Making a Difference - BCG Session on Campus

The Consulting Club at the Indian School of Business (ISB) recently hosted some Associates and Principals of the Boston Consultancy Group (BCG) to address students on a session titled ‘Making a Difference’. This is BCG’s second formal session with the Club this year. The inaugural session was a talk on Strategy. The purpose of this interaction was manifold - to inform students about the manner in which BCG approaches cases, to share real life examples of cases done by BCG India Office and to answer student questions regarding the organisation, in order to make them familiar with the BCG work environment.The session started with Chief Principal, Arvind Subramaniam, introducing his team and outlining the purpose of their visit. He briefly explained the work culture at BCG and elaborated on the organisational structure of the BCG, terming it as a “Mesh Structure” - where each vertical is represented by a function such as Marketing, Finance, Operations, etc. and each horizontal represents an industry such as Retail, Real Estate, Oil and Gas, etc. BCG also addressed the case approach methodology they follow.

This was described as a four step process:

Developing a hypothesis
Conducting an analysis
Working with a team
Ensuring impact

Recalls Consulting Club member, Varun Khullar, “A very interesting phase of the discussion was the concept of the ‘Sweet Spot’. It basically implies the intersection of three circles - namely People, Ideas and Impact. BCG described that attaining the ‘Sweet Spot’ was the main aim of the associates, at the start of a project.”The session was rounded of by discussing three cases that had been solved by BCG associates. They were cases from the fields of Industrial Goods, Fair Price Shops, and Innovation in the IT field. The interaction proved highly informative and insightful, with students left asking for more. In all a lively and worthwhile experience!