James McKinsey was a professor of accounting at the University of Chicago, and was deeply influenced by Taylor's scientific management thought. Only Taylor's scientific management emphasizes how to manage workers, while McKinsey talks about how to manage bosses. 1926, McKinsey founded a consulting company named after itself. However, the company's main job at that time was to follow the accounting firm to audit the accounts in the enterprise.
1935, the wholesale business of marshall field department store was in trouble, so the company invited McKinsey & Company to help. Mckinsey's diagnosis of the company won the appreciation of the board of directors of the department store and expressed the hope that he would personally be responsible for the implementation. Mckinsey agreed, and decided to become the chairman and president of the company, and began to carry out drastic reforms. Soon, corporate profits went up, but internal contradictions and conflicts were great, and some people began to sing the opposite because of the damage to their interests. The director of the company was a little unhappy and told McKinsey that if you can't change this situation within three months, you will resign at the end of the year. As a result, McKinsey got sick before the end of the year, and he never got up again. On the day of his death, McKinsey told his friend (also his former client) James Margeson: It is much more difficult to make real decisions in an enterprise than to help others with ideas and collect fees, so "consultation must not interfere too much in the internal affairs of customers" or "design and implementation must be separated". This last sentence became the first "code of conduct" in the management consulting industry, and was regarded as the golden rule by many consulting companies, which made the consulting industry develop as an independent industry.
The traditional five management consulting organizations are separated from the five accounting firms, namely McKinsey, Boston, Bain, roland berger and Kearney. The management consulting institutions separated from the five major accounting firms are Accenture (separated from Andersen), Deloitte (still using the name of accounting firm), Bi Bo (separated from KPMG) and Ernst & Young (the consulting business was renamed Capgemini Ernst & Young after being acquired by French Capgemini Consulting Group). In addition, the management consulting business of PricewaterhouseCoopers was wholly acquired by IBM, and its consulting business with HP, a subsidiary of IBM, constituted the "double engine" of the technological revolution. Some people call Accenture, Bi Bo, Capgemini Ernst & Young and Deloitte the "Four Hua Dan" of IT consulting, while the five big ones of traditional management consulting are called the "Five Mountains" of strategic consulting.