This is a rant against Michael Porter, his theories, and the practice of business strategy generally, but has nothing to do with why Monitor actually failed. M

This is a rant against Michael Porter, his theories, and the practice of business strategy generally, but has nothing to do with why Monitor actually failed. Most of the rest of the industry is doing fairly well, especially since the end of the recession, and Monitor moved away from the five forces model decades ago to tackle the same types of business strategy projects other top-tier consulting firms help with. Monitor failed for A LOT of reasons. It had a strange debt/equity structure that paid large sums to former partners who were no longer involved in the business, an issue that has caused other notable firms to struggle as well. They were a mid-sized player in a market increasingly split between boutiques and large global firms. They were a pure play strategy firm in a market where clients were looking for help with implementation. They did brand-damaging work with former dictators. The list could go on, but executives wising up that they didn't want to buy strategy consulting wasn't why Monitor failed. Executives are going to buy the same projects, probably from the same consultants, they're just going to buy them from Deloitte now.