A Case Study Of Mckinsey Company

By Author: Anthony W Bills
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A case study of McKinsey Company.
Introduction
McKinsey is a management and a consulting company based in the United Kingdom. The company was established to help different organizations and firms in improving their performance. The company offers different services to private and public sector including marketing, organizations, technology and in strategy implementation. The company’s head office is located in London in the UK.
In the 80 years of existence, the company has remained focused in providing its clients with the best and most current services in order to make their performance long lasting and also in making substantial improvements in their to their performance. The company has been trusted by its clients due to offering substantial advises on how to transform their businesses from poor performing to better performing through the strategy implementation and through innovation strategies (McKinsey & Company, 2010).
Aims & objectives:
• To understand how McKinsey and company have managed to move over the competition in the UK market.
• To know customers perception ...
... of different advertising medium used by the company.
• To understand the most efficient strategy the company uses to win its customers.
• To understand how the customers value the services of the company.

Context
Success is the main aim and concern of every business. Since there are different tactics that have been used by different companies to win over the market, McKinsey and Company has not been left behind in redesigning their business strategies in order to acquire a considerable market share. In this research, Success Strategy of McKinsey & Company will be looked upon and analyze what tactics the company has been using.

Preliminary literature review
In the present business climate which is characterised by intense competition and more companies trying to beat the recession, success has become a topic of interest as every company is trying to restructure their strategies to win over the market. When companies know exactly what customers need, provide such services and appropriately inform the right customers then there is a possibility of increased sale and hence increase their ability to remain in business (Calen, 2010).
Doyle (1994) mentions the “7P” marketing mix which is useful in meeting company objectives. The “7P” includes promotion which involves different aspects of marketing communication about the product/services with the view to retaining and generating more customers (Kotler & Armstrong, 2006). This aspect of promotion involves using different medium to communicate an awareness of products and its benefits (Brennan, 1995). Especially when new products are developed, a well planned advertisement, the medium and its components is key in expanding such markets (Proctor, 2008). Porter (1985) forces also brings in the usefulness of advertising and in determining how effective it is. These forces include the Buyer power, Supplier power, Substitute products, potential entrants and Competitive rivalry. Wilson and Giligan (1997) agree that advertisement can help reduce the effect of these forces especially where there are many close substitutes to the product, many alternatives and thus high competition.
Despite the seemingly necessity of advertisement in today’s business world, Doyle (1994) notes that it can lead to price reduction and sometimes a loss in profit if the right group of customers are not targeted with the right medium. This point also gives birth to this research, which is to look at the effectiveness of advertisement from the customers’ perspective and to know the effect advertisement has in making their choice for a particular product. This research will also point out customers’ perception of different medium of advertisement and hence help us to know the one with the highest positive impact. Belch and Belch (2008) notes that like normal communication advertisement require the best medium and the best style if the required result will be achieved. They also agree that the medium used will affect its degree of effectiveness.
Spurgeon (2008) show that the media/technology coupled with the digital age gives advertisement more options and this will help boast its effectiveness. Ghani’s (2004) research agrees with this and links customers’ behavior to television viewing especially in young customers. Branthwaite (2002) stresses that imagery has much power when it comes to marketing communication.
Therefore, advertising options that utilize this medium will increase the outcome of the advert. This concept of determining the right medium for the right group of people to increase sales is thus the reason of this project. Result will help to know any effect advertisement has on customer’s choice of goods as well as their perceived effectiveness of the different mediums. The result will also help companies in making informed decision.

Methodology
The ontological and Epistemological stance adopted in this research is a subjective ontology and Interpretivist epistemology as the research seeks to understand what respondents think and feel thus believing that observed facts should be interpreted. The project, Success strategy of McKinsey & company, is not based on statistical data or adopting the natural sciences approach and this rules out the possible case of Positivism and justifies the interpretivist position. The research approach hence is Inductive.
Saunders et.al (2009) attributes the inductive approach to the qualitative research strategy which gives attention to the context in which the research is taking place. Because the project seeks to explain and give meaning to events, this justifies the inductive approach and leads us to the qualitative research strategy.

Research Paradigm and Justification
The research paradigm is an Interpretivist paradigm. Bryman & Bell (2007) explains this position to be when the researcher believes that the organisation must be interpreted based on the people that relate with it. Since the project is about explaining human behaviour and social events in relation to what is happening in the organisation, this justifies the chosen paradigm and is the best in answering the research question. The research will be done through collecting information from the company’s customers and in the company itself. This will help in data validation and proving these are exact happenings in the company

Research Design and Methods
The Research Design adopted is a case study research. In answering the research question, we adopt an organization that is doing well and also good at advertisement as proven by various adverts the company has been having and have proved to be a success (Saunders et al, 2009). This company serves as the case study which the research will be based on.
In terms of the research method and procedures, semi structured interviews will be conducted for customers of McKinsey & company to know their motivation and perception towards advertisement. These people are identified through referral from one of the members of staff of McKinsey & company and negotiation for interviews is already ongoing. Based on this, the research choice will be a Mono method as data will be collected from one source (interviews) and also analyzed qualitatively.
In terms of research standards, although the generalisability will be limited as it is a case study research, reliability and validity will be high. This will be achieved by reducing threats such as participant bias, participant error and will be done through arranging interview at the right time to ensure consistent results and also to ensure the questions don’t get too historic to avoid participants not remembering everything that happened in the past.
Ethics is also taken seriously as there will be informed consent, all participants will be informed that the study is purely for academic purposes. They will have a change to read through the transcribed interview scripts before the final work and Confidentiality will be maintained.

