Does McKinsey consultants do anything?
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Anonymous
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I did MBB consulting just out of college / over 10 years ago. Often, leaders at companies don’t have the capacity to think about their business strategically because they spend so much time putting out fires. Consultants have the time to step back, think about the problem, iterate on solutions with the client, and then present those ideas. Cases I worked on as an analyst: post merger integration, cost savings during Great Recession, profit pools, pricing strategy that I can remember.
People say the insights that consultants offer are always obvious. Sometimes true, but sometimes not. You’d be shocked that the average Joe Schmoe senior manager has never learned about the business. And trust me, we were never eager to suggest layoffs. I only saw them come up once, and as a last resort to help a dying business. As far as the young analysts - when you buy a teams time, you really are paying for the partners, who are industry experts and have done the work for 30+ years. The junior folks are there to collect and crunch the data to prove out the working hypothesis. They need to be polished bc they are in front of clients all the time. These are hard jobs to get, teach you a ton, and pay incredibly well. My time at MBB was invaluable to my current role (executive at nonprofit with an operating budget of a few hundred million.) I genuinely think it’s the best first job you can have. |
Anonymous
| I will give another example, non-MBB consulting - In 2020 when government is passing out the PPP loans, many of us were tasked to process the loans/stimulus. The banks tech couldn't handle their employees + consultants at the same time. So consultants worked night shifts to get those PPP out to the business owners. This is something that the banks will have a hard time convincing their own employees to do. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
NP here. I can tell by the writing style that PP is a former consultant. I'll give a non-MBB example, too. In March/April 2020, when people were losing their jobs and unable to get unemployment benefits, Accenture and Deloitte staffed their youngest employees on call center jobs for unemployment website work these companies were doing. The work consisted of building non-working websites, and the young employees were told to tell anyone who called their help line that they "can't help" and to call their state's unemployment line, which was all clogged up from everyone else being unable to access their claims. It was a mess for everyone involved, but as long as Deloitte and Accenture got their money for doing essentially nothing, what do they care? |
Anonymous
| I've never been a consultant, but have worked in places that used them for specific, one time projects instead of hiring a bunch of people they wouldn't need long term. I do agree that people inside a company or govt agency know best what needs fixing, but I think the problem is those people already have jobs to do. Also, sometimes it helps to have an outside "neutral" party involved. |
Anonymous
The concept is this: You are a fortune 500 company CEO. You pay outrageous fees to 22-28 year old who come into your company for 2 weeks, thinking they've figured out every nuance to running your business in a matter of days, they generate some fancy power point slides and a report package, then implement the same formulaic crap to enhance 'efficiencies' and 'synergies'. Then the CEO can say they hired 'experts' (lol at 20 somethings being referred to as experts at anything) to make important decisions. When things go south, the CEO has an out for bad decisions, because they hired a consultant. It's a huge racket. Consultants never stay anyway. They often just quit McKinsey after a few years after getting that checkmark on their resume. It's basically a box to fill out in order to get into the elitist club at a bunch of businesses. Very difficult to see what kind of value is added out of all of this except overpaying people to make power point slides. |
Anonymous
Some projects are impossible to win, and internal employees might be hesitant to be "set up to fail". |
Anonymous
Lawyers and accountants can do DD, and do it much better, because they're true experts for financial transactions. The rest is up to management, and should be. If you need to hire outside help to determine if your company doesn't have clear policies and procedures, then you should fire the CEO and HR staff. No reason it can't be internally done. |
Anonymous
Lol, IIRC, the Chief of Staff position exists because McKinsey thought of it up. They've been doing the same crap for decades. Reorganize structure every time they're called in. Get paid the big bucks to prescribe the same stuff over and over again. |
Anonymous
The partner is the expert, they also hire in house advisors to transfer knowledge. The 20 yr olds are there to justify the headcount/bill. The CEO can't justify x million on a 2 hr meeting with an industry veteran, but he or she can justify x million bill for 30 good looking polished ivy league grads. |
Anonymous
Firing CEO doesn't solve the problem. If the company has terrible policy and procedure, the fed will hand over a fine of x billion. Hiring consultants can resemble a willingness to remedy an issue and result in less fines... |
Anonymous
| They're NOT just slides, people. They're decks. |
Anonymous
No, they are work products. Maybe even deliverables. |
Anonymous
Yo guys, check out my awesome deliverables. This is how I make the world a better place 
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Anonymous
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McKinsey people do make nice Powerpoints. But I can't believe this thread has gone this long without pointing out that the subject should read "Do McKinsey consultants do anything?"
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