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The future of the Firm
麥肯錫的未來
McKinsey looks set to stay top of the heap in management consulting
麥肯錫看起來打算一直居于管理咨詢的頂端
IT IS one of the engines of global capitalism.
麥肯錫是全球資本主義的引擎之一。
Not only does McKinsey provide advice to most of the world's leading companies.
他們不僅為大多數(shù)世界領(lǐng)先的公司提供建議，而且還開創(chuàng)了這樣的想法，
It also pioneered the idea that business is a profession rather than a mere trade—and a profession that thrives on raw brainpower more than specialist industry knowledge or plain old common sense.
商業(yè)并不是單純的貿(mào)易，而是一種職業(yè)，是依靠腦力勞動(dòng)而不是專業(yè)的行業(yè)知識(shí)或是淺顯易懂的舊常識(shí)。
Yet McKinsey's name has suffered a succession of blows in the past 15 years.
然而，麥肯錫的名字在過去的15年卻遭受了一連串的打擊。
The Firm, as it calls itself, was deeply involved in the Enron debacle:
就公司本身而言，如他們自己所說，深深的陷入了安然事件：
the energy company's boss, Jeff Skilling, was a McKinsey veteran who praised the consultancy for doing God's work, and the McKinsey Quarterly published articles on Enron as enthusiastically as Hello! runs pieces about the Beckhams.
安然能源公司的老板，也曾是麥肯錫的一名老將，杰夫·斯基林，贊揚(yáng)咨詢工作是上帝的使命，并在《麥肯錫季刊》上發(fā)表有關(guān)安然文章，熱情滿腔的好像在于貝嫂打招呼一樣。
In 2010 Anil Kumar, a McKinsey consultant, admitted passing inside information to Raj Rajaratnam of Galleon, a hedge fund. Last year Rajat Gupta, a former McKinsey managing partner, was also convicted of passing inside information to Mr Rajaratnam.
在2010年，麥肯錫的顧問，阿爾尼·庫馬爾承認(rèn)向帆船的拉賈拉特南透露了對沖基金的內(nèi)部消息。去年前麥肯錫經(jīng)理合伙人，拉雅·古普塔，也被懷疑向拉賈拉特南先生傳遞內(nèi)部信息。
Life is getting tougher for professional-services firms.
如今專業(yè)服務(wù)型公司面臨著越來越多的困難，
Midsized consultancies are already suffering: Monitor Group went bankrupt last year—Deloitte later bought it for 120m—and Booz & Co and Roland Berger are agonising about their futures.
去年中型咨詢公司摩立特集團(tuán)的破產(chǎn)印證了這個(gè)事實(shí)—德勤后來用了1.2億美元買下了它—博斯公司和羅蘭貝格也在煩惱自己的期貨。
If the legal profession is anything to go by, worse is to come:
如果不是法律界的存在，還會(huì)有更糟糕的事發(fā)生：
Dewey & LeBoeuf collapsed last year after borrowing heavily in a dash for growth, and other elite law firms are struggling to win business.
杜威和勒伯夫?yàn)榱嗽鲩L而借了大量的貸款，在他們破產(chǎn)后，會(huì)有大量的精英律師事務(wù)所努力贏得業(yè)務(wù)。
So, are McKinsey's best days behind it?
所以，麥肯錫的黃金時(shí)光會(huì)接踵而來嗎？
Two new publications offer some interesting answers.
兩個(gè)新的出版刊物提供了一些有趣的答案。
The Firm, by Duff McDonald, is a generally admiring book that nevertheless asks hard questions about the organisation's future.
達(dá)夫·麥當(dāng)勞的公司，普遍讓人羨慕，卻也仍然會(huì)考慮一些有關(guān)組織未來的難題。
Consulting on the Cusp of Disruption, by Clayton Christensen and two colleagues, is a penetrating article in the October Harvard Business Review, arguing that the comfortable world of the strategy consultancies is about to be turned upside down.
克里斯坦森和他的兩位同事10月份在《哈佛商業(yè)評論》上發(fā)表了精辟的文章中提到咨詢行業(yè)正處于風(fēng)口浪尖，他們認(rèn)為處于舒適世界的戰(zhàn)略咨詢公司即將天翻地覆。
McKinsey's success depends above all on an unimpeachable reputation for integrity.
