[HN Gopher] When McKinsey comes to town ___________________________________________________________________ When McKinsey comes to town Author : mitchbob Score : 179 points Date : 2022-12-05 18:40 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.lrb.co.uk) (TXT) w3m dump (www.lrb.co.uk) | waylandsmithers wrote: | As a former (briefly, due to an acqui-hire) consultant at one of | the big companies mentioned, this was a really interesting read. | | I never thought anything the company did was morally wrong per | se, it was just a different business model that I didn't really | want to be a part of. The role of most people in the U.S. was | landing the big deal, talking the client down when things went | wrong, and then winning an extension for additional services at | the end. Actual implementation was just a cost to be minimized | and handled somewhere at one of the company's offshore sites. | Somehow it all worked out (usually) even for some truly massive | projects. | mattewong wrote: | > One gets the sense that [the authors] think the consultants | they write about are rotten apples, but [they are wrong] | | OK I paraphrased the rest of the sentence into the last 3 words | but if you bothered to read to the end, you see that the reviewer | completely lost her way by the end. Purporting to review a book, | she concluded by the end that its authors are misguided because | the real culprit is not the consultants, but rather, every | pursuit of efficiency, including all "software development". | | > software development [is] in fact focused on enabling | capitalists to enrich themselves further without the inconvenient | interference of workers, taxpayers or regulation | mathattack wrote: | My observation is that clients hire BigName consultants for one | of two reasons: | | 1 - They need external validation/blame. | | 2 - They don't trust their own people to execute. | | In reality I've found it's more efficient to just hire the ex- | consultants and not pay the markup. | jmtucu wrote: | I had the chance to work after this boys were hired by the | client, they are good in consulting and strategy but at tech | level they are really bad and always delegated to teams in India | for pennies. | tequila_shot wrote: | I've been in one of the "Big 4" Consulting firms, and I can vouch | for the article. As a "Senior" the Customer is charged | 150-160$/hour and on top of that 25% for travel. The work that we | did for these customers was lackluster. We used to come in as | "experts", get all the technical work done from body shops in | India and offshore. I was shocked to see that Customers just keep | paying for these expensive services, and have no clue they are | getting hoodwinked. | kyawzazaw wrote: | Just saw a hrly rate in my country Myanmar where they are | charging an Associate rate as USD180/hr in 2022. | oneoff786 wrote: | I'm mckinsey. All I'll care to say here is that we don't | outsource any technical work | indigodaddy wrote: | Same with Deloitte? Don't they have a ton of directly employed | engineers? | runnerup wrote: | I've heard that curing internal myopia is a top priority for | McKinsey this decade. Focus is on broadening | gender/age/economic background and also broadening professional | experience backgrounds. | | They're hiring and developing a lot of top talent in "hard | skills" (e.g., _not_ MBA 's) across different industries. From | what I've been able to tell, it's paying off a lot with | strategies that are grounded in reality and catching things | that non-technical people would miss. | | Really depends on the team you get assigned to your project | though, as with any contracting/consultant situation. | SQueeeeeL wrote: | Oh, glad McKinsey is going to ruin the psychology of a bunch | of LGBTQ people with 80 hour work weeks while they union bust | foreign nations. You aren't developing shit when every single | person you hire leaves after 2 years, don't astroturf this | garbage here. | | What kind of weak political literacy do we have in America | where agencies who literally aligned themselves with | tyrannical oppressive dictators who behead rivals and loot | the wealth of their own population get an ounce of room to | "change" and represent "more diverse opinions". (Spoiler | warning, it's one where everyone in power secretly agrees | that profit triumphs over any other possible motivation) | factsarelolz wrote: | > McKinsey is going to ruin the psychology of a bunch of | LGBTQ people with 80 hour work weeks while they union bust | foreign nations. | | Do the 80 hour work weeks not ruin the psychology of non- | LGBTQ folxs? | TheNorthman wrote: | It's a tongue-in-cheek comment, not a serious statement | regarding psychological resilience. | cjbgkagh wrote: | It was sarcasm, and yes. | nightpool wrote: | Right, that's why the GP is sarcastically saying how | awesome it that they're now going to expand that ruinous | treatment to more people by hiring more minorities. | sharadov wrote: | Used to work as a sub-contractor for Deloitte, all the work was | done by us, the Deloitte folk would spend 12 hrs a day at work | - looking super busy, attending meetings, schmoozing with the | client, go for lunches and dinners and building reports and | spreadsheets. They hired impressionable good looking young | people who were good at selling, period. | harvey9 wrote: | In some cases the customer is just looking to put a veneer on a | decision they already made. The big 4 name is what they're | deliberately paying for. | yamtaddle wrote: | Another role they play is a kind of out-in-the-open corporate | espionage. You pay them to come in and tell you what the | "best practices" are in your industry (i.e. effective new | things your competitors have been doing since the last time | they came to visit you--and they'll learn some new ones from | you to tell your competitors, next time) | kennend3 wrote: | AS someone who has both read the book and interacted with | "big 4" names a few times this is going to be one of those | "underrated" comments you sometimes see here. | | At my previous place of employ they made some really terrible | decisions which ended up costing a LOT of money later. | | Their response was classic "the design was vetted by | McKinsey".. | | No.. you sent them what you wanted to do, they told you what | you wanted/needed to hear and now you are deflecting your | decisions. | azemetre wrote: | I worked for a health insurance provider that paid BCG | $1mil to confirm