每天一篇经济学人 | Corporate consiglieri 公司顾问...

If a list were made of the most reviled species in the professional world, only investment bankers would stand between management consultants and the top spot. Sceptics portray these corporate consiglieri as snake-oil salesmen, bamboozling chief executive officers (ceos) and politicians with management gibberish and glossy charts while gorging on fat fees. Indeed, the profession was once the subject of a five-season skewering in a star-studded tv series. Its title: “House of Lies”.

明星荟萃的如果要列出一份职场最受诟病的“职业”的名单，那么在管理咨询师和榜首之间只有投资银行家。持怀疑态度的人把这些公司的军师描绘成蛇油推销员，用管理胡言乱语和光鲜的图表欺骗首席执行官和政客，同时狂吞丰厚的费用。事实上，这个职业曾是一部明星云集的长达五季的电视连续剧的主题。其剧名是《谎言屋》。

Recent events have provided even more reasons to hate consultants. “When McKinsey Comes to Town”, an exposé published on October 4th, drags its subject through the mud with evidence of decades of scandalous behaviour. On September 30th prosecutors in South Africa brought criminal charges against the firm. (McKinsey says the book is a misrepresentation and denies the charges brought against it.) Its two big rivals, Bain and the Boston Consulting Group (bcg), have also faced controversies. In France President Emmanuel Macron has come under attack after an inquiry this year found the government had spent $1bn on consulting firms with “tentacular” links with the state. 

最近发生的事件为憎恨顾问提供了更多的理由。在10月4日发布的揭露文章《当麦肯锡来临》，以数十年的丑闻行为为证据，使主人公名誉扫地。9月30日，南非检察官对该公司提出了刑事指控。(麦肯锡称这本书是歪曲事实，并否认了针对它的指控。) 它的两大竞争对手，贝恩和波士顿咨询集团也面临着争议。在法国，总统埃马纽埃尔•马克龙(Emmanuel Macron)受到了攻击，因为今年的一项调查发现，政府向与政府有“触角”联系的咨询公司上花费了10亿美元。

Despite evidence of dubious conduct, business has never been better. The big three firms’ total revenue has tripled since 2010, to about $30bn; the trio now employ around 70,000 people. That implies revenue per employee of over $400,000, hinting at juicy pay packets for the people at the top. By comparison, the figure for the big four accountancy firms—Deloitte, pwc, ey and kpmg—is a comparatively meagre $140,000.

尽管有可疑行为的证据，但其生意从来没有这么好过。自2010年以来，三大投行的总收入增长了两倍，达到约300亿美元；这三家公司现在雇佣了大约7万人。这意味着每位员工的收入超过40万美元，意味着高层人士的薪酬丰厚。相比之下，四大会计师事务所，即德勤、普华永道、安永和毕马威的薪酬仅为14万美元。

What explains the boom? A shroud of secrecy makes it hard to calculate how much value the industry adds: few ceos or politicians would credit consultants for a successful turnaround. As a result there is a widespread view that all consultants are parasites and those who pay for them are fools. In fact the firms have grown because they provide two services that bosses want—one of them more economically beneficial than the other.

如何解释这种繁荣? 由于保密，很难计算该行业增加了多少价值:很少有首席执行官或政客会把成功的转变归功于咨询师。因此，有一种普遍的观点认为，所有的顾问都是寄生虫，付费咨询的人都是傻瓜。事实上，这些公司的发展是因为他们提供了老板们想要的两种服务——其中一种比另一种经济效益更高。

The first is an outside opinion. When firms or governments make decisions, it can pay to buy in rigorous analysis. The danger is that this becomes a ceo self-protection racket. When bosses want to push through controversial decisions, from firing staff to breaking up a firm, a consultant’s backing can bolster their credibility. And consultants’ reports in pleasing fonts with scientific-looking tables can protect leaders from legitimate scrutiny, whether by political opponents or board directors.

第一种是外部意见。当公司或政府做出决策时，进行严格的分析是值得的。危险之处在于，这变成了CEO自我保护的骗局。当老板们想要通过有争议的决定时，从解雇员工到解散公司，顾问的支持可以增强他们的信誉。此外，咨询顾问的报告以美观字体以及看似科学的表格呈现，可以保护领导者免受政治对手或董事会的合法审查。

The second service is unambiguously good both for the people in charge and the wider economy: making available specialist knowledge that may not exist within some firms and bureaucracies, from deploying cloud computing to assessing how climate change affects supply chains. By performing similar work for many clients, consultants spread productivity-enhancing practices.

第二项服务无疑对负责人和更广泛的经济都是有益的：提供一些公司和官僚机构可能不存在的专业知识，从部署云计算到评估气候变化如何影响供应链。通过为许多客户执行类似的工作，顾问实现了提高生产力的做法。

One defence against an explosion of bogus advice is better disclosure. Companies are already required to reveal how much they spend on their auditors and on investment bankers’ fees on deals. The sums individual firms spend on consultants often exceed this, running into the tens of millions of dollars a year, and should be made public too.

防止虚假建议激增的一个方法是更好地披露信息。企业已经被要求披露它们在审计人员和投资银行家的交易费用上的支出。单个公司花在咨询顾问上的钱往往超过这个数字，达到每年数千万美元，而且也应该公开。

So far the industry has escaped the formal rules that govern lawyers and bankers. If it wishes to keep it that way, it should adopt a second measure: a code of conduct that all responsible consultancies adhere to. They should eschew providing advice that helps powerful people at the expense of the institutions they run; police the revolving door between government jobs and consultancies; and avoid serving despotic regimes. Consultants have much to offer, but also much still to prove.

到目前为止，该行业已经逃脱了管理律师和银行家的正式规则。如果它希望保持这种状态，它应该采取第二种措施：制定所有负责任的咨询公司都要遵守的行为准则。他们应该避免以牺牲他们所管理的机构的利益为代价的为有权势的人提供建议；监督政府工作和咨询公司之间的旋转门；避免为专制政权服务。咨询公司可以提供很多东西，但也有很多东西需要证明。