McKINSEY & COMPANY : BUILDING NEW RELATIONSHIPS
             A partner at McKinsey & Company, the well known, global management consulting firm, talked with us company's approach to the market, some of the challenges they face, and the about the reasons for the company's enduring success.
             For decades now, McKinsey has been seen as the "gold standard" in strategy consulting. Why do you think you've been so successful?
             Part of it is just the fact that we've been around a long time and that we have a global presence. We've worked with a lot of companies, we've added a lot of value, and therefore we're pretty well positioned.
             Another part, which sounds corny, is that we really are a values driven company. Marvin Bower, our long time leader and Managing Director from 1950 to1967, talked about "The Duality": focusing on the client and on attracting and retaining top talent. We really do follow that model.
             McKinsey has built its reputation in strategy consulting. What other kinds of work do you do?
             Actually, strategy is only about 35% of our practice. Another 35% is operations and functional work (including work in marketing, sales, and process redesign). The remainder is organizational consulting, such as change management and organizational design. The organizational work also includes helping companies retain their top talent; that's an area where we think we excel as a firm and we try to share our best practices.
             About 85 percent of our work is repeat business for existing clients, but yes, we absolutely do target selling.
             Tell me about the approach you use for targeting.
             We organize around offices, around functions (such as strategy or corporate finance), and around industry practice areas. For example, there might be 5 or 6 partners in the insurance practice in Chicago. They would meet quarterly as a leadership team and discuss first whether they have the capacity to try to bring in new clients. If so, they would ident...