Dangerous Company: The Consulting Powerhouses and the Businesses They Save and Ruin

by James O'Shea, Charles Madigan

Reveals the enormous power exercised by the biggest, most secretive firms in the consulting industry, detailing their successes and failures

Genres: Business, Management, Nonfiction

368 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Mehdi]

A somewhat dated (it was published in the mid-1990s) but nonetheless interesting portrait of the industry. My only complaint is that the authors sometimes favor a somewhat sensationalistic style over a more pedestrian and accurate reality.

[Ramya]

It is a book that gives you a background of how consulting evolved in the last century and an overview of the big players in the consulting industry. I liked the chapters on BCG and Bain the most.

[Kim Burkhardt]

I read this when I was working as a market research consultant. It's important to understand the drawbacks that exist within one's profession so one can work to avoid and/or overcome those drawbacks.

[David]

I learned about the origins of the industry. The book also provided advice that is applicable to more then dealing with consultants, such as don't trust any otherside help implicitly, without doing homework.

However, the book jumps from topic to topic without any continuuty, plus the book is outdated. For exaple, the author fawns over Arthur Martinez turnaround of Sears(which of course proved to be a non-starter
), and even Al Dunlap(pre Sunbeam). Additionaly, the book jumpss from topic to topic.

[Sergei_kalinin]

У книги два главных минуса: 1) она отражает ситуацию в консалтинге в начале-середине 1990-х (т.е. значительно устарела); 2) она написана журналистами в стиле "скандалы, интриги, расследования" :) . Авторы пытаются быть объективными, но чувствуется, что "жареное" в консалтинге их привлекает в первую очередь :( .

[Rahul Jangid]

Insiders' accounts of some of the major failures of the world's biggest consultancy firms.They fail rarely but when they do they face egregious consequences. It also sheds light on how these consultancy firms are so good at what they do.

[Drew]

Interesting look at how the management consulting industry grew with good case studies. Clearly biased against consultants with much of the blame directed towards them for falters

[Pam]

Book was published in the late 90's, so some info is outdated and slightly irrelevant. Overall, Management consultants can be helpful and beneficial to a business, so long as the company management keeps them in check. But, it reinforced my opinion that M.C's look for the money and aren't always helping the success of the business. But, oftentimes, there is no real metric to gauge the success anyway.

[Pratik]

Good insight about some of the biggest consulting firms