that we should be using agile in our org. | It took BCG a month to do their "study." | | We were already using agile in our org, but nice to know | some incesteral relationship between directors/VPs were | able to make a nice pay day. | throwaway202212 wrote: | Running agile in a small team is one thing, having a | company do "agile at scale" is quite another (yes I | realise the contradiction in terms). As someone who | worked at McKinsey, on several large scale "agile" | rollouts the bulk of the work was on re-organising the | company (this is not an easy thing to do in companies | with thousands of employees - hence bring in the | consultants). The driver behind these projects was almost | always cost cutting or increasing efficiency. The agile | part was mostly window dressing. | azemetre wrote: | No not at all; this org had existed for two years | already, was already using agile for said two years, and | successfully delivered a multitude of projects using | agile. | | The driver to me seems to clearly increase complexity for | the sake of it in order to push for more billable hours. | | This was pure graft. | | Honest Q since you're a throwaway but is this how | consultants typically act? Justify simple things to be | more complex to lay people and charge them out the wazoo? | | I think I'm slowly starting to understand why some of my | friends are creating their own dev agencies. This racket | is rife with stupid money. | kennend3 wrote: | > nice to know some incesteral relationship between | directors/VPs were able to make a nice pay day. | | you should read the book.. The industry is rife with this | type of behaviour. | | There are always stories about how "senior manager" X is | basically a shadow employee. While they work for company | "Y" their real job is to send business to the consulting | mother ship. | throwaway202212 wrote: | This really sounds like a conspiracy theory. That being | said, McKinsey (and presumably BCG and Bain) very much | embrace their employees leaving to join their clients. It | creates a good "referral" network if you will. But more | than that, I don't buy it. | kennend3 wrote: | I'm obviously not using a throwaway account like you and | so i am not willing to disclose details. | | But lets say that in my industry this sort of "kickback | scheme" is well known. | | I saw it first hand, and have had friends tell me other | instances of it as well. And i am NOT singling out | "McKinsey" but consultants in general. | | As for McKinsey, read the book, they provide examples of | this. | exclusiv wrote: | The throwaways are likely shills (or charitably - | ignorant employees that don't wish to dive into any | claims about their employer?). There are actual cases | involving big four and kickbacks/bonuses and corporate | sabotage. | | One example in the last few years: BCG and NCR | Corporation. | | "It is undisputed that Mr. Benjamin, as an officer of | NCR, owed NCR a fiduciary duty that includes a duty of | loyalty. The Counterclaims allege sufficient facts to | show that Mr. Benjamin breached that duty by entering | into a secret agreement with BCG to promote and expedite | his candidacy for CEO. The Counterclaims further allege | sufficient facts to show that BCG worked with Mr. | Benjamin to negotiate a one-sided contract, and remove | and replace employees who opposed adoption of the | contract, and that BCG advocated for Mr. Benjamin's | promotion to CEO in hopes that he would award BCG with a | _discretionary bonus_. " [1] | | [1] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district- | courts/new-yor... | doctor_eval wrote: | I saw it happen with my own eyes. | kennend3 wrote: | PS - as a former McKinsey employee.. Would it be fair to | say your view is biased? | | Look at your response on the "agile" comment. They feel | it was "pure graft" and you defended it without knowing | any details? | | Now look at the other response on this thread, where | someone stated they saw it first hand as well. | | Are they in on the "conspiracy theory" as well, or | perhaps there is truth to it? | azemetre wrote: | I think I will now. | | I can't find the comment now, but there was a similar | conspiracy about ex-Amazon Managers being paid to force | their new employers to adopt AWS on one of the | programming subreddits. | toyg wrote: | There is usually no forcing: they are typically hired | because of their AWS knowledge - the business has already | decided to go AWS, the new hire is doing what he's | expected to do. | schnable wrote: | It's not always so formal or sinister. I've seen | consultants build relationships with younger managers and | "rising stars" by buying them lunch and drinks, and even | doing some free work that makes them look good. Then the | consultant is an easy connection when there's some | dollars to hire consultants. | mbesto wrote: | Furthermore, they're trying to convince someone else (usually | a boss) of a theory/idea/strategy that they might have but | don't have the resources/rapport/etc. to demonstrate it's | effectiveness. | tequila_shot wrote: | This. They are just a rubber stamp on some of the shitty | decisions that management makes. | AlexandrB wrote: | I had an Econ prof who described his consulting business as: | | 1. Coming into the company and gathering information from the | low-level staff. | | 2. Presenting the information to management. | | 3. Collecting $1000/hr or more for his trouble. | | Basically information washing to get execs to accept | information that they would normally ignore. I wonder how | much of this kind of thing goes on in industry. | LAC-Tech wrote: | IMO that's what a good consultant does! I mean that's much | more useful than the big 4. | acdha wrote: | Where I saw that work it was effectively routing around the | middle layer: the guy bucking for a promotion based on some | project isn't going to let any report mention that the | users hate it, but they'll certainly tell the consultants | that. | | It worked but was a very expensive way to about fixing | social problems. | Firmwarrior wrote: | haha, I definitely saw some of that at Amazon | | This highly-paid factory efficiency expert was | enthusiastically explaining how he works. "You just listen | to the workers. They know where the inefficiencies are" | UK-Al05 wrote: | That's lean. | globalise83 wrote: | Not really, lean would be listening to the workers | pempem wrote: | No matter how many times you recommend managers do this | very