McKinsey & Company:

Managing Knowledge and Learning

Group: 09
Ankur Bhagat (06)
Deepika Chainani (13)
Jitesh Jain (21)
Shatakshi Tripathi (48)
Varun Bhargava (61)
Vignesh C (63)

Time Line
1926

Developing competitive advantage

James philosophy to develop competitive advantage:

 Ron Daniel recognized the talent and appointed Fred Gluck as a part of the knowledge development team
Fred went on to become the MD after Ron and further strengthened the Mc Kinsey Knowledge base

Appointed Bob Waterman to work on articulating the firms existing knowledge that existed more in the
brains as a soft skill into a hard form which can be used as a reference by all

Appointment of
Frederick Gluck
Focus on building a
knowledge infrastructure
Structural Changes

Creation of industry based clientele sectors in consumer products, banking, industrial goods, insurance etc.
across geographical offices

Focus on Functional
Expertise

Focused on more formal development in areas like strategy, organization and operations where knowledge
and experience were widely diffused and minimally codified
Assembly of working groups dedicated for this purpose

Focused on development of consulting skills and expertise in alignment of the firms core strategy
Appointment of the most respected and productive senior partners as Directors of Training

Focus on training

Contributions: Ron Daniel

 Developed as a part of implementation of the KMP recommendations

KRD gained advantage over PDNet during initial phases and became the Mc Kinsey Yellow Pages

Launched in 1987
The team made 3 recommendations after 5 months which were: maintaining a common knowledge
database, hiring a fulltime practice coordinator to ensure implementation and quality
improvement of the database and expansion of hiring and promotion practices

Emphasis on hierarchy division to be based on size and importance of ones client base

Emphasized on making knowledge development the core and not a peripheral firm activity
The purpose of CoC was to develop consultants and ensure continued renewal of the firms
intellectual resources

Practice Development Network

(PDNet) and Knowledge
Resource Directory (KRD)
Knowledge Management Project
Changing Internal Status
Hierarchy
Centers of Competence

Contributions: Fred Gluck

Effectiveness of Contributions
Year

Office Location

Active Engagements

Number of CSS

Number of MGMs

Engagement/Office

Engagement/Staff

1975

24

661

529

NA

28

1.25

1980

31

771

744

NA

25

1.04

1985

36

1823

1248

NA

51

1.46

1990

47

2789

2465

348

59

1.13

1991

51

2875

2653

395

56

1.08

1992

55

2917

2875

399

53

1.01

1993

60

3142

3122

422

52

1.01

1994

64

3398

3334

440

53

1.02

1995

69

3559

3817

472

52

0.93

Effectiveness of Contributions
Engagement/Office
70

59

60

56

53

51

50

53

52

52

40

Engagement/Office

30

28

25

20
10
0
1

Effectiveness of Contributions
Engagement/Staff
1.60

1.46

1.40

1.25

1.20

1.13

1.04

1.00

1.08

1.01

1.02

1.01

0.93

0.80
0.60
0.40
0.20
0.00
1

Engagement/Staff

Effectiveness of Contributions
A cautious optimism returned to Mckinsey for the first time in the early 1980s
A remarkable increase in the engagement per office even after rapid expansion in 1985
which sustained in the face of competition
Engagement/Staff remained fairly constant over the years irrespective of the competition
Because of the constant increase in the staff to cater to the increasing client base, the
quality of consultancy could sustain at Mckinsey

Thus it is evident that the contributions of both Daniel and Gluck were effective and
knowledge base development became the Critical Success Factor for Mckinsey

Change Management
With the rising expectations of increasing sophisticated clients along with
competitors like Boston Consulting Group started competing with them, Mckinsey
made structural changes by creating industry-based Clientele Sectors and functional
expertise
Mckinsey shifted its focus from developing knowledge to building individual and team
capability. It focused more on Stewardship Model
Mckinsey focused on people development and made clear that it was their primary
purpose
Sydney Office Assignment : The feedback from client was very good which was
because of the firms knowledge base. Most of the hard analysis was done in just
over a month. The client even said If things dont go ahead now, its our own fault
which expressed how satisfied they were with the work

Change Management
European Telecoms : Practices knowledge based was built by associates who wrote
papers on their new insights. Practice specific intranet link was designed to allow
members direct access to the knowledge base
The main problem that they faced was on applying the firms industrial pricing
practice to telecom
Business Marketing Competence Center : Because of the PD documents, a new
framework for business marketing was developed. Internal conference at which
employees would present their ideas was held and over 50 people showed up

Rajat Guptas-New Four-pronged attack

1) Capitalize on the firms long term investment in practice development driven by clientele Industry sector an

Recommendations
High Investment in Knowledge development in past year may lead to 5-10% drop in client work
but the company henceforth should work towards developing CST and Integration across for
common knowledge agendas
Sharing of knowledge should remain as support function for the consultant and core competency
of creative solutions should remain intact
The IT technology and may help the company to get the centralized information and serve the
client all over the world
The disadvantages of IT and PD solution is preoccupied approach of consultant. But company can
vary the solution according to the client requirement and restricted accessibility