| Topic Name: |
MBA required? |
| Message Name: |
McKinsey |
| Date Posted: |
12/04/2002 |
| In Reply To: |
You definitely don't need an MBA...you do need to have worked (e.g. how do you credibly advise the tightrope walker if you've never done it yourself ?).
Any sane business, today, has access to most of the learning provided within business schools (check out the web for example). Increasingly, the wise company knows that "the emperor has no clothes".
The exception was Enron - hope you noted that McKinsey claimed that, in spite of the outcome, they had advised them correctly (ho hum !!!).
Businesses use us for very poor reasons:
a) Arse covering
b) Nepotism (i.e. Accenture)
c) Laziness
Most of what we provide is already "out there" - how do you think WE get it ?
Much of what we peddle is recycled.
I'm not putting you off - get in and learn as much as you can quickly, then get out and use what you learnt to put the cons out of business ! |
| Message: |
never claimed to have advised Enron correctly. They just claim not to have advised them to cook the books. However they DID know that there was an awful lot of off-balance sheet debt. And they knew that the reason for this was to create a false picture for other lenders. (lower the lending rate) But they claim they did not advocate illegalities (either didn't know about the details of actual financing schemes or didn't think through the general issue with off-balence sheet debt.)
Regarding actual business models, there was a lot of mental rot in Enron's "asset-lite" business that came form McK and permeated other clients. I remember one director saying that "we need to have an answer for clients who worry about 'McKinsey smoke and mirrors'". This was well before the Enron bust...but was regarding an attempt to bring Enron-like schemes to other clients. WELL...the clients were RIGHT to worry about smoke and mirrors. Cause that's what it was.
A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Not smart enough to figure out the difference between risk transfer and risk elimination. Not stupid enough to just stay away from all that corporate finance crap. Result: silly schemes.
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