Comments on: Why use McKinsey — or any of the other guys?

By: EC

EC — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 04:08:14 +0000

I worked as McKinsey consultant. Companies hired us because we have lots of very smart people. Many companies lack the in-house intellectual horse power to perform fact-based analysis. McKinsey does fact-based analysis very well. McKinsey consultants also work significantly longer hours than most corporate bureaucrats. McKinsey charges a great deal for their services. Even so, they’re a bargain.

By: Nico Macdonald

Nico Macdonald — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 11:43:50 +0000

I remember a TV documentary some years back in which McKinsey consultants advised a Scandinavian newspaper about strategy in response to online media. From memory, their main advice was about cutting staff, which seemed particularly unimaginative. (That said, the degree to which documentary creators paint black and white pictures is hard to overestimate.)

Bringing in external parties to give credibility to decisions one wants to make anyway is not restricted to the corporate sphere. As The Times (London) Science Editor Mark Henderson recently noted on The Media Show, BBC Radio4: “The government talks… about wanting to make evidence-based policy, but what really prefer… is to get policy-based evidence.”

By: Eugene

Eugene — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 05:37:59 +0000

Wow, you make an excellent point about McKinsey becoming a potential scapegoat (if we can call it that; at the very least, a “deflection of criticism” as you write) if things don’t work out for Rupert Murdoch.

I would actually argue that based on the current circumstances, this is a better reason for hiring McKinsey for their services. There is tremendous upside in the move, while the downside risk is also protected based on McKinsey’s expertise, experience, and status (i.e, the notion that “they told us to do that”).

By: L Evans

L Evans — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 05:09:50 +0000

When it comes to your good reason it is fair to say that while McK et al are great at analysis they have little or no track record in implementation. When it comes to making corporate takeovers work or achieving the cuts or savings, companies do not call the ‘big boys’ to make it happen. Even if they did McKinseys and the rest would decline -too much chance their success or failure could be measured and who wants that?