麥肯錫的成功全部依賴于他們無可指摘的誠信聲譽(yù)。
It cannot continue to serve most of the world's leading companies if its consultants are willing to spill secrets.
如果他們的顧問把內(nèi)部秘密泄露了出去，他們就不能繼續(xù)服務(wù)于世界領(lǐng)先公司。
Mr McDonald argues that the firm's size makes it impossible to avoid repeats of the Kumar problem.
麥當(dāng)勞先生認(rèn)為，該公司的體系使他們不可能避免庫馬爾問題的再次發(fā)生，
It is now a giant factory with 1,200 consultants rather than the cosy club of old.
它現(xiàn)在是一個(gè)擁有1200名顧問的巨大工廠，而不是一個(gè)溫馨舒適的老年俱樂部。
The firm has to keep growing, not least to provide its partners with the 1.5mor so a year that they earn.
該公司將保持繼續(xù)增長，但其合作伙伴必須保證每年至少為他們提供150萬美元左右供他們賺取。
But every time it grows it puts its most important asset at risk.
但是每一次增長，都是一次巨大的資產(chǎn)風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。
McKinsey's success also depends on its ability to remain at the cutting edge of business.
麥肯錫的成功還取決于其是否有能力保持在最前沿的業(yè)務(wù)。
But in recent years it has seemed to be on the wrong cutting edge.
但是在近些年來，它似乎也是錯(cuò)誤的尖端。
Mr McDonald points out that whereas McKinsey has led the financialisation of basic industries such as oil and gas, it has had little if any role in shaping the giants of the internet economy,
麥當(dāng)勞先生指出，以麥肯錫為首的金融化產(chǎn)業(yè)，如石油和天然氣等，如果在塑造互聯(lián)網(wǎng)經(jīng)濟(jì)的巨人，
such as Apple and Google.
像蘋果和谷歌一樣的任何角色。
The new lords of business are engineers in hoodies, not MBAs in pinstripes.
商業(yè)化的新主人變成了穿著帽衫的工程師，而不是穿細(xì)條紋衣服的MBA碩士。
Mr Christensen focuses on a bigger subject:
克里斯滕森先生專注于一個(gè)更大的主題：
how the forces that have disrupted so many other businesses, from steel to publishing, are disrupting consulting.
這種力量是怎樣毀壞了其他的商業(yè)形式，從鋼鐵工業(yè)到出版商，全部都需要咨詢。
The big three strategy consultants—the other two are the Boston Consulting Group and Bain—are masters of opacity.
三大戰(zhàn)略咨詢—其他兩個(gè)是波士頓咨詢集團(tuán)和貝恩—全部不透明，
But Mr Christensen argues that light is being let in on the magic.
但克里斯滕森先生認(rèn)為，光芒是神奇的照射進(jìn)來的，
Companies are getting better at measuring results and demanding value for money.
經(jīng)過統(tǒng)計(jì)，參與過咨詢的公司取得了更好地效果，確實(shí)物有所值。
They also have access to more business expertise than ever before: the big three have more than 50,000 living alumni.
而且他們比以前更有機(jī)會(huì)接觸更多的業(yè)務(wù)專家：三巨頭有超過50,000的生活校友。
The big three have been masters at bundling lots of different services into a single, high-priced package.
三巨頭已經(jīng)作為主人將許多不同的服務(wù)高價(jià)的綁定到一起，
But clients no longer want to pay fat fees for a bit of strategic advice from a senior partner and a lot of humdrum work from neophytes.
但是委托人應(yīng)經(jīng)不再想為從一個(gè)高級合作伙伴那得到一點(diǎn)戰(zhàn)略建議和從一個(gè)初學(xué)者那得到許多單點(diǎn)無聊的工作而付出巨額費(fèi)用。
Mr Christensen says low-priced competitors are beginning to dismember the consultants' business.
克里斯滕森先生說，低價(jià)位的競爭者已經(jīng)開始要瓜分管理咨詢的商業(yè)任務(wù)。
Eden McCallum cuts costs by deploying freelancers, most of whom once worked for the big three.
