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Net conclusion: Don’t hire McKinsey to advise on AI implementation or tech org design and practices if they can’t get it right themselves.

by cmiles8 7mo ago

frankfrank13 7mo ago
Fair take, but you'd be hard pressed to find much resemblance to any advice McK gives to its own practices. Pre-AI, I always said McK is good at analysis, if you need complicated analysis done, hire a consulting firm. If you need strategy, custom software, org design, etc. I think you should figure out the analysis that needs to be done, shoot that off to a consulting firm, and then make your decision. IME, F500 execs are delegation machines. When they wake up every morning with 30 things to delegate, and 25 execs to delegate to, they hire 5 consulting teams. Whether you hire Mck, or Deloitte, or Accenture will only come down to: 1. Your personal relationships 2. Your company's policies on procurement 3. Your budget in that order. McK's "secret sauce" is that if you, the exec, don't like the powerpoint pages Mck put in front of you, 3 try-hard, insecure, ivy-league educated analysts will work 80 hours to make pages you do like. A sr. partner will take you to dinner. You'll get invited to conferences and summits and roundtables, and then next time you look for a job, it will be easier.
- decidu0us9034 7mo ago
  Analysis of what? What does that mean? What's something you conceivably would need a consulting firm to "analyze?" I don't understand why management consulting firms would hire software people in the first place, and then punish them for not being on a client-facing project. That seems a bit contradictory to me, but this is all way out of my wheelhouse
  - cl0ckt0wer 7mo ago
    For instance, what would we need to start offering siracha in our burger?
  - frankfrank13 7mo ago
    Analysis: 1. How do I build a datacenter 2. How is the industrial ceramic market structured, how do they perform 3. How does a changing environment impact life insurance Strategy: 1. Should I build a datacenter 2. Should I invest in an industrial ceramics company 3. Should I divest my life insurance subsidiary Specifically in the software world this would be "automate some esoteric ERP migration" or "build this data pipeline" vs. "how can we be more digital native" or "how do we integrate more AI into our company"
    - healthy_throw 7mo ago
      These look like questions you would give to AI in 2026.
      - caminante 7mo ago
        They are. The problem is AI isn't CYA quality (yet) to your board.
m4rtink 7mo ago
This can be simplified further: "Don't hire McKinsey." ;-)
- deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
steve1977 7mo ago
The only people who hire McKinsey are execs who are even more clueless than the consultants.
- aleph_minus_one 7mo ago
  The executives who hire McKinsey are often not clueless, but they often lack the political power in the company to push through their plans. So they hire some well-regarded business consultancy to get an "objective" analysis what needs to be done.
  - bonoboTP 7mo ago
    How can it be that what you just wrote is such a widely known fact? I've been reading this and hearing this from consultancy people as well for many years now. If the guy lacks the political power, why don't his internal political opponents say, "nice try hiring the consultants, but we know this trick very well, you still don't get it your way". It has to be some kind of higher level protection racket or something. Like if you hire the consultants there is some kind of kickbacks to the higherups or something with more steps involved where those who previously opposed it will now accept it if it's rubberstamped by the consultants. Or perhaps those other players who are politically opposing this person are just dummies and don't know about this trick and actually trust the consultants. Or maybe it's a bit of a check, that you can't get anything and everything rubberstamped by the consultants, so it is some kind of sanity filter that the guy isn't proposing something that only benefits himself and screws everyone else. And if it's the latter, then it is genuine value, a somewhat impartial second opinion. Basically there is a fog-of-war for all the execs regarding all the internal politics going on, it's not like they see through everything all the time and simply refuse to take the obviously correct decision for no reason.
    - treatmesubj 7mo ago
      if you don't have sufficient political clout or influence, you seek sponsorship or backing from others with it to accrue more influence for your idea. You can pay consultants to agree with your idea and produce pretty charts and whitepapers for it.

