Then the…

> teams compete rather than cooperate [...] political cover for taking the necessary actions they wanted to in the first place That looks like three deeper problems than the consultants were tasked to solve. (Not only do you have counterproductive, misaligned culture; but even the CEO can't/won't fix it; and the CEO even has to play political games, just to work around the bad culture, for smaller goals.)

This comment and the parent sums up GE exactly. These consulting engagements were/are a constant stream there. However, they were often ordered by ineffectual, siloed pretend managers and absolutely nothing came of it aside from a bill and the manager getting to feel like a manager for triggering the engagement.

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

#93

Post by jumping_frog »

whatever1 wrote: post #59
sevensor wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are we living in middle ages that electronic records don't exist of what happened in the past engagement. Maybe one can locate the last McKinsey dossier on OneDrive? The problem is and always was of incentives of people involved.

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

#95

Post by eesmith »

terminalbraid wrote: post #91
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…

> they’ve faced zero accountability https://www.insurancejournal.com/news/national/2024/10/18/79... Is that not an example of accountability directly for the things you're complaining about?

How much did they make from helping lying drug dealers? The article doesn't say. If damages weren't at least 3x revenue + attorney fees, it's the cost of doing business. It's not like every shady thing they do gets caught.

Better would be if people faced jail time.

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

#96

Post by nothercastle »

neilv wrote: post #90
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."

There've been variations on this saying/joke for at least as long as I've been working, not specific to McKinsey. Example: "A consultant is someone who charges you $100K, to tell you at the end, what you told them at the beginning."

It’s part of the executive game. Make their position or opinion seem legitimate

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

#97

Post by jncfhnb »

lenerdenator wrote: post #81
jncfhnb wrote: post #9

Current 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).

> Its fairly well established that consulting struggles during times of economic uncertainty (but does fine when things are outright bad or good). The culture engendered into corporate America by businesses like McKinsey is exactly what causes economic uncertainty. When the only thing that matters is the number at the bottom of the piece of paper being big enough for some analyst in lower Manhattan to be happy, human…

I thought for sure it was war in Europe, bubbles burst in Chinese real estate, and a general fracturing in the west vs the rest globalization but ok

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

#99

Post by betaby »

alkonaut wrote: post #57

The 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.

Why though? Why a company with a board, which is already independent, would need some consulting? Isn't the board to convey ideas to CEO?

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

#100

Post by datavirtue »

openrisk wrote: post #88

> The quicker corporate clients become comfortable with chatbots, the faster they may simply go directly to their makers in Silicon Valley. If that happens, the great eight’s short-term gains from AI could lead them towards irrelevance. That is something for all the strategy brains to stew on. The cloud divisions of "big tech" might be the catalysts for this upcoming disintermediation.

In the very near future your grandma is going to carry on a conversation with a machine at her bank and she will have no idea it was not human.

After the election everything that remotely touches AI is going to be at eleven. Everything from companies laying pipe to startups who are delivering services that integrate AI with bespoke business processes. The upswing is going to be far bigger than anyone is imagining right now. The market PE could shave ten points and it will still be gangbusters in AI.

Don't fight the trend.

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