Description
โข A Fortune 500 company spends over $75 million on major consulting firms and is left on the edge of bankruptcy, with sales falling from $1.3 billion to $300 million.
โข A steel firm agrees to a consulting contract with a unique set of incentives: The more jobs the consultant eliminates, the more the consultant is paid. The fewer the jobs that are eliminated, the more the consultant pays the company.
โข A consultant provides inside information to turn state's evidence in a trial, landing the consultant's former client behind bars.
โข One of the largest companies in the world pays over half a billion dollars to consultants and seems as con- fused today as ever.
Dangerous Company is the never-before-told story of the powerful and secretive consulting elite, firms such as McKinsey & Company, Bain, the Boston Consulting Group, Andersen Consulting, Deloitte Touche, Gemini, and many others. Based on sources within the firms themselves, interviews with key clients, and access to now-sealed court records, the book provides the inside story that consultants would prefer you not know. James O'Shea and Charles Madigan tell you about conspiracies at the top, bone-headed assumptions, as well as brilliant performances.
While Dangerous Company reveals the underside of consulting, it also looks at many success stories:
โข How a consulting firm helped a pharmaceutical company develop a strategy for marketing instruments that enable diabetics to manage their disease. Not only has the product been profitable, it has greatly improved the lives of millions of people.
โข How Sears got turned around. Arthur Martinez's sophisticated and limited use of consultants is a model for how companies should work with consultants in the future. How small, highly focused consulting firms are providing cost-effective, targeted advice to companies and mounting a significant challenge to the big consulting powerhouses. ISBN:9780812926347
