re: AI's next victim: Mgmt Consulting - McKinsey offering staff 9 months full pay to leave

That sounds great, but when every single productive pair of boots on the ground sees everything they do as a destructive measure, there's certainly a problem.

What they do is great for short term bumps in stock prices. 15 years from now we'll be talking about how McKinsey ruined more businesses than they helped.

quote:

---

Finally a good post in this thread. Companies could do this internally, but it would involve hiring a team of people who don't produce anything but new ideas, planning and problem solving. But then you are beholden to internal politics, personal agendas, favoritism, conflicts of interests and all the other stuff that gets in the way of good corporate decisions. Think IA in police departments and how ineffective they can be.

In many cases its cheaper for most companies to pay consultants to plan and problem solve, and to provide mostly unbiased options, even if all of those options were previously suggested by staff or leadership.

---

Consultants tend to be most useful when you are hiring them for one of two reasons:
1) When the company doesn't have the internal expertise
2) When the company might have some internal expertise but they need more arms and legs to get things done

As a quick and easy example, 90+% of companies out there have no fricking clue how to execute everything that happens during the M&A process. They don't know how to evaluate targets, how to do the commercial and operational due diligence, how to close, how to construct a TSA, how to do 100 day planning, how to do proper post-merger integration, etc., etc.

Make it a year and I'd jump on it

McKinsey & Company's Advisory services have been hit very hard the past few years. Not sure if it's due to this broad economic downturn, or if they just over-hired when things were hot in 2020-2021.....or both.

There are robust, competitive advisory practices embedded within the consulting practices at KPMG, Deloitte, EY, PWC, etc. that have seen layoffs recently too.

I don't think this is related to AI. A lot of big firms in the US and Europe are extremely gun shy around big CapEx projects, and that includes those that require consulting services. It's been that way for several years, and I imagine McKinsey is finally starting to see some of their older projects wrap up and are having to manage a thicker bench than they are accustomed to dealing with.

quote:

---

That sounds great, but when every single productive pair of boots on the ground sees everything they do as a destructive measure, there's certainly a problem.

---

I hear you. I was on the business end of one of those “destructive measures” early in my career and it’s a kick in the groin.

But they have to happen. Changes in organizations in a capitalist system sometimes have to be destructive to make way for something better. Take Apple’s self-driving car program. They knew it was going nowhere so they had to trash it and let a bunch of really smart, hardworking people go. The alternative is to keep bleeding money and that’s no good for anyone.

Whether it’s consultants or internal leadership, changes have to happen or the organization will stagnate and die.

You haven't a clue what you're talking about. They are certainly the best and brightest and people are just salty here that someone is better than them. They're all people who got 34+ on ACTs, went to top 20 schools, many founded very successful startups, got 730+ GMAT. I'd like to see you try to get a 34+ on ACT or 730+ GMAT. They are without a doubt tenfold smarter and more successful than your average state school grad. Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it's not true.

quote:

---

McKinsey

---

was on the grassy knoll...

knows exactly where Jimmy Hoffa is...

knows who shot Tupac...

plans the shake machine maintenance...

quote:

---

Is AI going to actually read a SOC2 cover to cover like I will?

---

I wonder if companies that run election equipment have these reports. I figured they should be in compliance protecting data.

And most of that means jack shite in actual business and decision making. I currently work for a F100 company, previously at small independents. I am now surrounded by an echo chamber of "intelligent" individuals who spend their whole time PP presentations, waterfall AFE/Cost analysis. However when they have to make an actual impactful decision, deer in headlights. And when they do make decisions in their own little bubble they have no clue what that entails from an operational standpoint. But before they bring it to the execution team they pump it up to the executives so we are beholden to it. Then when all said and done, the project has single digit IRR and the idiots are back to making creative PP and waterfalls on why it missed so bad.