A management consulting firm provides professional expertise and specialized service for a fee, through the use of consultants. These consultants possess a broad spectrum of skills in various domains like management, engineering, etc. These management consultants work with businesses to enhance their performance and encourage growth across various functions like business strategy, finance, HR and marketing.
Organisations hire management consulting firms to help them answer hard questions that they are facing in a bid to work through the roadblocks that they face. Their worth lies in the specific expertise they offer.
- Their answer matters which is why they are expensive to hire
- They are rare and offer solutions that are unusual and unique
- Their expertise is a result of access to cross-industry and cross-functions which gives them insights not often available to others
McKinsey & Company – An Overview
McKinsey’s Four-Step Solutions
How McKinsey Makes $500,000+ on a Presentation?
The McKinsey Way
McKinsey & Company – An Overview
McKinsey & Company is one such management consultancy firm that delivers asset-based insightful consultancy that makes a quicker impact on the client’s performance. Their solutions leverage advanced technologies, proprietary data and deep expertise through four steps:
- Diagnostics
- Market Intelligence
- Management Technology
- Analytics
Their expert consulting ranges from Agriculture to Healthcare Systems & Services, Oil & Gas, Financial Services, Metals & Mining, Retail, Electric Power and Natural Gas, Aerospace & Defence and Technology & Media and Communication.
Within the space of each industry, the consulting firm offers unique and insightful solutions based on specific business functions:
- Strategy & Corporate Finance
- Operations
- Marketing & Sales
- Organization
- Digital
- Sustainability
- Risk
- Transformation
McKinsey’s Four-Step Solutions
Businesses function with foresight along a focused path to reach a pre-determined goal. There are obstacles, challenges and various deviations that businesses encounter that require thoughtful and contemplative responses and resolutions. This is where McKinsey suggests a specifically designed 4-step approach:
- Reduce product cost through Cleansheet Analysis.
- Leverage digital to stay competitive through Digital 20/20.
- Improve network reliability and reduce costs with predictive asset maintenance through Power Solutions.
- Get data-driven insights for wealth management through PriceMetrix.
Shubham Kumar
How McKinsey Makes $500,000+ on a Presentation?
Making presentations is easy. One would think so, but making a presentation that is effective, concise, focused, action-oriented, filled with new insights and delivers an action plan that points to a realistic path to the final goal is a challenge. Designing such a presentation requires skills, careful thought and a structured template that can be applied to the various needs of any business.
As a Management consultant with a global reputation, McKinsey & Company has devised such a template. Their presentation employs three simple concepts – Story, Flow and Structured Arguments.
The entire presentation is broken down into different stages. It begins with engaging the audience and feeding their curiosity about why the audience needs to read. The stages are:
SCQA Framework
The SCQA framework refers to four points that set the tone of the entire presentation.
- Situation (S) – What is the current stage of the company?
This details the current status of the company and the path it is on. Also, it subtly introduces that the company is likely to stay at this stage if there is no intervention. - Complication (C) – What needs to change?
This refers to the complications like the owners would like to see higher profits, expansions, more ROI, etc. - Question (Q) – How can the complication be solved?
The Complication leads to this question – What can the owners do next to achieve their goals and ambitions? - Answer (A) – This deserves its own slide – up next
This is where the engagement happens. The stage is now set and the audience is fully engaged and curious about the next step.
Leading with the Answer
The fourth point of the previous slide (the answer) is the one that is displayed here. The examples for this particular answer follow in the upcoming slides. This allows the audience time to digest the answer. It also creates confusion and questions which is advantageous when following up with the reasons for this answer.
Employing the Pyramid Principle
Now come the reasons for the answer that was provided in the previous slide. The answer is backed by 3-5 key arguments. These arguments, in turn, are supported by facts, figures and data. To drive the point home more firmly, each argument is depicted using the pyramid principle. Clarity is achieved by showcasing one argument per slide. There are no overlaps and nothing is missing.
Build a Storyline
The main idea is that the answer along with its reasonings and arguments is driven across to the owners. This is achieved by combining all the previous slides into one and building a compelling storyline. This includes presenting the key takeaways, the main arguments supporting the final answer and the reasons why the owners must care.
The Slide Title Justifies the Goal
This final slide is the last stage that firmly drives the conviction deeper. This slide supports the point made in the title. It explains how the data leads to the key takeaways. It shows the supporting findings and data that were highlighted in the pyramids and it gives context to the arguments.
Dev Gupta
The McKinsey Way
As management consultants, understanding the inner functions of their client’s business processes is second nature to McKinsey. However, analysing the data, breaking down the process complexity, deriving insights from the market study and research and strategic execution for growth and expansion is a process that McKinsey has uniquely made its own.
Traditionally, McKinsey’s consultancy charges are approximately 25% higher than the market. The book that was published in 1999, ‘The McKinsey Way’ said that their consultants designed and implemented studies to evaluate management decisions using data and interviews.
Conclusion
McKinsey builds stories that are clear and persuasive. Stories that are supported by data and numbers. Stories that are easy to execute and converted to successful realities. There is no doubt as to the reasons behind their high fees per presentation.
FAQs
How much does McKinsey charge its clients?
McKinsey charges its clients between $500,000 to $1,250,000. This cost varies depending on the length of the case and the number of consultants required.
How do you make a McKinsey presentation?
The basics for making a McKinsey presentation are to use the same font size for the entire slide body, not write outside the margins and make sure to keep the font size for all the titles in a presentation is same and the titles are not more than two lines. Also, ensure that all slides ultimately prove a single solid point.
What is the most prestigious consulting firm?
The most prestigious consulting firms are:
- McKinsey & Company
- Bain & Company
- Boston Consulting Group
- Accenture
- Deloitte
