Interview with McKinsey head
How crazy did McKinsey go during the internet boom? "On the dotcom Richter madness scale, we were probably a two out of 10," says Ian Davis, the consulting firm's managing director. "We weren't a 10 out of 10." Should any similar business frenzy occur again, "we want to make sure it's nought, or one".
Mr Davis is the first Briton to head McKinsey. His predecessor, Rajat Gupta, was born in India but was based in the US. Mr Davis is the first McKinsey managing director to lead the firm from outside the US, although the spare, unlived-in look of his London loft office hints at how much time he has spent elsewhere since McKinsey's senior partners elected him as their head a year ago.
Mr Davis has spent his first year travelling the world, meeting McKinsey staff and clients in 25 countries. It is typical of the man, and the firm, that his first 12 months have been devoted to private discussions. McKinsey is happy for people to hear about its consultants' ideas. It publishes its own journal, the McKinsey Quarterly. But it frowns on personal attention-seeking. This is the 53-year-old Mr Davis's first interview as managing director.
The fluent, approachable Mr Davis, who has been at McKinsey for 25 years, is happier talking about the future than the past. But he does not duck the unwelcome attention that the final years of the dotcom boom brought to McKinsey. The firm was a long-standing adviser to Enron, whose business model two of its consultants praised in the McKinsey Quarterly.
Mr Davis insists that McKinsey was innocent of any wrongdoing. Whatever happened later, Enron was initially based on some solid ideas. Enron "was a company that had been built up extraordinarily successfully as a real business, went through a dotcom sort of bubble - and we know what the consequences were".
But he concedes that the association with a failed company was damaging to McKinsey. "It doesn't help the reputation and certainly didn't help us," he says. "I think our reputation was dented." His chats with chief executives have persuaded him that McKinsey can get over it. "People know we had nothing to do with any wrongdoing."
Clients also know that Enron was only one part of the firm's work. "We work with 400 companies. There are going to be things that go wrong, either because of us or in spite of us. Most of our clients know that you're not going to win every time."
Personal recommendation matters more. "In the end, our biggest determinant of reputation with clients is what they say to each other. And they do talk about us. Our reputation is really not bad." All the same, he concedes there are lessons to learn. For example? "Being very, very careful - and I'm not saying that we weren't - being even more careful about the sorts of work and the sorts of clients."
McKinsey, he says, also had to rediscover its practice of developing younger talent and of putting new recruits in teams with more experienced consultants, which did not always happen during the boom years. "It did put severe strain on our basic values. In the kerfuffle, I think some of them got lost. We didn't knowingly move away from them, but my sense is that after this period we need to reaffirm our basic approach and values."
The heady years were, of course, followed by some grimmer ones. There was less work for consultants. McKinsey, as a partnership, publishes no financial results, but it is believed to have suffered along with everyone else. Mr Davis says business is now picking up, both for McKinsey and its clients. The firm now has 6,200 consultants, down from 7,000 in 2001 but higher than the 5,000 it employed in 1998.
Has McKinsey rethought its basic offering? Are chief executives really still interested in paying bright young things to tell them how to run their businesses? Mr Davis dismisses this view of McKinsey's work. "I don't think the caricature was ever right," he says. "We do believe in having young people around. We think there's tremendous energy and creativity in having young people in organisations." But McKinsey blends youth with experience.
In any case, consultants can no longer impress companies with MBA graduates. Many companies now employ their own MBAs. Twenty years ago, consultants could show off their knowledge. "That's gone - and that's good," he says.
So what does McKinsey offer its clients? First, he says, an independent view. "Other people's problems sometimes are easier than one's own, both in human life and business life. Many of our clients, very able people, full of MBAs, just as smart as we are, just expect that independence and that challenge."
Second, working with many companies means McKinsey consultants come across some situations more often than their clients do. Consultants see many mergers, acquisitions or large-scale corporate restructurings. Chief executives generally see few. Most will do "a huge transformation of operations two or three times in their lives".
The third service McKinsey offers is extra pairs of hands. Companies do not want to recruit new staff to handle one-off events.
McKinsey offers something else, he says: an international outlook, which is particularly relevant to the debate on outsourcing and offshoring. "Offshoring is not a fad. I think there's a fundamental shift going on. In my view, it relates to the globalisation of the labour and talent markets." Companies began selling outside their home markets, then sourcing their products worldwide and are now doing the same with their workforce - recruiting and employing people worldwide.
He argues the word "offshoring" is misleading. "Offshoring is a politically laden term. It usually means from the US to somewhere - India being the hot one."