thing, they do not. | KineticLensman wrote: | I have worked as a consultant, but not for the one of the big | 4. We understood that we were often being used to develop an | 'independent' perspective that would support a decision that | had essentially already been made or disprove a rival | decision. | | We also were fully aware of the old joke that a consultant is | someone who borrows your watch and then tells you the time. | We sometimes deployed this ourselves with customers, and | extended it to say that unlike our rivals, we would actually | point out how late you were and how to get back on track. | | [Edit] We sometimes found ourselves supporting one of the big | 4 companies (as domain experts). We were often amazed by the | quality of the A team that they would deploy to win the work, | compared with the B or C team that would then actually | execute it (often bright but junior staff). | xapata wrote: | I'd extend the joke with, "You're wearing it upside-down." | It's never ceased to amaze me how incompetent large | organizations can be. | kriro wrote: | That's exactly my experience in Europe. We want to fire 50 | people/close a factory/whatever without blowback...let's hire | McK to tell us to do exactly that. | | I've also had some experience working for a smallish company | with very big clients and they sometimes insisted on having | an IT-Consulting company like Capgemini as a middleman. | That's the biggest nightmare because they were always a net- | negative from my POV...integrating them was just extra work | and they provided no value except for their brand name to | make the client feel at ease. | kneebonian wrote: | This was one of those big eye opening moments for me. | Consultants are hired mercenaries in coporate warfare, they | don't care about you, they don't care about your company or | the rivalries or the squabbaling. You pay them a bunch of | money to come run roughshod over your enemies by producing | reams of analysis and Powerpoints, to fling the arrows of | jargon, and lay siege to your enemies employees by endlessly | trapping them in meetings and then they depart. | | Consultants are brought in to secure your flank, to provide | air cover and to act as disposable pawns in interoffice | combat. | | They are not brought in to solve problems, to find solutions, | or because of their incredibly acumen. It's because they have | no loyalty or love but money. | moffkalast wrote: | Amazing, I'll have to save this quote. | luckylion wrote: | So everyone pays them and whoever pays them the least ends | up with them wreaking havoc on their company by "helping" | them to "improve" things? | tjs8rj wrote: | Based on what? I'm close with a few higher levels at | different strategy consulting firms, and most of their work | at these firms we've talked about has been serious: how to | respond to a firm you've heard of receiving backlash over a | botched vaccine, balancing a pivot in their product line | with their existing customer base, etc | | Problems that will screw you royally (speaking of the firm | here) if you get them wrong, so you bring in outside | perspective that can pattern match your problem to real | world examples (and get in the room with others who've | navigated a similar problem) to make sure you take the best | trajectory. | | At worst, consulting is exactly what you say. Large firms, | being so large, cover the gamut in their services (and so | surely get some exposure to these more flippant projects). | The bread and butter of consulting though is solving real | problems. | | From here, this perspective you have about consulting looks | a lot like the mindset some people have around VC: "they | just come in to pump companies and dump them in the public | market / make an exit before the music stops and everyone | realizes it's bullshit". Of course there's some of that in | VC, but by and large it's legitimate and serious work, | focused on legitimate outcomes, and done all around by | genuine people looking to do a good job - all while | creating real value for everyone involved. | freetinker wrote: | Brilliant. Permission to reuse, please! | bps4484 wrote: | "Consultants are hired mercenaries in coporate warfare, | they don't care about you, they don't care about your | company or the rivalries or the squabbaling." | | "They are not brought in to solve problems" | | I've known people that worked for consultancies and the | biggest value add they think they have brought is when the | problem is the rivalries, politics, and squabbaling has led | to inaction and they've needed outside support to come in | who don't care about these things. | | Perhaps we should hope for companies to have leadership | teams where they are able to cut through this | intransigence, but unfortunately all too often with old | companies stuck in their ways this isn't the case. | freetinker wrote: | They might see their role as brilliant mediators | facilitating action by settling feuds using 2x2 matrices, | but I think that's naive at best, disingenuous at worst. | | They care about the agenda of the person they've been | hired by. Usually a C-level agenda-setter or someone | influential in the org, and often a McK "alum". | | And speaking of action, they have zero stake in the | actual implementation of what they proselytize. | | All this isn't to say that they don't provide value. | Exchange of money is usually is a reasonable signal of | providing value, and these firms and its employees do | reliably well in that area. However, the narratives | around what value strategy consultants provide I find to | be truthy, but not actually true. | not_enoch_wise wrote: | "Exchange of money is usually is a reasonable signal of | providing value" | | How do I get some of the drugs you're on? Sounds like a | truly magical journey. | Loic wrote: | In fact they have a name for it internally: "Cover my ass | assignment". | | Just come to provide the results the boss wants to have for | him to rubber stamp and justify the cost cutting. | SoftTalker wrote: | Yep. The ability to say "the design was vetted by McKinsey" | is exactly the cover that they were being paid to provide. | tyingq wrote: | _" scapegoat as a service"_ is another common nickname for | it. | markhlady wrote: | Big 4 not really comparable to McKinsey. Completely different | game and set of projects clients ask you to work on. | raincom wrote: | BIG 4 = EY, Deloitte, KPMG, PwC? | | Top tier consulting firms are: McKinsey, BCG, Bain | curiousllama wrote: | This is the correct answer, btw. Accenture isn't usually | included in Big 3 or Big 4. It's its own deal, but more | comparable to Big 4 than Big 3 | tequila_shot wrote: | the BIG 4 I'm referring to are Accenture, McKinsey, BCG and | Bain. | turing_complete wrote: | One of those four is not like the others. | hallqv wrote: | Accenture is not even close to MBB in terms on hourly rates | (~1/5) & "status". They are a 3rd tier firm. | curiousllama wrote: | Keep in mind that Accenture has a lot more variability | than MBB or Big 4. I've seen McKinsey undercut Accenture | on price for strategy projects | throwaway202212 wrote: | Accenture aren't even in the Vault Consulting Top 50 | rankings. I don't know how this list is calculated but | people in consulting tend to refer to this (I used to | work at MBB). | mbesto wrote: | That's not the Big 4. There is "Big 4" and "MBB", that's | it. | | Big 4 = | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Four_accounting_firms | | Big Three / MBB = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Three_% | 28management_consul... | kabes wrote: | Accenture is neither in the big 3, nor the big 4. | luma wrote: | How do you know an Accenture consultant? They change "Big | 3" to "Big 4". | HelloMcFly wrote: | Accenture has over 700,000 employees. Pretty easy to see | how they'd get lumped in given they are everywhere, | working for everyone. | | I am not nor have I ever been an Accenture consultant. | mitt_romney_12 wrote: | The Big 3 distinction isn't based on firm size (McKinsey, | Bain, and BCG only have 38k, 25k, and 15k employees | respectively) but rather on prestige and type of work | done. | ThisIsTheWay wrote: | Is this distinction why they are often called the Top 3, | not the Big 3? | mitt_romney_12 wrote: | I haven't really heard Top 3 so I can't say, usually it's | Big 3 or MBB. The Big part refers more to prestige and | influence rather than actually size. | wheelinsupial wrote: | Accenture is a new one to me. I've seen MBBD(eloitte) | used a fair bit, but figured it was just a reddit meme. | xapata wrote: | It used to be Arthur Anderson, but they changed their | name after Enron. | wheelinsupial wrote: | Sorry, I should have been more clear. The acronym is MBB | (McKinsey, Bain, and BCG) that I'm familiar with when | referring to the top consulting companies. MBBD | (McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and Deloitte) is a reddit joke that | I've seen a bunch. The original commenter was using | McKinsey, Bain, BCG, and Accenture to refer to the "big | 4" consulting firms. I've worked with Accenture before, | but I've never heard anyone group Accenture with those | other consulting firms. | SargeDebian wrote: | If you redefine common terms as you go, you should at least | give the reader a heads up. Nobody uses "big 4" for MBB and | Accenture. Those are not the same type of companies. | fphhotchips wrote: | There's nothing quite so "tell me you worked for | Accenture without telling me you worked for Accenture" as | referring to MBB and Accenture as "Big 4". | | It's like Deloitte consultants referring to MBBD. | operatingthetan wrote: | >It's like Deloitte consultants referring to MBBD. | | I'm pretty sure that's just a reddit meme, but I guess | it's funny someone took it seriously? | eastbound wrote: | The whole thread is debating who's sitting in the BIG4 | and all I see is companies trying to belong on musical | chairs. What's strangest to me is we're not in an early- | Schumpeter cycle, seats should be well-established by | now, it's been half a century. | rr888 wrote: | Yes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Four_accounting_firms | blue039 wrote: | I have worked with the big 4, and also been on the receiving | end of their "work". I can vouch for this comment personally. | I've never seen less effort put into something worth so much | money. Reams and reams of documents, jargon, and other bullshit | and some cheap, obviously outsourced, incredibly shitty, | "wireframe" sold as an MVP of a product. | | I would be impressed by them if I wasn't so disgusted. | exclusiv wrote: | I've also seen some of these expensive "strategic" documents. | And they looked like they were written by a high schooler | (not a top of the class student either). | Foobar8568 wrote: | Only $150/hour as a Senior in a big4? | makestuff wrote: | Since "senior" is in quotes, I am guessing you probably come | out of undergrad with a senior title or get it after 1-2 | years. | tequila_shot wrote: | I'm talking about a fresh out of college grad/undergrad. | | Managers charge 400-600(mind you 25% on top of this is for | travel). | makestuff wrote: | How much does each level take home? Like if I bill out at | $500 an hour are they paying me around 250/hr ~500k/yr? | ericmay wrote: | Not exactly. The thing to keep in mind here though is | that billable rate isn't necessarily 40 hours/week and | you likely have some sort of salary component that | requires you to hit a base amount of billable hours. | | So something like (just making up numbers here) | | $120,000/year $170/hr for each billable hour over 20 | hours/month Sales/delivery bonuses, etc. | mgkimsal wrote: | That still seems low for any big4. Those were numbers I | remember seeing 25 years ago for large consultancies | personnel. | Foobar8568 wrote: | Big4 I used to work are fairly clear about who they call | senior (consultant / senior consultant / manager / senior | manager/etc) and I can rarely fault them. Now for | consultancies (Accenture and the like), the term is a bit | more loose indeed. | [deleted] | fudged71 wrote: | How common is outsourcing tasks in the big 4? I thought it was | just things like powerpoint slide layout | wheelinsupial wrote: | In my experience, Accenture is the big body shop. I've worked | at companies that outsource tech strategy, new system | requirements / scoping, delivery and development, and post | deployment support and maintenance 100% to Accenture. | | There are regional hubs they have (I've worked with | Philippines and India and heard of Eastern Europe) for the | support and maintenance. | | There are some back office financial shared services (e.g., | AP / AR / cutting POs) that they also support. I wouldn't be | surprised if there was more. | | Accenture can give you everything from the PowerPoint slides | up to the people that will be seconded or placed in your | organization as contingent workers / contractors. | yamtaddle