The future of the Firm

　　麥肯錫的未來

　　McKinsey looks set to stay top of the heap inmanagement 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 provideadvice to most of the world s leading companies.

　　他們不僅為大多數世界領先的公司提供建議，而且還開創了這樣的想法，

　　It also pioneered the idea that business is a profession rather than a mere tradeand aprofession that thrives on raw brainpower more than specialist industry knowledge or plainold common sense.

　　商業并不是單純的貿易，而是一種職業，是依靠腦力勞動而不是專業的行業知識或是淺顯易懂的舊常識。

　　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 theconsultancy for doing God s work, and the McKinsey Quarterly published articles on Enron asenthusiastically 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，贊揚咨詢工作是上帝的使命，并在《麥肯錫季刊》上發表有關安然文章，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 RajRajaratnam of Galleon, a hedge fund. Last year Rajat Gupta, a former McKinsey managingpartner, was also convicted of passing inside information to Mr Rajaratnam.

　　在2010年，麥肯錫的顧問，阿爾尼庫馬爾承認向帆船的拉賈拉特南透露了對沖基金的內部消息。去年前麥肯錫經理合伙人，拉雅古普塔，也被懷疑向拉賈拉特南先生傳遞內部信息。

　　Life is getting tougher for professional-services firms.

　　如今專業服務型公司面臨著越來越多的困難，

　　Midsized consultancies are already suffering: Monitor Group went bankrupt lastyearDeloitte later bought it for 120mand Booz Co and Roland Berger are agonisingabout their futures.

　　去年中型咨詢公司摩立特集團的破產印證了這個事實德勤后來用了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，還會有更糟糕的事發生：

　　Dewey LeBoeuf collapsed last year after borrowing heavily in a dash for growth, andother elite law firms are struggling to win business.

　　杜威和勒伯夫為了增長而借了大量的貸款，在他們破產后，會有大量的精英律師事務所努力贏得業務。

　　So, are McKinsey s best days behind it?

　　所以，麥肯錫的黃金時光會接踵而來嗎?

　　Two new publications offer some interesting answers.

　　兩個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 hardquestions about the organisation s future.

　　達夫麥當勞的公司，普遍讓人羨慕，卻也仍然會考慮一些有關組織未來的難題。

　　Consulting on the Cusp of Disruption, by Clayton Christensen and two colleagues, is apenetrating article in the October Harvard Business Review, arguing that the comfortableworld 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《哈佛商業評論》上發表了精辟的文章中提到咨詢行業正處于風口浪尖，他們認為處于舒適世界的戰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。

　　It cannot continue to serve most of the world s leading companies if its consultants arewilling to spill secrets.

　　如果他們的顧問把內部秘密泄露了出去，他們就不能繼續服務于世界領先公司。

　　Mr McDonald argues that the firm s size makes it impossible to avoid repeats of the Kumarproblem.

　　麥當勞先生認為，該公司的體系使他們不可能避免庫馬爾問題的再次發生，

　　It is now a giant factory with 1,200 consultants rather than the cosy club of old.

　　它現在是一個擁有1200名顧問的巨大工廠，而不是一個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 thatthey earn.

　　該公司將保持繼續增長，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風險。

　　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務。

　　But in recent years it has seemed to be on the wrong cutting edge.

　　但是在近些年來，它似乎也是錯誤的尖端。

　　Mr McDonald points out that whereas McKinsey has led the financialisation of basic industriessuch as oil and gas, it has had little if any role in shaping the giants of the internet economy,

　　麥當勞先生指出，以麥肯錫為首的金融化產業，如石油和天然氣等，如果在塑造互聯網經濟的巨人，

　　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.

　　商業化的新主人變成了穿著帽衫的工程師，而不是穿細條紋衣服的MBA碩士。

　　Mr Christensen focuses on a bigger subject:

　　克里斯滕森先生專注于一個更大的主題：

　　how the forces that have disrupted so many other businesses, from steel to publishing, aredisrupting consulting.

　　這種力量是怎樣毀壞了其他的商業形式，從鋼鐵工業到出版商，全部都需要咨詢。

　　The big three strategy consultantsthe other two are the Boston Consulting Group andBainare masters of opacity.

　　三大戰略咨詢其他兩個是波士頓咨詢集團和貝恩全部不透明，

　　But Mr Christensen argues that light is being let in on the magic.

　　但克里斯滕森先生認為，光芒是神奇的照射進來的，

　　Companies are getting better at measuring results and demanding value for money.

　　經過統計，參與過咨詢的公司取得了更好地效果，確實物有所值。

　　They also have access to more business expertise than ever before: the big three havemore than 50,000 living alumni.

　　而且他們比以前更有機會接觸更多的業務專家：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.