Net conclusion: Don’t hire McKinsey to advise on AI implementation or tech org design and practices if they can’t get it right themselves.

by cmiles8 7mo ago

Net conclusion: Don’t hire McKinsey to advise on AI implementation or tech org design and practices if they can’t get it right themselves.

frankfrank13 7mo ago

Fair take, but you'd be hard pressed to find much resemblance to any advice McK gives to its own practices. Pre-AI, I always said McK is good at analysis, if you need complicated analysis done, hire a consulting firm. If you need strategy, custom software, org design, etc. I think you should figure out the analysis that needs to be done, shoot that off to a consulting firm, and then make your decision. IME, F500 execs are delegation machines. When they wake up every morning with 30 things to delegate, and 25 execs to delegate to, they hire 5 consulting teams. Whether you hire Mck, or Deloitte, or Accenture will only come down to: 1. Your personal relationships 2. Your company's policies on procurement 3. Your budget in that order. McK's "secret sauce" is that if you, the exec, don't like the powerpoint pages Mck put in front of you, 3 try-hard, insecure, ivy-league educated analysts will work 80 hours to make pages you do like. A sr. partner will take you to dinner. You'll get invited to conferences and summits and roundtables, and then next time you look for a job, it will be easier.

decidu0us9034 7mo ago
Analysis of what? What does that mean? What's something you conceivably would need a consulting firm to "analyze?" I don't understand why management consulting firms would hire software people in the first place, and then punish them for not being on a client-facing project. That seems a bit contradictory to me, but this is all way out of my wheelhouse
- cl0ckt0wer 7mo ago
  For instance, what would we need to start offering siracha in our burger?
- frankfrank13 7mo ago
  Analysis: 1. How do I build a datacenter 2. How is the industrial ceramic market structured, how do they perform 3. How does a changing environment impact life insurance Strategy: 1. Should I build a datacenter 2. Should I invest in an industrial ceramics company 3. Should I divest my life insurance subsidiary Specifically in the software world this would be "automate some esoteric ERP migration" or "build this data pipeline" vs. "how can we be more digital native" or "how do we integrate more AI into our company"
  - healthy_throw 7mo ago
    These look like questions you would give to AI in 2026.
    - caminante 7mo ago
      They are. The problem is AI isn't CYA quality (yet) to your board.

m4rtink 7mo ago

This can be simplified further: "Don't hire McKinsey." ;-)

deleted 7mo ago
[deleted]

steve1977 7mo ago

The only people who hire McKinsey are execs who are even more clueless than the consultants.

aleph_minus_one 7mo ago
The executives who hire McKinsey are often not clueless, but they often lack the political power in the company to push through their plans. So they hire some well-regarded business consultancy to get an "objective" analysis what needs to be done.
- bonoboTP 7mo ago
  How can it be that what you just wrote is such a widely known fact? I've been reading this and hearing this from consultancy people as well for many years now. If the guy lacks the political power, why don't his internal political opponents say, "nice try hiring the consultants, but we know this trick very well, you still don't get it your way". It has to be some kind of higher level protection racket or something. Like if you hire the consultants there is some kind of kickbacks to the higherups or something with more steps involved where those who previously opposed it will now accept it if it's rubberstamped by the consultants. Or perhaps those other players who are politically opposing this person are just dummies and don't know about this trick and actually trust the consultants. Or maybe it's a bit of a check, that you can't get anything and everything rubberstamped by the consultants, so it is some kind of sanity filter that the guy isn't proposing something that only benefits himself and screws everyone else. And if it's the latter, then it is genuine value, a somewhat impartial second opinion. Basically there is a fog-of-war for all the execs regarding all the internal politics going on, it's not like they see through everything all the time and simply refuse to take the obviously correct decision for no reason.
  - treatmesubj 7mo ago
    if you don't have sufficient political clout or influence, you seek sponsorship or backing from others with it to accrue more influence for your idea. You can pay consultants to agree with your idea and produce pretty charts and whitepapers for it.