伊甸園麥卡勒姆為削減開支而雇傭的自由職業(yè)者，其中大多數(shù)曾是三巨頭的成員。
BeyondCore replaces overpriced junior analysts with Big Data, crunching vast amounts of information to identify trends.
超越核心用巨大的數(shù)據(jù)庫和大量的信息取代價(jià)格過高的初級分析師，來確定趨勢。
McKinsey clearly faces a more difficult market than it is used to.
顯然麥肯錫現(xiàn)在面對著一個(gè)比過去更加困難的市場。
But it has overcome serious challenges before—such as in the 1980s, when it lost the intellectual high ground to BCG and then Bain before regaining it.
但在20世紀(jì)80年代，在它落后于BCG和貝恩，失去了智力方面的制高點(diǎn)時(shí)，它克服了嚴(yán)峻的挑戰(zhàn)。
The firm is fixing some of the problems from the Gupta era.
它從笈多時(shí)代開始就一直在修復(fù)這些問題。
It has elected two successive managing directors, Ian Davis and Dominic Barton, who have worked hard to restore its professional ethos.
它曾經(jīng)有兩位成功的董事總經(jīng)理，伊恩·戴維斯和鮑達(dá)民，他們一直在努力恢復(fù)公司的專業(yè)精神氣質(zhì)。
Mr Barton urges companies to embrace long-term capitalism rather than quarterly capitalism and corporate responsibility rather than financial engineering: the very opposite of the Enron-era McKinsey's gospel.
巴頓先生敦促企業(yè)去擁抱長期的資本主義而不是季度的資本主義，去承擔(dān)企業(yè)的責(zé)任而不是金融工程：與安然時(shí)代的麥肯錫福音剛好相反。
Old boys everywhere
老男孩無處不在
McKinsey also has two huge assets: talent and knowledge.
麥肯錫也有兩個(gè)巨大的資產(chǎn)：人才和知識(shí)。
It retains an unrivalled ability to recruit hundreds of clever young people and turn them into an army of problem-solving worker ants.
它保留了無以倫比的能力，超募了數(shù)百個(gè)聰明異稟的年輕人，然后把它們變成一隊(duì)解決麻煩的工蟻。
It also has an enviable network of alumni, many of whom are happy to hire their old employer: in 2011 more than 150 ex-McKinseyites were running companies with more than 1 billion in annual sales.
它也有一個(gè)令人羨慕的校友網(wǎng)絡(luò)，其中許多人都樂意聘請他們的老雇主：在2011年，有超過150個(gè)前麥肯錫員工經(jīng)營了自己公司，總年銷售額超過了100億美元。
The firm has also invested heavily in knowledge for decades:
該公司還在幾十年里對知識(shí)投入巨資：
perhaps no other organisation has as much interesting data on global capitalism.
大概沒有其他組織對于全球資本主義有這么多有趣的數(shù)據(jù)了。
Though lesser firms may be facing disruption, McKinsey dispenses a special sort of consultorial fairy-dust that is hard to replicate, and as much in demand as ever.
即使較小的企業(yè)可能會(huì)面臨破產(chǎn)，麥肯錫卻省卻了一些特殊的，難以描述的，卻與以往一樣有盡可能多追求的咨詢童話。
The global ruling class is seized with a toxic combination of status-obsession and status-insecurity.
全球統(tǒng)治階級正在被一種混合的癡迷狀態(tài)和不安全狀態(tài)困擾，
Decision-makers also fear being swept away by one of Mr Christensen's disruptive forces.
決策者也擔(dān)心被克里斯滕森先生所說的破壞性力量一掃而空，
They seek constant reassurance and reaffirmation from prestigious institutions.
他們尋求那些頗負(fù)盛名的機(jī)構(gòu)來求得安慰和重申。
McKinsey knows better than almost anyone how to exploit this peculiar mindset.
麥肯錫比任何其他人都懂得如何利用這種奇特的心態(tài)，
That will guarantee the Firm a solid future, even if no one can prove that its advice actually does any good.
這將保證堅(jiān)實(shí)的未來，即使沒有人能證明這些咨詢建議確實(shí)有什么好處。
