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The recent announcement by McKinsey & Company that it plans to cut roughly 10% of its workforce has sent ripples through the consulting world, reigniting debate about the future of the industry. This is not about one firm, one round of layoffs, or one business cycle. It signals an irreversible shift in how value is created in consulting. Having spent a significant part of my career at McKinsey, I saw it grow and flourish in an era when information was scarce. Even basic market intelligence required large teams working for months to gather and synthesize data. The digital age brought a data explosion and democratized access, and McKinsey adapted again by expanding its capabilities into advanced analytics and technology-enabled transformation. That advantage is now under pressure in the AI age. The existential threat in the AI age While the digital age reduced information asymmetry, the AI age goes further. It increasingly equalizes analytical and recommendation capabilities. Firms like McKinsey built a powerful competitive moat by hiring the best analytical minds from top universitiesexcelling at data synthesis, first-principles problem-solving, and translating insight into recommendations. In the AI age, however, that advantage is becoming commoditized. This shift is part of a broader transformation of white-collar work. Contrary to early assumptions, AI is impacting knowledge work more than blue-collar roles. I expect that over the next five years, nearly 300 million white-collar jobs will be impacted globally, with around 100 million at risk of becoming obsolete. Work that is highly cognitive and already digitized is particularly susceptible. Consulting sits squarely within this zone of disruption. As the traditional consulting model faces growing pressure, the premium for future talent will no longer rest on analytical horsepower alone. The center of gravity has shifted: Consulting is being redefined The need for consulting services is not disappearing, but the source of value is shifting decisively. Traditionally, firms like McKinsey, BCG, and Bain (MBB) sat at the top of the consulting value chain through high-value strategy work. Over the years, McKinsey has invested significantly in building technology and execution capabilities, but structural challenges remain. In contrast, execution-centric firms like Deloitte, EY, and Accenture, built with a different DNA, were able to more naturally combine advisory with technology and large-scale execution. The growth numbers speak for themselves. While the MBB firms have reported slower growth, averaging approximately 5% to 6% compound annual growth rate, implementation-led firms such as Accenture, Deloitte, and EY have grown approximately 11% to 12% in recent years (average growth estimated based on revenues from company websites, annual reports, press releases, and analyst reports), reflecting the direction of client spend. Historically, strategy was viewed as the highest-value activity, and execution was treated as a follow-onlargely organizational and operational in nature. In the digital and AI age, execution is deeply technology-driven, and strategy and execution are no longer sequential but iterative and continuous. From being an enabler, technology has become the primary driver of both strategy and execution. Clients increasingly want partners who can bridge strategy, technology, and operations, and execute change at scale. Consulting firms, including the Big Four, have responded by reshaping their talent and operating models around large-scale execution and organizational transformation. The Battle of Relevance in the AI age: Where does McKinsey stand? The key question now is: Who will emerge as winners in this new consulting landscape? As the center of gravity shifts toward execution depth and the ability to drive continuous change, success will depend on how effectively firms rewire their DNAbuilding the operating model and talent engine required to implement and scale tech-led transformation. While strategy remains critical in the AI age, it demands a higher bar. As AI takes over analysis and recommendations, strategic advantage shifts from problem-solving to sense-makingfrom humans “in the loop” to humans “above the loop.” My bet is that two types of firms are best positioned to win. First, there are firms like Accenture, Deloitte, and EY, which have built strong execution capabilities and successfully strengthened their technology foundations. Second, there are industry specialists with exceptional domain expertise, where deep contextual understanding becomes the primary source of differentiation. Where does that leave McKinsey? While its brand, client relationships, global reach, and intellectual capital remain as formidable strengths, the transformation challenge it faces may be far greater than what it advises its clients on. Meeting it will require more than just new capabilities. It requires a structural reset, beginning with a mindset shiftfrom authority rooted in expertise to leadership grounded in learning and adaptability. Whether McKinsey retains its position at the top will depend on how effectively it embraces this shift. In the AI age, even the most storied institutions must continuously reinvent themselvesor risk being outpaced by those that do.
