What is Consulting?

The consulting club conducted its first major event today. It was a panel discussion on a Consultant’s work profile and culture across different consulting firms. The discussion was moderated by our Deputy Dean Ajit Rangnekar.

Three Alums: Bejoy Suri from Accenture, Anshuman Biyani from BCG and Rohit Kapoor from Mckinsey took part in the discussion.

Most of the discussion was centered around the kind of work consultants do in general with focus on strategy firms. What is consulting? What kind of work the consulting firms do? How is a typical day in a consultant’s life? How do you grow and learn in a consulting firm?—All these and many more such questions in the minds of many students looking at consulting careers post ISB were effectively answered.

The alums discussed in detail the kind of projects they have been doing since they joined their respective firms. The spoke at length about their experiences and touched upon the various assignments they have been involved in, to give the students present a deep insight into the life of a consultant. Ajit provided us with his valuable comments and narrated his own experiences as a consultant to add to the discussion and drive home the issues being discussed.

A consultant’s typical day was also discussed and it was emphasized, that though consulting careers give you a great opportunity to constantly learn, innovate and challenge yourself, it’s a tough job at the end of the day and you need to be one up always to succeed. Further, it was clearly mentioned that consultants had to travel a lot and keep away from their base offices for long periods adding to the challenges of the job.

Later an interactive session with alums was conducted to build upon the discussions and answer certain unanswered questions in detail.

The consulting club would like to thank Bejoy, Anshuman and Rohit for taking time out to be with us. We also thank Ajit for agreeing to moderate the discussion and provide us valuable insights on consulting careers.

-v

Falling Rupee--Good News !!

The Indian rupee continues its upward march against the dollar and there was no intervention from the RBI till yesterday. According to a TOI article published yesterday, although the rupee/dollar real exchange rate continues to be strong, a worldwide strengthening of the dollar has lead to a weaker rupee.

The strengthening of the dollar against the rupee is being considered as good news for the Indian business having huge receivables in dollars ( in particular the software firms--) a weaker rupee means more rupee for each dollar receivable and this could lead to boosting up of bottom line for many of the firms.

The RBI believes that as long as the rupee/ dollar real exchange rate is in good shape i.e to say that macroeconomic fundamentals are strong enough a weaker rupee only means good news for Indian firms in the short run. Though, what percentage fall is not a risk to the currency is something to think about

Venkat

Class of 2007 takes over

The activities of the consulting club were kick started with the formation of the club and election of office bearers. The class of 2007 has diverse set of individuals with their unique strengths and a stellar set of achievements. The profile and expertise of students is reflected in the consulting club as well.

For details about class of 2007 please click here.

The consulting club at the ISB is driven by the following objectives:

• To equip the students with the tools and resources necessary for careers in the consulting domain.
• To create a forum for information exchange among the industry and students.

Following is a snapshot data about the student members of the club:

Number of members: More than 250
Average work experience: 4.5 years
Areas of prior consulting experience:
Management consulting, risk advisory, process / operations consulting, IT consulting, benchmarking advisory.
Club members with consulting experience have previously worked at: (Illustrative only)
KPMG, Ernst & Young, PriceWaterhouse Coopers, Deloitte
Consulting, Ma Foi Management Consultants, Best Practices LLC, IBM, A.F. Ferguson
Club members with domain expertise have previously worked at: (Illustrative Only)
Infosys, TCS, Tata Motors, ICICI Bank, Maruti Udyog, CNBC, Siemens, NCDEX,
Wipro, Microsoft, Progeon, Marico, Evalueserve.com, Thomson Financial

The range of activities planned by the club in the current year includes:

• Facilitating forums such as internal speaker series, knowledge sharing sessions, and industry focus groups ensure the dissemination of knowledge amongst the students.
• The club plans to organise various speaker series’, interactions and workshops with executives from various companies and industries. This would facilitate an environment for knowledge sharing and growth. Interactions with the industry shall widen the students’ knowledge base and enhance their ability to respond to “real world” situations.
• The club plans to organize a plethora of events that prepare students for a career in consulting. These include facilitation of focus groups for case study discussions, groups for discussing the latest trends in industries, conducting mock interviews and regular interactions with consulting firms.

We at the consulting club would like to thank all alumni for all the support rendered to us so far and hope to having many more interactive sessions in the future.

A special thanks to Yashraj ( Class of 2006) for helping us reactivate this blog. This blog would contain updates about the activities of the club and all other material relevant to the Consulting world, Industry insights and preparation for Management Consulting careers.

Any further queries about the club may be addressed to the Club President Akshit Shah at Akshit_Shah@pgp2007.isb.edu