Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain the concept of McKinsey consultants to me? I know a young lady who just started working for McKinsey as a business analyst. She is 22 years old and graduated from Notre Dame with a degree in Italian and Program of Liberal Studies (ie great books). How does this qualify her to "consult" with multinational companies? I mean, she's smart -- obviously -- but I've never quite understood this. (I'm not in a field that uses consultants)

At that level, you just really have to be smart and know how to put a few sentences together. Everything else, they will teach you on the job, and it will be a very steep learning curve.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I'm getting from this is that consultants work for people who already know where the problems are, but can't/won't fix them themselves?

Former consultant here now on the client side. This is basically it, and I am ALL down with slamming the consultancy racket but...I've also seen some really desperate clients. Some of them get themselves into some real hot water and there is essentially no way out with ther current staff that caused the major eff-up. They have their space there as an intermediary. I will always choose to improve my org with longer term hires to develop, but I won't rule out consultants entirely. At the very least you can bring them in like a SWAT team and work them 100 hrs a week to do the work basically no full-timer would ever do.

+1 I’m a consultant and this is correct. Acting as an intermediary between functions is a critical piece of the role.

In any case, this job I provides a great learning experience with awesome exits (not to mention salary and travel benefits). I’d definitely encourage my kids to try it if they were interested.

My employer hired McKinsey to investigate an issue that could easily have been addressed/fixed in-house with the right leadership. We ended up spending lots of money to hear things we already knew about.

They have been involved with some really immoral stuff over the past several years like opioids.

Anonymous wrote:What I'm getting from this is that consultants work for people who already know where the problems are, but can't/won't fix them themselves?

Former consultant here now on the client side. This is basically it, and I am ALL down with slamming the consultancy racket but...I've also seen some really desperate clients. Some of them get themselves into some real hot water and there is essentially no way out with ther current staff that caused the major eff-up. They have their space there as an intermediary. I will always choose to improve my org with longer term hires to develop, but I won't rule out consultants entirely. At the very least you can bring them in like a SWAT team and work them 100 hrs a week to do the work basically no full-timer would ever do.

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/963899.page

This previous thread says a lot of reasonable things.

Taxpayers shouldn't pay for this farcical "product".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I come from third tier consulting, we take a look at a company’s practice - such as tools, processes, control environments, and implement new functions as needed. For example, one process involves complicated computation and is prone to error, we will recommend a peer review step.

We also review the policy and procedures to determine if they are clear and precise.

We conduct financial due diligence for mergers or leveraged financing transactions.

What a pile of steaming crap. Have you read Bullshit Jobs?

Well I am happy to quit if you want to feed me 🤪

Anonymous wrote:I come from third tier consulting, we take a look at a company’s practice - such as tools, processes, control environments, and implement new functions as needed. For example, one process involves complicated computation and is prone to error, we will recommend a peer review step.

We also review the policy and procedures to determine if they are clear and precise.

We conduct financial due diligence for mergers or leveraged financing transactions.

What a pile of steaming crap. Have you read Bullshit Jobs?

what is crazy to me is that people (including my employer) still take McKinsey seriously given their track record with Enron, their work in South Africa, Perdue Pharma, etc.

Anonymous wrote:I thought they provide cover for firing people.

This is what happened at my gov't org. Then an employee was fired within 2 years of his retirement eligibility which killed how much he will receive for the rest of his life. It was heartless.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I come from third tier consulting, we take a look at a company’s practice - such as tools, processes, control environments, and implement new functions as needed. For example, one process involves complicated computation and is prone to error, we will recommend a peer review step.

We also review the policy and procedures to determine if they are clear and precise.

We conduct financial due diligence for mergers or leveraged financing transactions.

How would you know it better than the company themselves? Their market research is going to be much better than what you could do in a couple of weeks. Also, they understand the deficiencies but may be don't have the balls to tell the c-suite staff that consultants could do.

Companies that run well don't need outside consultants.

The company buying target company will be looking for the best deal on the market, and they will do so with borrowed money. So two problems exist here, 1 the target company stockholders might be squeezed into a lower price instead of fair market value; 2 the lenders are also at risk should something go wrong. Consultants are not experts in the company affairs, but we are sort of independent with our own ass to cover. So what we do here is to convince the target company investor and lenders that this transaction is sound and not screwing people over.

Anonymous wrote:What I'm getting from this is that consultants work for people who already know where the problems are, but can't/won't fix them themselves?

This is right but also when a company knows enough to make a change but do not have the horses to get it done right. I am making this up but not too far off. Tractor manufacturing company. They sell through dealers. They have an idea about selling direct in certain locations. They can do the initial work to see it is a good idea. Sure they have to get the lawyers to see if they can do this given the contractual relationships with the dealers and any antitrust issues. But they have never had a retail side before. Limited experience. Sure they will hire people with some experience to run but they hire MBB to help they determine which markets to go direct in, how much of a move, what kind of people they need to hire, what are the retail issues and headwinds they will encounter. Tractor company uses that as a base to make a decision and to launch direct sales and hire executives to run.

What I'm getting from this is that consultants work for people who already know where the problems are, but can't/won't fix them themselves?

I can't speak to McKinsey specifically, but this reflects my general experience with high-priced consultants. They are either completely useless or they make suggestions that should have been entirely obvious to the company in the first place.

I have no idea how they justify their existence (and prices) well enough to continue to get contracts.

What I'm getting from this is that consultants work for people who already know where the problems are, but can't/won't fix them themselves?