　　三巨頭已經作為主人將許多不同的服務高價的綁定到一起，

　　But clients no longer want to pay fat fees for a bit of strategic advice from a senior partnerand a lot of humdrum work from neophytes.

　　但是委托人應經不再想為從一個高級合作伙伴那得到一點戰略建議和從一個初學者那得到許多單點無聊的工作而付出巨額費用。

　　Mr Christensen says low-priced competitors are beginning to dismember the consultants business.

　　克里斯滕森先生說，低價位的競爭者已經開始要瓜分管理咨詢的商業任務。

　　Eden McCallum cuts costs by deploying freelancers, most of whom once worked for the bigthree.

　　伊甸園麥卡勒姆為削減開支而雇傭的自由職業者，其中大多數曾是三巨頭的成員。

　　BeyondCore replaces overpriced junior analysts with Big Data, crunching vast amounts ofinformation to identify trends.

　　超越核心用巨大的數據庫和大量的信息取代價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.

　　顯然麥肯錫現在面對著一個比過去更加困難的市場。

　　But it has overcome serious challenges beforesuch as in the 1980s, when it lost theintellectual high ground to BCG and then Bain before regaining it.

　　但在20世紀80年代，在它落后于BCG和貝恩，失去了智力方面的制高點時，它克服了嚴峻的挑戰。

　　The firm is fixing some of the problems from the Gupta era.

　　它從笈多時代開始就一直在修復這些問題。

　　It has elected two successive managing directors, Ian Davis and Dominic Barton, who haveworked hard to restore its professional ethos.

　　它曾經有兩位成功的董事總經理，伊恩戴維斯和鮑達民，他們一直在努力恢復公司的專業精神氣質。

　　Mr Barton urges companies to embrace long-term capitalism rather than quarterlycapitalism and corporate responsibility rather than financial engineering: the very oppositeof the Enron-era McKinsey s gospel.

　　巴頓先生敦促企業去擁抱長期的資本主義而不是季度的資本主義，去承擔企業的責任而不是金融工程：與安然時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.

　　麥肯錫也有兩個巨大的資產：人才和知識。

　　It retains an unrivalled ability to recruit hundreds of clever young people and turn them intoan army of problem-solving worker ants.

　　它保留了無以倫比的能力，超募了數百個聰明異稟的年輕人，然后把它們變成一隊解決麻煩的工蟻。

　　It also has an enviable network of alumni, many of whom are happy to hire their oldemployer: in 2011 more than 150 ex-McKinseyites were running companies with more than 1billion in annual sales.

　　它也有一個令人羨慕的校友網絡，其中許多人都樂意聘請他們的老雇主：在2011年，有超過150個前麥肯錫員工經營了自己公司，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據了。

　　Though lesser firms may be facing disruption, McKinsey dispenses a special sort of consultorialfairy-dust that is hard to replicate, and as much in demand as ever.

　　即使較小的企業可能會面臨破產，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 andstatus-insecurity.

　　全球統治階級正在被一種混合的癡迷狀態和不安全狀態困擾，

　　Decision-makers also fear being swept away by one of Mr Christensen s disruptive forces.

　　決策者也擔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.

　　他們尋求那些頗負盛名的機構來求得安慰和重申。

　　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，

　　That will guarantee the Firm a solid future, even if no one can prove that its advice actuallydoes any good.

　　這將保證堅實的未來，即使沒有人能證明這些咨詢建議確實有什么好處。

　　詞語解釋

　　1.provide to 提供

　　What kind of new functionality will these effectsprovide to developers?

　　這些效果會向開發者提供哪些新功能呢?

　　The console uses the information you provide toverify the target system.

　　控制臺會使用您提供的信息來驗證目標系統。

　　2.rather than 而不，與其倒不如

　　His film is propaganda rather than documentary.

　　說他的影片是政治宣傳而不是紀錄片。

　　He is an explorer rather than a sailor.

　　與其說他是一個海員，不如說他是一個探險者。

　　3.involve in 使參與[陷入，牽扯到

　　Involve in company capex and fixed assets policy development.

　　參與公司資本性支出及固定資產政策的發展。

　　A lot of laws administrative statutes divisional regulations local statutes party disciplines.Legal explanations etc. involve in administrative obligations.

　　很多法律、行政法規、部門規章、地方性法規、黨規黨紀和司法解釋等對行政責任都有所涉及。

　　4.go bankrupt 破產

　　That afternoon, congressmen considered letting states go bankrupt.

　　那天下午，國會議員考慮讓州破產。

　　As lehman bros. showed, there are good reasons to avoid letting failed banks go bankrupt.

　　正如雷曼兄弟的事件所顯示的，讓失敗的銀行免于倒閉是有充分理由的。