Off Topic How the Hell did we allow consultants to take us over?

[danishqp]

Enough is enough, on the politics thread we're discussing unelected quangos presiding and dictating to us but, stealthily like the snakes they are, there's another group dictating just about everything, The Consultancy firms.
Absolutely no apologies are offered for anyone offended that works in The consultacy arms of McKinsey, BCG, S&P, PWC etc, etc, bloody etc.
Unbelievably the latest institution to employ them is The Vatican - oh the irony of the Catholic Church seeking guidance from McKinsey
For those of you not aware, these defrauding scheisters are all over the place claiming to CEOs that they know their business better than anyone and that their lives will be destroyed if they are not employed for exhorbitant amounts.
To describe a little better what they do:
They take your watch to tell you the time but still can't get it right!!
Governments, Blue Chips are at their whim, but worse all, se are all affected as it is they ultimately deciding strategies.

My questions:
How did they become all powerful?
How and why has the media allowed them to get off scot free?

Was just this last week at a Senior forum trying to design a future for thé Oil Industry where an enormous outpouring of spontaneous cheering broke out to a young CEO of a logistics Co. who openly stated hé would never waste a Euro on one of these companies.

How did we let this happening?

 

[sb_73]

It's a way for senior management to delegate accountability to people who have no accountability. Win - win and other such cliches. As you posted this I received an invitation to a workshop to be run by McKinsey on a area we paid them $2m to work with us on 3 years ago. One of the criteria for that project was that we shouldn't need to revisit it for at least 5 years. I sent a wtf response with a plea that we weren't paying them and no further business would result for them. As it happens a couple of bits of that project were really good, but that was because we decided to actually implement some stuff after they left. Amazingly 3 of their team of about 20 were actually rather good, and even better 2 of these 3 were rather gorgeous women (one Italian, one French). All 3 have now left McKinsey and are in proper jobs.

Time to fess up. Before I got into my current game I worked in a specialist healthcare consultancy for 5 years. Here's how you do it: Bill a lot of days for interviewing your client and 'research' . Bill some more days for putting together your report/ recommendations, most of which you have recycled from previous jobs, plus telling them exactly what they told you in the interviews, but using some jargon and acronyms. Get your design team to make your slides look really good, and do something to them to make it virtually impossible for your clients to edit them later. Present your old ideas, making sure you include several areas where your clients will need further consultancy support.

McKinsey in particular is all powerful because it is brilliant at finding high flying jobs for its consultants when they move on and keeping them in the family, chucking work back to them. It's a cult. Look at any board of directors or government cabinet and you will find at least one alumni of one of the big consultancies.

 

[danishqp]

Yes Stan, and apart from you and the 2 beauties they're all ccccs.
But the question is, how did they become all powerful, or more to the point, how did we allow them?

I'm all for an independant specialist perspective... But to what exists today?

 

[UTRs]

I'm not sure how this has happened, I will have to phone my consultant...

 

[Rangers Til I Die]

What a very good question. Not had much to do with them but did attend a meeting once when one of their sort was doing a presentation, touting for business. Completely alienated a room full of highly qualified health professionals by referring to the audience as, "you guys"!

 

[Sooperhoop]

Consultants thrive in areas of weak management and poor leadership. Any well-run company or authority will have little need for consultants other than in a strategic area of expertise that would be for a one-off project rather than day-to-day management.

I worked in local authority previously part of the ILEA. When that was abolished my job was transferred to Southwark Council and the next five years saw the department lurching from one crisis to another fuelled by consultants simply getting it wrong at every turn. Every crisis resulted in redundancies which were followed by months of staff unable to cope to the point at which temporary staff were brought in at far greater cost. This became a costly vicious circle which only ended when top quality management was brought in.

My view of consultants is they charge the earth for telling you the bleedin' obvious...

 

[WBA2_QPR3]

Don't knock it until you've tried it. I am ex Andersen Consulting ex Accenture and I learnt a hell of a lot before I bailed out.

Besides if there wasn't weak management at the client bodies there would be no need for management consultancy, at least not on the scale it operates at. Blame the clients not the consultants.

 

[SARQPR]

Does to some extent depend on your definition of "consultant"

I use advisors all the time in my job. My business operates largely in central Europe, and I have little knowledge of the detail involved in (for example) corporate income tax or excise duty in Poland. Use of specialist advisors has allowed me to ensure that the business complies with local rules and regulations, and to successfully defend tax assessments

I have also refinanced the wider group and used a specialist consultancy to advise on this. The outlay was less than 10% of the annual saving

My consultants enhance my business and help to create value for our shareholders, bringing in skills that we don't have ourselves and that would be too expensive to employ directly - we wouldn't use them otherwise

 

[sb_73]

Don't knock it until you've tried it. I am ex Andersen Consulting ex Accenture and I learnt a hell of a lot before I bailed out.

Besides if there wasn't weak management at the client bodies there would be no need for management consultancy, at least not on the scale it operates at. Blame the clients not the consultants.

Nice one Wubba. Should also point out that companies employ consultants to address shortage in their own capacity on particular issues which they want to tackle quickly, and to get an outside perspective on what they are doing/ planning to do. But the most important role consultants play is to take the blame when things don't work, instead of the people in the company who are accountable from carrying the can.

 

[Star of David Bardsley]

As with all professions, the good ones are comfortably worth their cost. No different for any service be it estate agents, recruitment consultants, analysts or anything else.