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E-Commerce
Resilience is a much-needed skill in todays tough job market. Despite the headlines lambasting young employees as lazy and entitled, a Big Four consulting firm is taking matters into its own hands and offering training for recent grads. PwC will give its new young hires “resilience training to toughen them up for careers as management consultants. The firm has introduced the initiative in the UK to help Gen Z brush up on their human skills, including communication with clients and handling day-to-day work dynamics, like pressure or criticism. Quite often we are struck that the graduates that join us dont always have the resilience; they dont always have the human skills that we want to deploy onto the client work we pass them towards, Phillippa OConnor, PwCs chief people officer told The Sunday Times. Resilience requires, among other things, the ability to withstand, adapt or recover quickly from the challenges and inevitable setbacks that come with everyday work and life. A recent study by the McKinsey Health Institute shows that those who report high levels of resilience or adaptability show better holistic health and higher engagement than their peers. But simply telling employees to be more resilient and toughen up isnt likely to achieve much. When the path forward is unclear, research shows that teams and employees default to what they already know: regardless of whether its the best approach. OConnor isnt alone; the notion of Gen Z (and younger millennials) lacking in the resilience department is one thats popped up across the general discourse. Growing up as digital natives, missing formative in-person experiences during COVID, and now entering hybrid or remote-first workplaces, many young professionals simply didnt get the chance to build and exercise certain human or soft skills. And no amount of resilience training can compensate for a broken workplace. Studies show that resilience may help in low-pressure settings, but in environments with overwhelming workloads and toxicity, it becomes both ineffective and even harmful. As companies gut layers of middle management, Gen Z hires are increasingly left reporting to stretched, exhausted managers with neither the time nor the bandwidth to offer the close, hands-on guidance they need. As companies continue to gut middle management, new hires find themselves reporting to overworked, burnt-out managers who lack the capacity for the hands-on support they need. Now a number of companies, like PwC, are addressing these concerns head on. Last month the accountancy giant Azets revealed it is exploring partnerships with major hotel, pub, and restaurant chains to offer temporary work assignments for trainee accountants and improve their soft skills. In 2023, fellow Big Four consulting firm KPMG supplied classes on ‘soft skills’ for its Gen Z recruits who graduated during the pandemic, out of concern they were struggling to adapt to professional life. Surviving a global pandemic during their formative years, thrown into a tumultuous job market, and faced with relentless criticism from those on higher rungs of the corporate ladder, Gen Z have more than demonstrated their resilience. Now? Theyre looking for support.
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E-Commerce
A group of college students braved the frigid New England weather on Dec. 13, 2025, to attend a late afternoon review session at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. Eleven of those students were struck by gunfire when a shooter entered the lecture hall. Two didnt survive. Shortly after, a petition circulated calling for better security for Brown students, including ID-card entry to campus buildings and improved surveillance cameras. As often happens in the aftermath of tragedy, the conversation turned to lessons for the future, especially in terms of school security. There has been rapid growth of the nations now US$4 billion school security industry. Schools have many options, from traditional metal detectors and cameras to gunshot detection systems and weaponized drones. There are also purveyors of artificial-intelligence-assisted surveillance systems that promise prevention: The gun will be detected before any shots are fired, and the shooting will never happen. They appeal to institutions struggling to protect their communities, and are marketed aggressively as the future of school shooting prevention. Im a criminologist who studies mass shootings and school violence. In my research, Ive found that theres a lack of evidence to support the effectiveness of these technological interventions. Grasping for a solution Implementation has not lagged. A survey from Campus Safety Magazine found that about 24% of K-12 schools report video-assisted weapons detection systems, and 14% use gunshot detection systems, like ShotSpotter. Gunshot detection uses acoustic sensors placed within an area to detect gunfire and alert police. Research has shown that gunshot detection may help police respond faster to gun crimes, but it has little to no role in preventing gun violence. Still, schools may be warming to the idea of gunshot detection to address the threat of a campus shooter. In 2022, the school board in Manchester, New Hampshire, voted to implement ShotSpotter in the districts schools after a series of active-shooter threats. Other companies claim their technologies