wrote: | That's Big 3 like McKinsey, and yes, notes sent to India, | India turns them into powerpoints, team on the engagement has | the powerpoints by the next morning (apparently execs don't | even _read_ something that 's not in a powerpoint--they'll do | this with stuff that's only ever going to be emailed, never | presented) | carabiner wrote: | You were Accenture. Just say it. | wolverine876 wrote: | What year is that? $150-160/hr is the cost of a local small | business IT consultant. | jasmer wrote: | So that's actually not 'hoodwinked'. | | Paying $1B for a site that should cost $50M is 'hoodwinked'. | | $150/hr is really not that much money, depending on the | importance of the project, and having devs from India is fine. | | Almost the entirety of the question in any given situation is | 'Did it work out?' | | Because if it did, it was worth it. | | Companies are not interested in making 'great products' like a | startup would, for some secondary thing. | | Mostly, it's like construction: they need something built. That | works. Not some kind of innovative thing. | | They don't have a year to find 'top talent' and go through | interesting architectures, or dynamic processes. They wouldn't | even know how to do that. | | You might be very well downplaying your input: if you are | competent, know what you are doing, show up, and can solve the | problem, you're probably worth every penny and much more. Now | maybe that is or is not the case! Or maybe 'it depends' or | maybe, some projects kind of necessarily require 'proper | engineering'. | | Now, all of what I just said would apply to normal | circumstances. In Africa, it's so complicated. McKinsey is also | very different office by office. Corruption is harder than we | understand, because when it's a random event we can say 'oh, | corrupt!' - but when it's normal trade practice aka 5% kickback | for the buyer, well, it takes on a different characteristic. | the_cat_kittles wrote: | your comment just establishes a spectrum- on one extreme, you | have what is essentially a helpful project manager, on the | other extreme you have a worse than useless middle man. I | think the point might be that Mckinsey is more towards the | bad extreme than people think. | jasmer wrote: | For starters - 'McKinsey' actually doesn't do | implementations. So you're not going to hire them to build | something. Second, it's hard to fathom their value because | it's very secretive. There's nary any real objective data. | paulcole wrote: | > Paying $1B for a site that should cost $50M is | 'hoodwinked'. | | That's not being hoodwinked either. If you're happy to pay | $1B for something and get that thing, then that's your fault | for not shopping around for a better deal. | | Bernie Madoff and SBF hoodwinked people. Somebody charging a | premium for their services and getting willing customers | isn't. | photochemsyn wrote: | Very reminiscent of Chas T Main (bought by Parsons in 1985) as | described in John Perkin's "Confessions of an Economic Hitman". | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chas._T._Main | | The chapter in Perkin's book on the post-oil shock economic | entanglements with Saudi Arabia is very relevant. It's | fundamentally about the establishment of the petrodollar | recycling scheme that was intended to solve the balance-of- | payments crisis - i.e. dollars flowing into Gulf Arab | dictatorships represented a current account imbalance on the | US/Europe side, which in turned required a capital account | imbalance on the Saudi side. Thus, buying Saudi oil with dollars | required the Saudis to invest those dollars back into the USA and | Europe, and in exchange for agreeing to this scheme the House of | Saud got military protection, engineering assitance, etc., with | outfits like Chas T Main and McKinsey and Vinnell serving as the | glue that held it all together (along with extensive arms sales). | While many have forgotten, the Shah of Iran was also a key player | in that system before the Islamic Revolution. | | Notably, the vast majority of Saudi citizens live in near-Third | World conditions, particularly the Shias in the east and the | tribal groups in the south, not that this gets widely reported, | while the 15,000+ members of the House of Saud and their hangers- | on (the bin Ladens, bin Mahfouzes, etc.) collect the vast | majority of the wealth that isn't re-invested back into the USA. | | Understanding current world events really requires an | understanding of this balance-of-payments dynamic, because that | was essentially the same deal that was offered to Russia in the | 1990s under Yeltsin, via the same entities, and which Putin | eventually rejected after 2003 in favor of using Russian oil | money to rebuild the Russian military and generally increase the | general standard of living inside Russia. Prior to that, Putin | was regularly praised in the US media (much like Syria's Assad | before his 2009 deals with Iran and Russia). | | This also accounts for the differential treatment of various | authoritarian government leaders by the USA and its economic | partners like Britain, i.e. Saudi Arabia is not treated like Iran | or Russia. For example, if Putin had taken that deal, then | today's war in Ukraine would likely be called 'a fight against | neo-Nazi terrorist elements' in corporate media, much as the | Saudi assault on Yemen is protrayed as a struggle against Al | Qaeda and so on. | | This is certainly no defense of Putin, who has held onto power | for decades now - but there aren't really any 'good guys' in this | storyline, the 'democratic norms and humanitarian values' claims | are all nonsense. It's more like how the New York City mafia | organizations or the Mexican drug cartels fought each other over | access to territory and profits than anything else. | hammock wrote: | What are your thoughts on Biden's efforts to force a move away | from oil for much of the US energy needs.. will this/is this | intended or related to an effort to eliminate or replace the | petrodollar system in any way? | selimthegrim wrote: | Putin canned Serdyukov pretty quickly, so you can scratch the | 'rebuild Russian military" off the list | mjfl wrote: | People who are paid to have credentials that are deffered to in | courts of law. | richardwhiuk wrote: | Interesting to know to what extent McKinsey is liable under the | Foreign Corrupt Practices Act here.... | xrayarx wrote: | The article starts with an Indian