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DANGEROUS COMPANY

THE CONSULTING POWERHOUSES AND THE BUSINESSES THEY SAVE AND RUIN

James O'Shea & Charles Madigan

Investment bankers were known as the "masters of the universe" during the 1980s. In the 1990s that title has been usurped by the major consulting firms. McKinsey & Co, the Boston Consulting Group, Bain & Company, CSC Index, Gemini, Andersen Consulting and Deloitte Touche exercise enormous power and influence in international business, and increasingly in the public sector. Many companies do not undertake a major initiativee - from the launch of a new product to a merger or a downsizing - without the assistance, advice and hefty fees of consultants. (AT&T, during one recent year, for example, paid $347 million to consulting firms). Yet the role of the consulting firms has been largely unexamined. Dangerous Company chronicles the successes, failures, and practices of the biggest and most influential firms in the consulting industry. It takes a thorough look at their impact on a world struggling with the complexities of the Information Age.

Dangerous Company is filled with revelations. Madigan and O'Shea cracked the facade of the consulting elite by talking to sources within the firms themselves; gaining access to clients; finding court cases which reveal inside industry practices (the Guinness affair, for example). This is a book about the exercise of power and will be important reading for anyone who wants to understand how the world of business works.

James O'Shea is Managing Editor of foreign and national news at The Chicago Tribune nand an award-winning investigative reporter. He is the author of The Daisy Chain, an investigation into the Savings and Loan debacle.

Charles Madigan is senior writer at The Chicago Tribune and has received numerous awards for business and economics writing. He was previously a foreign correspondent in London and Moscow for United Press International.