In a move that has triggered tremors in the world of business, premier management consulting firm McKinsey has hired itself to advise itself on staying afloat and gaining traction in a sluggish market for management consulting services. Global director of the firm, Dick Dormik, felt the move was overdue to cope with a challenging business environment. “Against the backdrop of a slowing global economy, we keep advising our Fortune 100 clients on how to either overcome sluggish demand and seek new growth opportunities or preserve profitability by cutting costs. It then struck me that since we face these very same problems, why not advise ourselves,” he told The UnReal Times.
McKinsey has never leveraged its formidable brain-power to consult itself in the past. “Earlier we took strategic decisions on the fly rather than go through an elaborate process, namely use of proprietary frameworks, 28 hour workdays by an army of number-crunching, super brainy consultants, and finally, the insights communicated through intricately crafted PowerPoint slides. But in these recessionary times, it would be criminal negligence to not use the power at our disposal for our benefit,” reasoned the head of McKinsey. “In any case, we will at least avoid the fate of Monitor.”
He was referring to the Monitor Group, a strategy consulting firm founded by Harvard business guru, Michael Porter, which, despite advising its client firms on gaining competitive advantage based on the famed five forces model pioneered by Porter, failed to itself gain competitive advantage in the consulting business and declared bankruptcy in 2012.
Dr. Porter himself has refused to comment on either McKinsey or his own firm’s implosion. “What do you want me to say? That the promises held out by my famed five forces model of securing super-normal profits for our clients was a myth or that the Monitor Group displayed poor strategic acumen by not deploying the famed five forces framework to consult itself? Either way, I am damned,” he told The Unreal Times Boston correspondent, Michael Parker.