McKinsey & Company

Managing knowledge and learning

Group 11:
Radha Narayanan
Nirmal
Apurv Mishra
Ankit Sachdeva
Manisha

Case overview
Mckinsey: A multinational management
consulting firm that was founded by James
Mckinsey in 1926 as accounting & engineering
advisors for business.
The strong leadership over the years under
different, capable people have evolved the firm
over the years
How strategy was built around knowledge &
learning as the key differentiator over the years

Marvin Bower (1932-1967)

Reshaped the firms reputation as efficiency experts or
business doctors
Introduced the One Firm policy & upgraded size and quality
of the clients
Believed in well trained generalists approach to analysis
& problem solving
Challenges to McKinsey:
Economic Turmoil
No in-depth industry knowledge
New focused competition like BCG (BCG Matrix, experience
curve, etc)

Ron Daniel (1976 1988)

Recruited the first full time director of training
Committed to develop consultants expertise & serve
clients (expanded objective)
Structural changes T shaped matrix Industry based clientele sector
Moe focus on gaining expertise in strategy &
organisation

Knowledge building primary agenda

Brought in Fred Gluck & gave him autonomy to create
a culture of peer learning

Fred Gluck (pre MD period)

He wanted to institutionalize knowledge development and
make it an on-going process
He developed the 15 Centers of Competence. The goal was to
Develop expertise + Improve firms intellectual resources

Practice development was as important as client development

Building a knowledge infrastructure :

McKinsey Staff paper series -1978. Very few took the efforts
Practice bulletins 2 page summaries on key learnings
Hired full time coordinators for each practice area
Created a career path for functional specialists (I shaped)

Fred Gluck (1988 1994)

Created tools for institutionalized learning
FPIS (Firm Practice Information Network) database of all
clients on computer
PDNet (Practice Development Network) bring knowledge in
practice on paper
KRD (Knowledge Resource Directory) compact & accessible
information

After he became MD, he started working on taking

Knowledge Management to the next level
Change in approach: Discover-Codify-Disseminate to
Engage-Explore-Apply-Share

Fred Gluck (1988 1994)

Shift in focus: Building knowledge to Building
individual & team capability
Better client impact key consulting unit
changed from engagement team (ET) to Client
Service Team (CST). Client exposed to a group of
partners instead of just one.
Long term goals in place
Development of multiple career paths CSS &
CSSA

Rajat Gupta (1994 2003)

Introduced four pronged strategy
New channels & forums created for knowledge
development. Eg: Practice Olympics -> Competitions
at various levels to showcase new ideas. Attracted
atleast 15% of the associates
Late 1995 6 special initiatives were launched that
involved internal & external emerging issues
important to CEOs
Mckinsey Global Institute : a firm sponsored R&D unit
to study global economy and its effect on business

Future of Mckinsey
Challenges that the company is likely to encounter:
Company cant keep disintegrating to serve niches.
The employee base has to find the company exciting to work
for and congenial environment to innovate. Aggressive
learning & development agenda
Over dependence on technology could erode the prime
culture at McKinsey - people are important and personal
networks matter
The extensive knowledge system and PD network could
condition associates to seek frameworks from the past
instead of innovation

Key learnings
Knowledge was identified as the core differentiator.
Hence extensive funds were invested at the right
time to develop the right capability. This made it a
sustainable advantage over a longer period
An organization has to be people centric especially if
its core competency is knowledge
Knowledge management practices were rolled out
from a centralized global unit to ensure it evolved
with time and uniformly implemented in all
geographies.