Strategic Management-Ii: Assignment-Iv Mckinsey & Company: Managing Knowledge and Learning

Strategic Management-II: Assignment-IV
McKinsey & Company: Managing Knowledge and Learning
Q1. Identify the resources that give McKinsey its competitive advantage.
Knowledge was considered the lifeblood of McKinsey. McKinsey focused on developing,

capturing, and leveraging the intelligence and creativity of the firm’s consultants in solving
clients problems. Over the years, McKinsey’s top management tried to adopt practices that
would help deliver superior service to its clients. James Mickensey developed an integrated
approach called ‘General Survey” and an undeviating sequence of analysis - goals, strategy,
policies, organization, facilities, procedures, and personnel. Marvin Bower ingrained the concept
of a One-Firm policy. Bower initiated a series of major changes including dinner seminars
updating the quality and size of McKinsey clients, making them well-trained, highly intelligent
generalists who could quickly grasp the issue and through disciplined analysis find solutions to
clients’ problems. In 1971, on the proposal of the Commission on Firm Aims and Goals,
McKinsey committed itself to the continuous development of its members - developing them
into T-shaped consultants, who not only supplemented a broad generalist perspective but also an
in-depth industry or functional specialty. McKinsey engaged in a series of Practice
Development Initiatives - having a full-time director of training to developing consultants’
skills and expertise, engaging in structural changes ad forming industry-based Clientele Sectors;
leveraging firms' functional expertise in strategy and organization. The firm's core commitment
was reaffirmed to not only serve its clients but also develop its consultants.
McKinsey followed a local-office-based model of client relationship management which gave

it a distinctive advantage - it gave partners strong connections with the business community and
allowed teams to work on-site with clients and facilitated implementation.
Centers of Competence - to complement the growing number of Clientel Industry Sectors, 15

Centers of Competence were built around existing areas of management expertise to help
develop consultants and ensure continued renewal of firms’ intellectual resources. These centers
of competence help build a shared body of knowledge initiating activities involving the core
group as well as members of the practice network ( Clientele Sector, and Competence Centers)
Building Knowledge Infrastructure- to capture and leverage the learning, a Knowledge

Management Project was initiated. From building a common database of knowledge
accumulated from client work and developed in the practice areas, hiring a full-time practice co-
ordinator to monitor the quality of the data, and helping consultants across the relevant
information, the firm also expanded its hiring practices and promotion policies to create a carer
path for deep functional specialists for I-shaped individuals. Resources like FIPS (Firm Practice
Information System), Practice Development Network (PDNet), and KRD (knowledge Resource
Directory) were introduced as another firm-wide collaborative information resource.
Refining Knowledge Management through CPDC (Clientele and Professional Development

Committee) worked on refining and re-structuring the Practice Network into focussed sectors
and functional capability groups to refine competence building.
Long Term Relationships with Clients and Client Impact -The firm's consulting unit changed
from an Engagement Team to a Client Service Team. Where ETtended to focus on delivering a
3-4 month assignment and solving the immediate task rather on the client’s long term need, CST
was built to help the firm add long-term value and increase the effectiveness of individual
engagements, uniting a core of individuals linked across multiple ETs committed to working
with the clients over an extended period.
Q2. What is the difference between the "Discover-codify-disseminate" (DCD) and the
"engage-explore-apply-share" approach for managing knowledge?
The "discover-codify-disseminate" methodology is a way of approaching knowledge

development. The disciplined work of a few firm employees is discovered through discovering
information, which is then compiled in writing form and distributed to the entire firm with (out)
practicing.
The "engage-explore-apply-share" strategy focuses on enhancing individual and team

capabilities such that everyone in the firm is responsible for gathering information, investigating
it through real-world examples, and applying it to client problems. As a result, this data gets
disseminated (transferred) within the company. Because information is only valuable when it is
shared between consultants' ears and applied to a client's problem (as it is in the core activity of a
consultant services organization), they are eager to develop the latter.
Q3. Peters, Bray, and Dull - What kind of competencies are they pursuing?
Peters: Peter, a Boston-based senior engagement manager and veteran of more than 20 studies
for financial institutions, was identified for a growth strategy study in Australia. Due to previous
commitments, he joined the team by the end of phase one. His focus during his time on the
project was maintaining the focus of the team on the end product. He spent most of the time
working on client relationships. He drew a logical outline to workflow and delegated tasks
accordingly, thus giving development opportunities to team members.
Bray: Bray joined McKinsey after earning his MBA from Melbourne University. He sought to
leverage his technical experience. His major focus was on two aspects. The first was to make
telecom an exciting and interesting practice so as to attract the best associates. The second was
how to develop the largely informal links among the fast-growing telecom European practices.
He sought to accelerate the “engage-explore-apply-share” knowledge cycle by introducing
Telecom Intranet, a direct link to the practical knowledge base, member capabilities, client base,
external knowledge, etc.
Dull: After completing his MBA, Dull spent the next five years working in various consumer
marketing jobs at Pillsbury before joining McKinsey as a consultant in consumer marketing. He,
later on, found his interest in industrial marketing issues. Dull was a good researcher and had
competency in researching and launched various study initiatives around them, which proved to
be very fruitful. Dull was more focused on industrial marketing which led to Dull focusing on B
to B strategy. His core competency lay in business marketing, this can be seen when the B to B
initiative was declared a center of competence.
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Strategic Management-II: Assignment-IV

McKinsey & Company: Managing Knowledge and Learning

Knowledge was considered the lifeblood of McKinsey. McKinsey focused on developing,

McKinsey followed a local-office-based model of client relationship management which gave

Centers of Competence - to complement the growing number of Clientel Industry Sectors, 15

Building Knowledge Infrastructure- to capture and leverage the learning, a Knowledge

Refining Knowledge Management through CPDC (Clientele and Professional Development

The "discover-codify-disseminate" methodology is a way of approaching knowledge

The "engage-explore-apply-share" strategy focuses on enhancing individual and team

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