As a decision maker, the reason you would outsource decision-making to 23-year old PowerPoint kids is so you aren’t responsible for the consequences of your actions.
“Darn, that strategy ended up killing people?? Too bad evil McKinsey told me to do that! I’m just a lowly corporate officer. I wouldn’t have killed all those people if they didn’t show us those PowerPoint slides! I got duped like the rest of you!”
[goes home and counts money]
I just read their "Controversies" section on Wikipedia and i still can't believe you can go to jail for selling weed and these people walk free (and rich):
2022 - McKinsey Charged in South African Corruption Case
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/30/world/africa/mckinsey-cor...
The only reason we haven't "another Enron" is because of Sarbanes-Oxley, not because Arthur Andersen was sufficiently destroyed.
- Arthur Andersen and Andersen Consulting split in 1989. It was an acrimonious divorce, with a long arbitration settlement finally concluding on 1 Jan 2000.
- That settlement gave AA exclusive use of the Andersen name. So Andersen Consulting changed its name to Accenture on 1 Jan 2000.
- Enron collapsed in 2001 and Arthur Andersen went out of business in 2002.
So it's not accurate to say that AA's consulting business continued at Accenture; the split happened a decade earlier.
See my other comment.
The big draw isn't McKinsey's perfection; it's the C-suite anxiety and absence of anything better. If you want to drive a stake through the heart of management consulting, knock the C-suite down a peg so they lose their god complex, or come up with a business model better than McKinsey's for enabling business outcomes. Neither has happened in 50 years, or will, so no, it's not the end for Mckinsey. Nor is it business as usual.
One of the most important roles that McKinsey can take is a third party willing to provide cover. E.g. often times a CEO hires McKinsey to rubber stamp a decision he's already made. Let's say the CEO wants to have a big layoff to boost profits (at least in the short term). Hiring McKinsey basically provides a veneer of objectivity, and within the org, McKinsey can help deflect some of the blame ("Man this sucks, can you believe that McKinsey!")
But ask yourself-- how does seeking confidential advice, disclosed to no one outside the C-suite accomplish a supposed blame-avoidance function?No, a simpler explanation is that the executives spotted a key business decision coming up and to get the decision right they call their figurative B-school professors for advice. Their genuine advice, which you can of course criticize on the merits.
In a world that earned your personal experience, where this instead was a cynical exercise in posturing, first, what an odd way to kick off a cost-cutting initiative, and second, where are all the news release announcing that McKinsey told businesses X, Y and Z to conduct layoffs to boost profits? I just googled it-- the only announcents are McKinsey's own layoffs. The engagements certainly don't appear designed to shift blame. That leaves the uncomfortable possibility that the recipients of this advice, for reasons you don't understand actually value it and want to know what the management consultants have to say.
Why do you seem to think this is the norm?
"For 92 years, the firm has held fast to the dictum of never disclosing names of clients or the advice it gives. We were intrigued by a company that seemed to be everywhere — and nowhere at the same time."
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/reader-center/mckinsey-he...
What makes you think the firm would allow clients to advertise its name or advice in any way?
You've got it backwards. McKinsey itself doesn't disclose their clients or their advice, but their clients are, AFAIK, under no such obligation. More to the point, it's not so much about broadcasting to the rest of the world, it's about giving cover internally within a huge enterpise that "hey, we're just following McKinsey's advice", and certainly nearly everyone internally knows that McKinsey is involved.