This article was recently published in “L’Expansion” (August 2003), a French business lifestyle magazine similar to Forbes/Fortune in the US.

The article focuses on the issues and challenges McKinsey and other strategy consultancies are currently facing, in particular in managing size in a difficult economic environment.

A related article about Candesic was published alongside. Candesic is represented as a response to the issues raised in the main article. A translation of this article is offered below.

The original can be found by following this link: original French article

Website: www.lexpansion.com

Ex-McKinsey consultants switch to low cost

In the UK, low cost is in vogue. A former consultant in the McKinsey London office and a specialist of the pharmaceutical sector, Leonid Shapiro decided to apply the Ryanair model to consulting. Together with 20 alumni of McKinsey and The Boston Consulting Group, he recently created Candesic, a firm that proposes McKinsey-type projects at a third of the usual price, for the same type of quality: “When they charge €550,000 on average for a project, we do about the same for €180,000”. Like in the airline industry, he redesigned the entire business model: Candesic recruits only seasoned strategists, research and data crunching are outsourced to India, sector experts with academic or market background are available on demand for specific tasks. Furthermore, only those who are staffed get paid. “It is the law of the market” says Shapiro, “no need of up or out to get rid of the weakest ones”. Naturally, Candesic targets those mid-size companies “that couldn’t or wouldn’t want to afford the top”. But, when low cost starts invading an industry, who knows how far it can fly/where it will stop?