Research Ethics
The ethical considerations are very important issues to consider in the research. Respecting other people, honesty and academic integrity, explicitly addressed constitutes an ethically responsible research work. To validate the research, there were several ethical issues that were taken care of as was found in the research.
Considering that the research ethical responsibility would only involve using plagiarism and bias free writing would only be a superficial. A researcher committed to producing an ethically responsible research, addresses the issues of informed consent of the participants and the organization, confidentiality and anonymity, and reciprocity.
Am more sympathetic to the participants’ feelings in a qualitative research; hence ethical issues need to be well addressed in qualitative research. A research that is ethically responsible ensures the participants do not face any problems or difficulties for the participating in the research. This is a very important consideration in this research because of the sensitive nature of the research issue. Avoiding questions such as name of the respondent, their designation etc has assured the respondents that they would not be identified on the basis of the research. Anonymity is essential especially when researching for a controversial and a sensitive topic. Anonymity of the entire case or of the individuals is being maintained (Cohen, 2000).

Reliability, validity of research
In any research, reliability, validity and replication are important considerations and these are as important as it was used in determining the choice of the methodology. Consistency and purity of a measure are attributes of reliability and on the other hand repeatability or stability is also an important aspect of reliability. Reliability is given higher importance in quantitative research.
These four constructs are similar to the constructs reliability, replicability and validity which are measures of quantitative research.
It is difficult to achieve external reliability in qualitative research because the settings change, and hence it is difficult to replicate the entire study in the same setting as when researched previously. External validity deals with generalizing the results that goes beyond the research setting.
It would be useless if the research conducted has no validity. It’s always important to validate the research to avoid all efforts that are made in doing this research futile. Any research which is not reliable is not valid. Concurrent validity deals with the issue of whether the question is truthful and honest and the predictive research deals with the forecasting. Validity of the research is a degree by which findings are able to present the reality in an accurate way. Validity also is concerned with the extent to which the findings are original. Face validity determines if the constructs used by the researcher actually represent what they should. A number of hypothetical constructs could be used in the research, and the extent to which the chosen construct is coherent with the findings is construct validity (Cohen, 2000).

Anticipated outcomes
At the end of the research, I look forward to have conclusive information on the strategies that are used by the company in order to win over the competition in the market. The company uses the 7Ps marketing mix to sell its services and name to its customers. The research will also look unto how the company has been able to utilize this strategy to stand at the leading position.

REFERENCES
Belch, G & Belch, M (2008) Advertising and Promotion: An Integrated Marketing
Branthwaite, A (2002) Investigating the Power of Imagery in Marketing Communication: Evidence-based Techniques. Qualitative market Research: An International Journal. 5(3), pp 164-171. Retrieved on 10-12-2010 from www.emeraldinsight.com/1352-2752
Brennan, Ross (1995). Cases in Marketing Management. London. Pitman Publishing.
Bryman A., & Bell E. (2007). Business Research Methods. (2nd ed.) Oxford University press
Calen, B (2010) Managers Guide to marketing, Advertising and Publicity. London. McGraw Hill
Cohen, L., Lawrence, M. & Morrison, K. (2000). Research Methods in Education (5 th Ed.). London: Sage Publishers
Communications Perspective. (8th ed) London. McGraw Hill
Doyle, P. (1994). Marketing Management and Strategy. London. Prentice Hall International.
Ghani, N (2004). Television Viewing and Consumer Behaviour. Young Consumers. pp 66-73. Retrieved from on 10-12-2010 from www.emraldinsignt.com
Kotler, P & Armstrong, G. (2006). Principles of Marketing. (11th ed). New Jersey. Pearson Education
McKinsey & Company (2010) Retrieved from http://www.mckinsey.com/ on 10/12/2010
Porter, M.(1985), Competitive Advantage. Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance. The Free Press, New York, NY.
Proctor, T. (2008) Strategic Marketing. An Introduction. (2nd ed). London. Routledge
Saunders M., Lewis P., & Thornhill A. (2009). Research Methods for business students. (5th ed) Harlow, Pearson Education.
Spurgeon , C (2008) Advertising and New Media. London. Routledge
Wilson, R. & Gilligan, C. (1997). Strategic Marketing Management. Planning, Implementation and Control. (2nd ed). Heinemann. Reed Education.

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