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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: dvdw© who wrote (69800)	12/20/2010 9:55:52 AM
From: elmatador	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 220378

Finance-only economy managed by MBA's. Message 26976111 This is a theme that I put forward in this thread as collapse has ensued. Mckinsey "has been a top employer for new MBA graduates since 1996" Criticism According to a former employee, the firm itself will not discuss specific client situations and maintains a carefully crafted and low-profile external image, which also protects it from public scrutiny, making an assessment of its client base, its success rate, and its profitability difficult.[15] This secrecy also helps conceal McKinsey's prices.[citation needed] Client confidentiality is maintained even among former employees, and as a result, journalists and writers have had difficulty developing fully informed accounts of mistakes which McKinsey employees may have made. Enron was headed by McKinsey alumni and was one of the firm's biggest clients before its collapse.[16] In particular, McKinsey's "deep-seated belief that having better talent at all levels is how you outperform your competitors", implemented at Enron with McKinsey's knowledge, resulted in a workplace culture of prima donnas that "took more credit for success than was legitimate, that did not acknowledge responsibility for its failures, that shrewdly sold the rest of us on its genius, and that substituted self-nomination for disciplined management."[17] Jeff Skilling, sentenced to 24 years in federal prison as the CEO of Enron, was formerly a partner at McKinsey and "loyal alum." Another notably troubled company associated with McKinsey is Swissair, which entered bankruptcy,[18] after McKinsey recommended The Hunter Strategy. Railtrack, the British railway company, also collapsed, allegedly after following McKinsey's advice to reduce spending on infrastructure and return cash to shareholders instead, and then a series of fatal accidents occurred.[19][20] Other client companies that ultimately filed for bankruptcy include Kmart and Global Crossing.[citation needed] Misguided analysis, such as its recommendation in 1980 to AT&T that cellular phones would be a niche market.[21] McKinsey is a named defendant in Hurricane Katrina litigation. Louisiana Attorney General Charles Foti's suit accuses McKinsey of being the "architect" of sweeping changes in the insurance industry, starting in the 1980s. The suit alleges McKinsey advised insurers to "stop 'premium leakage' by undervaluing claims using the tactics of "deny, delay, and defend".[22] Several civil suits have been filed against home insurance and vehicle insurance companies after the insurers were advised by McKinsey, and allegedly paid the insured parties significantly less than the actual value of the damage.[23] McKinsey was cited in a February 2007 CNN article with developing controversial car insurance practices used by State Farm and Allstate in the mid-1990s to avoid paying claims involving soft tissue injury.[24] Anil Kumar, a senior McKinsey consultant, pleaded guilty in January 2009 to providing the New York based hedge fund Galleon Group with inside information.[25] Among other books and articles, The Witch Doctors, written by The Economist journalists John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, presents a series of blunders and disasters alleged to have been McKinsey's consultants' fault.[page needed] Similarly, Dangerous Company: The Consulting Powerhouses and the Businesses They Save and Ruin by James O'Shea and Charles Madigan critically examines McKinsey's work within the context of the consulting industry.[page needed] Concerns from teachers and parents regarding their consultation for public school districts. Recently, McKinsey worked for the Minneapolis Public Schools, where the firm recommended that the district cut "high costs" such as teacher health care, and recommended converting the 25 percent of schools that scored the lowest on standardized tests to privatized charter-school status. Teachers in Seattle passed a resolution of non-compliance with McKinsey's study of the Seattle Public Schools in protest.[26]