dynasty in South Africa is | cought with the most brazen corruption. Around 10% of the annual | gdp where stolen, with the help of mckinsey. | | The rest is a history of consulting companies and their | (criminal) endeavours | newsclues wrote: | When I think of McKinsey, I think of organized crime. | | It seems like gangsters in suits. | cjbgkagh wrote: | There is quite a lot of overlap. For a while I was neighbors | with bottom tier Russian mafia members working at McKinsey at | do nothing jobs. They would tell me about their yearly Mea- | Culpa whenever McKinsey was caught in yet another scandal. | | Edit: corrected spelling, thanks | SargeDebian wrote: | Baker McKenzie is a law firm, that's not the same company. | hackandthink wrote: | Best friends with Purdue/Sackler. | | Wikipedia: | | "In February 2021, McKinsey paid $600 million to settle | investigations into its role in promoting sales of OxyContin | and fueling the greater opioid epidemic" | aeschinder wrote: | Previous company of mine wanted to make drastic reorganization | changes and so they hired McKinsey to simply echo what they | already wanted to happen. This is to provide cover for upper | management (a.k.a. the "wooden desks") who can then use the | official McKinsey report as a shield against any backlash. They | can simply point at the report and shrug their shoulders in | apparent helplessness in the face of the recommendations of the | "experts". It was quite the Office Space moment. | whatever1 wrote: | Nobody trusts consulting companies, but they are like a notary | service. The c suite wants a change, the big 4 will create a deck | that supports that with their seal of approval. Then the c-execs | can present it to the board and move on with their original plan. | [deleted] | occasionaldev wrote: | This is only one part of it, but pay grades for government | employees in the US are far lower than private industry when it | comes to things like software developers. Just look at the GS | rates [1], why would a good developer choose to make 50% or less | of what they could make in the private sector? It'd be hard to | convince the general public that we should be paying $100k+ for | young devs working directly for the government, which is already | more money than most senior level scheduled gov employees. | | So we then have this whole convoluted contracting process where | consultancies run by people who know how to write and win bids, | but know nothing about software engineering, end up being hired | to write software systems. All because the government can't | really build highly skilled teams on their own. | | Again, it's not all of the problem (not by a long shot), but it | definitely contributes. Plus, the government employing people | directly is socialism, but paying an incompetent consulting firm | that plays middle-man to the system isn't. | | [1] https://www.federalpay.org/gs/2022 | alistairSH wrote: | Make sure to drill into the pay scales by location... suburban | DC gets a 30% bump. SV/Bay Area is >40% bump over base GS | scale. | | Why would somebody take the .gov job? Same reason anybody would | take a .gov job... Benefits (though that gap has closed). | | Work/life balance. | | Job security. | | Interesting work (agency-dependent). | | Inertia + location (many of my peers who are bureaucrats come | from families of bureaucrats and are DC natives) | | Anyways, the government can't hire developers not because the | salary is too low but because the electorate has decided the | government should be "small" which forces outsourcing to the | big name consulting/contracting shops. | miguelazo wrote: | Partly because private sector tech salaries were artificially | inflated to an insane degree by cheap money that flooded VC | coffers. | demuxxed wrote: | The money is real at some companies. We're less than 100 | people with more than 200m in yearly revenue. Market | positioning is worth more than engineering excellence, but | paying top salaries to reduce the execution risk is worth it. | | I would expect the leetcoding and system design interviews | across the industry to get much tougher and juniors to get | squeezed out before top salaries drop. | | Software has very high leverage in the right markets. It's | comparable to pro euro football where the teams that already | have eyeballs will pay huge sums for top players in order to | keep the eyeballs. Software salaries will only become more | bimodal as VC money tightens. | Spooky23 wrote: | I've worked for .gov, but not Federal. The appeal is: | | - Sense of purpose. You're working to perform some function | with integrity and to the best of your ability. There's no | profit driven pressure. | | - Career / Long Game. Typically you earn 50th percentile | salary, but if you stay that doesn't tell the story. In some | places benefits are 50% of salary. That usually means best in | class health benefits and often a defined benefit pension. | | - PTO - the place where I was at I received 7 weeks of vacation | and 3 weeks of sick time annually. | | Government is a good place to start. McKinsey is a good landing | zone for apprentice MBA types. | luckylion wrote: | They'd make 50% or less of what they make in the private sector | for the difference in job security and workload. | ubermonkey wrote: | I'm of the age where, as a fresh grad, I was kind of impressed by | the Big Consultancies in general and by McKinsey in particular. | | Few of my viewpoints have changed more drastically in the last 30 | years. Now, when I see someone has one of those firms on their | resume or business card, I just assume they're not someone I want | to hire or work with. Or even have a beer with. | neilv wrote: | Both of the ex-McKinsey people I've worked with have been | decent. | college_physics wrote: | the book that would factually describe the bizarro world of large | corporations and the fungal ecosystems that have been structured | around them has not been written yet and it won't be written for | a while. | | it would have chapters laying out the Kafkaesque, extractive | bureaucracy, the amoral shenanigans concocted between lawyers, | accountants and consultant suits in the remote top floors of tall | glass buildings, the endless financial engineering, the non-stop | cut-and-paste acquisitions and disposals, the vacuity of | management fads and the zero signal-to-noise ratio of inane | powerpoints regurgitating platitudes (the high-art of saying | nothing because reality is too