When he was at Davos earlier this year, listening to a "rather tedious" debate on offshoring, a Japanese chief executive leaned over, established that Mr Davis was not American, and asked him: "Are you getting as frustrated as I am?" The Japanese executive said: "Do you know how many jobs have gone from Japan to China in the last 10 years?"
It is the same the world over, Mr Davis says. In Sweden, they talk about the jobs that have gone to the Baltic states. The debate "has been hogged by US-to-India, which is what's called offshoring. It's also focused on higher-skilled jobs. No one talked about offshoring when textile jobs went from the UK to Turkey."
He agrees that outsourcing deals are difficult to manage. "I was talking to a CEO of one of the big US software/technology companies. He was telling me he could easily see 25 per cent of his employees working in Indonesia, India, Romania. And he said: 'What does it mean for the organisation? What career path do I offer these people and what do I pay them? Do I have a CFO in Silicon Valley getting paid $500,000 and somebody in India paid $50,000, which for India is huge?'"
Mr Davis accepts that the internationalisation of work will suffer setbacks. There may be large systems breakdowns, which opponents of offshoring will seize on. "It will be all over the papers, big disaster, and people will say: 'There, I told you so, everything should be done in San Francisco.'" But there is no going back, he says.
McKinsey has its own experience of what can be done in India. It has an office, open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with 300 staff who provide consultants with graphics and visual presentations. It also employs about 12 people in a centre near Delhi, several of them with mathematics doctorates, who do statistical research for McKinsey consultants around the world.
"From McKinsey's point of view, offshoring doesn't mean anything for us," he says. "Offshore from where to where? We are a truly global firm. For example, we have 40 different nationalities working in the London office. So offshoring to India wouldn't mean anything because you could argue we are as much Indian as we are anything else."
麦肯锡总经理专访
麦肯锡(McKinsey)在互联网热潮中有多疯狂？“以网络的里氏疯狂级来衡量，我们当时可能达到了10级中的第2级，”麦肯锡咨询公司董事总经理伊安?戴维斯(Ian Davis)说，“我们没达到10级的程度。”任何类似的商业狂热还会再现吗？“我们想确保今后的疯狂级数为零级，或者是1级。”
戴维斯先生是第一位领导麦肯锡的英国人，他的前任顾磊杰(Rajat Gupta)生于印度但住在美国。戴维斯先生是第一个在美国以外的地方领导麦肯锡的董事总经理。但他在伦敦的那间顶层办公室看上去空空荡荡，没人使用，这意味着自一年前麦肯锡的高级合伙人选他为公司领导人以来，他有很多时间都不在伦敦。
