On Consulting

[elyska]

In general, I do not think that I much approve of the consulting industry. Now, perhaps I do not understand it, but from my POV, it seems like companies that actaully make things (whether those things be chairs, newspapers, or airplane parts) hire consultants to save them money, in the meantime paying the consultants exorbidant sums of money, which

Comments

[hipporetriever]

There's a hysterical passage in Tom Wolfe's I Am Charlotte Simmons where one of the characters (Wolfe's attempt at a stereotypical newspaper dork, as it happens) sits down and tries to explain to Charlotte what the consulting industry is. Adam kind of wants to be a consultant, but he doesn't really know what they do, except that they get lots of frequent flier miles. There are a lot of scenes where Wolfe's ear is kinda off, but he's dead on in that one.

I can kind of understand why it might be helpful to hire a third-party source, since sometimes outside firms can tell you something about your business practices that you can't see or don't want to see. But, despite knowing about what kind of stress balls McKinsey used to hand out for free at the Recruiting Fair and that type of stuff, I really don't have any idea how the whole industry works either. :)

[elyska]

Interesting, because McKinsey is the company I was thinking about, too.