gross to discuss). | | somehow we are supposed to believe that this is the pinnacle of | successful private enterprise. the natural evolution of "best | practice" as articulated in posh business schools | | in fact historians of the future, with the independence and | clarity granted by the passage of time would be very brutal about | the type of social pathology this is. | Havoc wrote: | They basically played the role of willing useful idiot. A side | story really. | | The real story here is that it took a decade+ to arrest (not | convict...arrest) the Guptas and the vast majority of the money | is likely never to be recovered (disappeared into middle east). | i.e. Functionally this was a successful heist of multi- | generational wealth. | | Same story on government enablers size - Zuma clan is now | wealthy. | | The will to go after players like this is simply not there - in | SA or internationally. Good business breaking countries it seems | stephc_int13 wrote: | In case some you are not aware; McKinsey and similar companies | have been progressively replacing public servants in government | offices and administrations all over the world, for decades. | | There was a relatively big scandal in France before the last | election, as they crossed some lines, but this is far from over. | diogenescynic wrote: | When I worked at PayPal, the Assistant Treasurer's husband worked | at Deloitte and then the Assistant Treasurer greatly expanded the | number of consultants used by Deloitte (from the same team as her | husband and many of them actually reported to her husband). They | were usually working on unaccountable projects and billing us for | work we did ourselves. Many of the consultants were fresh college | grads with no relevant experience. Hilariously, one lived in | Berkeley but would get a hotel in San Jose during the week to | avoid commuting. I was always flabbergasted no one cared about | how the budget was being spent. The people pushing consultant | budgets are usually the worst sort of managers and doing it | because of some ulterior motive in my opinion. | keepquestioning wrote: | ahelwer wrote: | There are plenty of non-old-white-boys at McKinsey doing | heinous stuff. I wish fixing things was as simple as increasing | diversity, I really really do. Improving diversity is laudable | goal in itself; don't count on it to fix these sorts of | problems. | blahblah1234567 wrote: | no offense, but "human nature" disregards all physical/mental | characteristics. | banannaise wrote: | No it doesn't. It _should_ , if assessed accurately and | without bias, but it doesn't, largely because those | conditions are impossible. | blahblah1234567 wrote: | My personal, humble opinion: Recent political trends and | the shaky, politicized conclusions they posit do not | supersede human nature. | curiousllama wrote: | Everyone is saying that ChatGPT is going to make homework & | internet forums irrelevant. How about consultants? They're just | putting words on a page anyway - you think that can't be | automated? | | Honestly, I think I might try... | malthaus wrote: | Every single consulting article brings out comments who make the | same mistake: | | There's a difference between strategy consulting (e.g. McKinsey, | BCG, Bain) and consultants that do large implementation projects | (e.g. Accenture). | | Yes, it's not so black and white these days as both do a bit of | both but the reasons they are hired are very different: | | Strategy: best practices, ass-covering, politics. Smaller teams, | shorter timeframe, C-level. Think interviews & powerpoint slides. | | Implementation: body leasing, offloading large projects. Larger | teams, IT-heavy, longer timeframes. Actual coding / | documentation, etc. | | And no, your experience working on a 300-people core banking | project at Accenture doesn't translate to a 5-people McKinsey | project. | | And while both types are "expensive", they are needed in the | corporate world. Because work in that environment is more than | just writing code in a text editor, it's mostly politics at the | top. | mitt_romney_12 wrote: | The big problem with talking about consulting is that there are | so many different people doing so many different things that | are all called just "consulting". Everyone has a different idea | of what consulting is since they worked with different types of | consultants but it all just gets called "consulting". Even in | this article they talk about McKinsey's strategy work and their | tech work basically interchangeably, even though the two are | very different things. | i_am_proteus wrote: | Would you describe examples of negative impacts to businesses' | performance from not hiring these firms? | curiousllama wrote: | It's not uncommon for firms that need to do big layoffs to | not hire consulting firms, and then screw up the layoffs | (multiple rounds, bad severance, etc.) | | There's a certain class of work that is (1) really critical | to get right the first time and (2) only done once a decade. | That's the type of stuff where it's good to hire an outside | firm - the outside guys go from company to company, doing | this one rare thing over and over. | | Other examples might include M&A (eg divestitures), | offshoring (eg standing up a factory in Mexico), or new | market entry (eg launching a product in a brand new country). | bambax wrote: | The article doesn't mention it, but McKinsey in France is | currently under judicial inquiries for at least two reasons: | | - They worked on the presidential campaigns of Macron in 2017 and | 2022, and were awarded huge government contracts with little or | no bidding afterwards | | - They didn't pay any taxes in France since 2011, sending money | to the mothership instead to reduce taxable profits to zero; and | their managing partner, who is accused of having lied to | parliament about it, resigned in the wake of that discovery. | | Here's one article (of many), in French: | | https://www.leparisien.fr/faits-divers/affaire-mckinsey-une-... | | (Disable javascript to bypass the firewall). | | So it's not just South Africa, UK and the US; it really is | everywhere. | 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: | "The Department of Homeland Security and the Pentagon paid all | three firms lavishly for `engaging human- centred design', | developing a `culture of continuous improvement' and other | meaningless bits of management-speak festooned with cryptic | acronyms." | | As a younger person, I