provide real-time visual weapons detection. Evolv is an AI screening system for detecting concealed weapons, which has been implemented in more than 400 school buildings since 2021. ZeroEyes and Omnilert are AI-assisted security camera systems that detect firearms and promise to notify authorities within seconds or minutes of a gun being detected. These systems analyze surveillance video with AI programs trained to recognize a range of visual cues, including different types of guns and behavioral indicators of aggression. Upon recognizing a threat, the system notifies a human verification team, which can then activate a prescribed response plan. But even these highly sophisticated systems can fail to detect a real threat, leading to questions about the utility of security technology. Antioch High School in Nashville, Tennessee, was equipped with Omnilerts gun detection technology in January 2025 when a student walked inside the school building with a gun and shot several classmates, one fatally, before killing himself. Lack of evidence This demonstrates an enduring problem with the school security technology industry: Most of these technologies are untested, and their effect on safety is unproven. Even gunshot detection systems have not been studied in the context of school and mass shootings outside of simulation studies. School shooting research has very little to offer in terms of assessing the value of these tools, because there are no studies out there. This lack is partly due to the low incidence of mass and school shootings. Even with a broad definition of school shootingsany gunfire on school grounds resulting in injurythe annual rate across America is approximately 24 incidents per year. Thats 24 more than anyone would want, but its a small sample size for research. And there are few, if any, ethically and empirically sound ways to test whether a campus fortified with ShotSpotter or the newest AI surveillance cameras is less likely to experience an active shooter incident because the probability of that school being victimized is already so low. Existing research provides a useful overview of the school safety technology landscape, but it offers little evidence of how well this technology actually prevents violence. The National Institute of Justice last published its Comprehensive Report on School Safety Technology in 2016, but its finding that the adoption of biometrics, smart cameras, and weapons detection systems was outpacing research on the efficacy of the technology is still true today. The Rand Corporation and the University of Michigan Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention have produced similar findings that demonstrate limited or no evidence that these new technologies improve school safety and reduce risks. While researchers can study some aspects of how the environment and security affect mass shooting outcomes, many of these technologies are too new to be included in studies, or too sparsely implemented to show any meaningful impact on outcomes. My research on active and mass shootings has suggested that the security features with the most lifesaving potential are not part of highly technical systems: They are simple procedures like lockdowns during shootings. The tech keeps coming Nevertheless, technological innovations continue to drive the school safety industry. Campus Guardian Angel, launched out of Texas in 2023, promises a rapid drone response to an active school shooter. Founder Justin Marston compared the drone system to having a SEAL team in the parking lot. At $15,000 per box of six drones, and an additional monthly service charge per student, the drones are equipped with non-lethal weaponry, including flash-bangs and pepper spray guns. In late 2025, three Florida school districts announced their participation in Campus Guardian Angels pilot programs. Three school districts in Florida are part of a pilot program to test drones that respond to school shootings. There is no shortage of proposed technologies. A presentation from the 2023 International Conference on Computer and Applications described a cutting-edge architectural design system that integrates artificial intelligence and biometrics to bolster school security. And yet, the language used to describe the outcomes of this system leaned away from prevention, instead offering to mitigate the potential for a mass shooting to be carried out effectively. While the difference is subtle, prevention and mitigation reflect two different things. Prevention is stopping something avoidable. Mitigation is consequence management: reducing the harm of an unavoidable hazard. Response versus prevention This is another of the enduring limitations of most emerging technologies being advertised as mass shooting prevention: They dont prevent shootings. They may streamline a response to a crisis and speed up the resolution of the incident. With most active shooter incidents lasting fewer than 10 minutes, time saved could have critical lifesaving implications. But by the time ShotSpotter has detected gunshots on a college campus, or Campus Guardian Angel has been activated in the hallways of a high school, the window for preventing the shooting has long since passed. Emily Greene-Colozzi is an assistant professor of criminology and justice studies at UMass Lowell. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
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