上任后的第一年，戴维斯先生周游世界，与麦肯锡遍布25个国家的员工与客户会面。前12个月致力于私人讨论，这是他，也是麦肯锡的典型作风。麦肯锡乐于让人们听到旗下咨询师的想法。该公司出版自己的期刊《麦肯锡季刊》(McKinsey Quarterly)。但它不赞成个人英雄主义。这是53岁的戴维斯先生首次作为董事总经理接受采访。
健谈、随和的戴维斯先生已在麦肯锡工作了25年，他更乐意谈论将来而不是过去。但他没有回避这段往事：网络风潮的最后几年令麦肯锡受到令人不快的关注。这家咨询公司曾是安然(Enron)的长期顾问，麦肯锡有两名咨询师曾在《麦肯锡季刊》中称赞安然的业务模式。
戴维斯先生坚称，麦肯锡没有任何不法行为。不管后来发生了什么，安然最初是以一些稳固的理念为本。安然“是一家作为真实企业而被非常成功地建立起来的公司，它经历了网站式泡沫――而我们都知道结果是什么。”
但他承认，与一家破产公司沾边有损于麦肯锡。“这种情况无助于公司声誉，当然也对我们无益，”他说，“我想我们的声誉受到了损害。”但他与首席执行官们的交谈让他相信，麦肯锡能迈过这道坎。“人们知道我们与任何不法行为无关。”
客户们也知道，安然只是该公司业务的一部分。“我们与400家公司合作。总会有事情出错，或者因为我们，或者我们阻止不了。我们大多数客户都知道，你不可能每次都赢。”
个人的推荐更加重要。“最终，决定我们在客户中声誉的最大因素，是他们彼此的谈话。而他们确实谈及我们。我们的声誉实在不坏。”但尽管如此，他承认也有教训要吸取。比如说？“要非常、非常当心――我不是说我们过去不当心――但对工作与客户之类的事要慎之又慎。”
他说，对于培养年轻人才，以及将新手放进经验更丰富的咨询师队伍方面的操作，麦肯锡也曾不得不重新审视，这在景气的年头不太会发生。“这确实对我们的基本价值造成严重的压力。在混乱时期，我觉得我们失落了一些基本价值。我们并未有意背弃这些价值，但我的感觉是，在这段时期之后，我们有必要重新确认我们的基本工作方法和价值。”
在令人兴奋的岁月之后，自然是比较黯淡的时期。咨询师的业务减少了。作为一家合伙企业，麦肯锡不公布财务业绩，但据信它同所有其它公司一样受到了打击。戴维斯先生说，如今麦肯锡及其客户的业务都在回升。公司现有6200名咨询师，比2001年的7000人少些，但高于1998年雇佣的5000人。
麦肯锡有没有重新考虑过自己提供的基本服务？如今首席执行官是否真的还有兴趣，付钱给聪明的年轻人来告诉他们怎样打理自己的生意？戴维斯先生驳斥了这种对麦肯锡业务的看法。“我从不认为这种嘲讽是对的，”他说，“我们确实相信要雇佣年轻人。我们认为，组织中有年轻人加入，就会有巨大的活力和创造力。”但麦肯锡把年轻与经验相融合。
无论如何，咨询公司再也无法靠MBA毕业生来打动公司了。许多公司如今有自己的MBA。20年前，咨询师能炫耀他们的知识。“而那个时代已经过去了。那样很好，”他表示。
那么麦肯锡向客户提供什么呢？他表示，首先是独立的观点。“其他人的问题有时比自己的问题简单，在常人生活与商业生活中都是如此。在我们的客户中，许多人都很能干，MBA比比皆是，就像我们一样聪明。他们就期望那种独立性和挑战。”
第二，和许多公司一起工作，就意味着麦肯锡的咨询师能比他们的客户更频繁地遇到一些情况。咨询师目睹了许多合并、收购或大规模公司重组。首席执行官看到的一般少一些。大部分人“在一生中只经历过两到三次大规模运营改革”。
麦肯锡提供的第三项服务是为客户提供帮手。公司不想雇佣新员工来处理一次性事件。
他表示，麦肯锡还提供其它一些东西：一种国际性展望，这与外包及离岸的辩论尤其相关。“离岸并非一时的潮流。我认为正在发生一种根本性转变。在我看来，这与劳动力及人才市场的全球化有关。”公司开始在其本国市场以外进行销售，然后到全球各地采购产品，而今，在员工方面也采取同样的做法，到全球各地招聘并雇佣人员。
他认为，“离岸”一词容易让人误解。“离岸是个充满政治意味的术语。它往往表示从美国移到某处，印度一直是热点。”
今年早些时候，他在达沃斯聆听了一场有关离岸的“相当乏味”的辩论。当时一位日本公司的首席执行官凑上来，在确定戴维斯先生不是美国人后问道：“你是不是和我一样感到沮丧？”这位日本高管问：“你知道在最近10年里有多少工作从日本转移到了中国吗？”
戴维斯先生说，全世界都一样。在瑞典，人们谈论的是流向波罗的海国家的工作岗位。但是，这场辩论“已被美国岗位流向印度这一话题占据了，这一外流被称作离岸。它还集中在技能较高的岗位。当纺织业岗位从英国流向土耳其时，没有人谈论离岸”。
他同意说，外包交易很难管理。“我曾与一家大型美国软件/科技公司的首席执行官谈过。他当时告诉我，他可以轻易将公司25%的员工岗位转移至印尼、印度、罗马尼亚。他说：‘这对公司来说意味着什么呢？我为这些人提供了一条怎样的职业道路？我付给他们怎样的报酬？我是要付给硅谷的一名首席财务官50万美元，而给印度的某个人5万美元吗？5万美元在印度是笔很大的数目了。’”
戴维斯先生承认，工作的国际化将遭遇挫折。可能会出现大规模系统崩溃，而反对离岸的人将会抓住这一点不放。“所有报纸都会刊登，说这是大灾难。而且人们会说：‘怎么样，我早就告诉过你，什么事都得在旧金山干。’”但他说，没有回头路可走。
麦肯锡自己也有将业务外包至印度的经历。公司在印度有个办事处，每天24小时营业，一周7天，300名员工为咨询师提供图形和视觉展示文件。公司还在德里附近的一个中心雇佣了约12人，其中几人有数学博士学位，这12个人为麦肯锡遍布全球的咨询师进行统计研究。
“从麦肯锡的观点看，离岸对我们来说不算什么，”他说，“从哪里离岸，外包到哪里？我们是一家实实在在的全球性公司。举例说，我们伦敦的办公室里就有40个不同国籍的人在一起工作。所以说，离岸外包到印度也不算什么，因为你可以认为，我们是印度公司，同样也是任何其他国家的公司。”