recall being informed that a culture of | continuous improvement originated in the manufacturing centres of | Japan after WWII. They told us the term for it was "kaizen". I do | not know if any of that was true, but it sounded sensible then | and I always carried the idea with me. | | Having used it in sports coaching and having seen the results on | the playing field, I do not consider a "culture of continuous | improvement" to be meaningless management-speak. Assuming one can | get a team to buy-in, it works. | | IMHO, the alternative to continuously trying to improve, | complacency, mediocrity, laziness, or whatever we choose to call | it, is nothing to celebrate. | | Please note. Not intending to defend McKinsey here or clients who | spend taxapayer revenue on vacuous consulting. But as a general | principle, I would defend the idea of "creating a culture of | continuous improvement". Same goes for the oft-used term "growth | mindset". The terminology might sound silly, but the principles | are sound, not to mention timeless, IMHO. | | Maybe I misread the sentence in the context of the article. If | so, pay no mind. | | (I did peruse the book a while back and discussed it with a | friend who used to work for a McKinsey competitor.) | SoftTalker wrote: | I think the difference is one of introducing all the jargon and | acronyms and vocabulary for something like "culture of | continuous improvement" vs. actually implementing it. | | It's easy to talk. It's easy to convice yourself that talking | and ceremony == doing. But it's the doing that matters. | mitchbob wrote: | Archived: https://archive.ph/yC1YQ | neonate wrote: | http://web.archive.org/web/20221205184247/https://www.lrb.co... | CrypticShift wrote: | At least, this book will make amazon books search results for | "McKinsey" a little more balanced... | | Does anybody know how much McKinsey services are used in the | C-suite around silicon valley (Or big tech in general) ? | throwaway202212 wrote: | Former McKinsey employee here. They have a large office in | Silicon Valley and serve most of the big tech companies | (largely on boring non-tech topics). | mck_throwaway wrote: | I worked at McKinsey for three years. Here are a few thoughts. | Sorry it's so long, didn't have time to make it more concise. | | - I'd guess >95% of people never run into anything morally | questionable while there. My teams always tried to do their best | and I never felt like we were helping achieve any sort of | nefarious goal. Most of the time I think we were worth the money | for our clients. | | - I do think the culture makes it more likely for individuals to | take risks that may end up getting them in trouble. There's a lot | of pressure to succeed, and a lot of money (and prestige) at | stake. It's easy to imagine individuals cracking under that | pressure and making bad choices, and that the rest of the team | might fall in line so that they can also succeed. I'd put most of | the blame here on McKinsey and some on the individuals involved - | maybe 70/30. | | - I'd guess most other consultancies have bodies hidden somewhere | that are similar to McKinsey's (questionable contracts, outright | fraud, botched projects, moral failures, etc). | | - The closest I got to something morally questionable was a | project where we had a huge contract to help the client cut | costs, including firing people. You'd think our budget would have | been on the chopping block too, but I guess not. Obviously this | left a bad taste in most of our mouths. I feel we tried to do our | best, but I doubt we were worth our fees in that instance. The | company eventually merged with another, so even more people were | fired in the end. | | - The 'internal firewalls' are real - if you've been on a project | for one big company in an industry, they won't let you work for a | project with another one. There were internal experts we couldn't | talk to because of concerns in this area. I'm sure this hasn't | been 100% true 100% of the time, but generally I think this is a | real concern for McK (if they couldn't guarantee this they'd lose | client trust) so they make a real effort to prevent it. | | - While I was there, projects with the tobacco companies were | famous for having better work/life balance than almost any other | project. They were hard to staff because so many junior | consultants refused on ethical grounds, so I guess this was a | carrot? | | - I can mostly only speak to the US. I heard some jawdropping | stories about how reliant the Saudi government is on McKinsey and | other consultants to get almost _any_ work done, even the most | basic things. But that 's all secondhand gossip. In general, the | sense I get is that the standard in the US offices doesn't carry | over to every global location, but I don't have the personal | experience to say that for sure. | throwaway202212 wrote: | I also worked at McKinsey. 5 years, with some of that time in | the Johannesburg office. Agree with the above and don't have | much to add. But AMA. | makestuff wrote: | What is the coolest project you worked on? | | Will the big3 be around in 15-20 years or is it a dying | industry with many of the best people leaving for exist opps | in tech/finance/etc. | oscare wrote: | Would it be fair to say that consulting firms could get the top | (good) people in a developed country, but also is more likely | to hire the smartest but corrupt people in a corrupt country? | As that is the name of the game in those countries. | | And the HQ not caring as much because those other countries | bring in the 'franchise fee'. At the risk of a story like this. | mck_throwaway wrote: | In my experience McKinsey (like most consultancies) does | almost all its hiring directly out of college or grad school. | Hiring outside those pipelines was becoming a little more | common when I left, but I'd imagine it's still probably <10% | of the total. | | I don't think there'd be much hiring of already 'corrupt' | people, but it's pretty reasonable that when you have a very | competitive and prestigious position, on average, you might | find that more 'cutthroat' people are more willing to invest | time and energy to getting hired. | oneoff786 wrote: | The folks that work on tobacco clients need to go to tobacco | clients. They smoke ALL the time there. I've heard it's a | terrible thing to get staffed on unless you're a big smoker | yourself. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-12-05 23:00 UTC)