Sunil Rana (Co 2005) and Abhishek (Co 2007) gave an informal presentation on Oliver Wyman, its offices and its organizational structure. Sunil informed the audience that Oliver Wyman has undergone rebranding last year. Rebranding was undertaken to re-enforce the firm's positioning and values, and unify different existing consulting firms under a single powerful brand. Oliver Wyman was formed in May 2007 through the union of three fast growing, world class consulting firms. The three firms were Mercer Management Consulting, Mercer Oliver Wyman and Mercer Delta Organizational Consulting. Oliver Wyman is part of the leading group Marsh & McLennan Companies. Combined revenues of the Oliver Wyman group have crossed $ 1.5 billion last year. Firm has grown organically as well as inorganically where highly selective acquisitions have played a key role in achieving firm’s vision of deep expertise in its areas of focus. The firm has grown at 25 % CAGR over the past few years achieving the highest CAGR in the industry among its peers. According to Sunil, in 2006 Oliver Wyman had 3 % market share in the Management and Economic Consulting Market.
Oliver Wyman works across a broad range of industries and is a global consulting leader in many of these, e.g., aviation, telecommunication, financial services, retail, logistics etc. Oliver Wyman’s Dubai office caters to the African Continent, Indian Subcontinent and parts of South East Asia. Alums touched upon the “Consulting in International Arena. Consultants” by talking about their Dubai office, which has consultants from over 30 nationalities work out of Dubai Office.
Middle East is an extremely fast growing market. The focus is on growth and it is very consulting friendly. Dubai, in itself is a very vibrant city and has quickly established itself as a big brand on the global map. In addition, its friendly tax regime (zero income tax) attracts people from across the globe. However, summers are hot and traffic can be a turn off.
The firm emphasizes on maintaining a good work life balance and its consultants usually come back to Dubai (home office for the Middle East region) on Wednesday evening. They spend a day at the home office and fly out on Sunday mornings to their respective client locations. A typical project can have multiple dimensions (across industries) and may span multiple geographies. Consultants are constantly on the move and travel to different countries for case work (primarily within, and sometimes even beyond). With respect to recruiting, the firm places a lot of emphasis on cross cultural experiences and analytical rigor in its interviews and selection process.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Oliver Wyman Informal Alum Interaction Event
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
BCG on Strategy: 12th August 2008
Mr. James Abraham, Senior Partner and Managing Director from BCG's India office gave an inspiring talk to the Consulting Club Members at ISB.
Along with James, the following people were also present at the event hosted by BCG on "Strategy, What strategy means for you as future leaders..."
· Navneet Vasishth, Principal, Leads recruiting at ISB
· Rohit Chhapolia, Project Leader, ISB Class of 2006
· Yashraj Erande, Consultant, ISB Class of 2006
. Akshit Shah, Sr. Associate, ISB Class of 2007
. Jitesh Shah, Sr. Associate, ISB Class of 2008
James gave an exalting talk on Strategy and Leadership. He started with the quote by Alexander the Great, “The God puts dreams in the hearts of men - dreams, desires, aspirations that are often much bigger than they are. The greatness of a man corresponds to that painful discrepancy between the goal he sets for himself and the strength that the nature granted him when he came into the world".
He regaled the audience with his invigorating anecdotes. He told the audience that early adoption of strategy borrowed heavily from military.
In the 1960s and 1970s, The concepts that were drawn from military were position and structural competitiveness. Competitive advantage was about positions and structural advantages. Nowadays, position advantage is no longer in vogue. Structural ad (telecom) is still present today.
In the 1980s and 1990s the competitive advantage was due to people and capabilities. This led to a huge re-engineering craze during those times.
1990-mid 2000s – strategy has moved to the periphery. We have to think about structural advantage, position and about people whom we lead. Nowadays, competitive advantage is about networks and interconnectedness. This requires very different skills to manage the people. Everybody should learn to sell, we all should become a good salesperson. In the interconnected world people at the periphery are going to make the choice.
He gave a nice mantra to the students, “ study hard .. change the world”. James summed up his talk with the following points
- Find a passion
- Be more humble and less insecure
- Live into possibility
- Learn to sell
The Next Billion
James spent some
time on BCG's pioneering project "The Next Billion". This refers to the lower middle class demographic of any country – one that represents a largely untapped consumer potential. He said that the lives of billion people are changing because they are joining the new market. BCG has coined a phrase “Shaping the Future. Together.”. According to him, BCG has the responsibility to change the lives of the people and they have the capability to do that. Till the time we view this segment as a profitable segment, things wont change. Till now, this segment was being looked down upon as non-profitable and charitable segment. The project revolved around understanding the specific needs and requirements of this consumer segment, their aspirations of matching the higher demographic segments lifestyle, and how they tried to match those aspirations under the financial constraints.
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Accenture Official Event : 9th August 2008
- Mr. Ajay Nair, Senior Manager
Kaustubh Verma (ISB Co2008)
- Rahul Mishra (ISB Co2008)
Kaustubh: He is presently with Accenture’s M&A Strategy consulting practice. Currently he is working on an assignment involving PE firms scouting for acquisition targets.
Rahul: prior work experience in HPCL and Honeywell. He is presently with Accenture’s M&A Strategy consulting practice. He is currently involved in a project involving metals and mining client in Orissa.
Ajay gave a brief introduction about Accenture. Acc has around 250 consultants and is adding resources across all the levels. Acc is also pioneering the concept of offshore consulting. Acc was one of the first management consulting firms in India. Till late 90s Acc was mainly into management consulting. With the advent of IT boom, Acc diversified into IT and Outsourcing. Prior to being branded as Accenture, it was known was Anderson Consulting.
Accenture has broadly 3 Business Units: Consulting, IT and Outsourcing. Industry verticals and industry groups are present. Accenture has 5 service lines, Strategy, CRM, Human Performance, Logistics and SCM.
Initially new recruits start with the horizontals and then move into verticals. After gaining wide horizontal experience, people move into industry specific verticals.
Bulk of the work in Accenture is around M&A, Post M&A integration (PMI) and transformation. Acc works with the management team and defines areas of improvements. Acc is also involved in implementations. Acc’s USP is implementation of its recommendations to the clients. The strategy part of the projects is over in 2 months. The bulk of the time is taken up by the implementation. PMI is critical and forms an important part of the implementation. This is what the clients are demanding today. They want the consultants to stay back and see through the implementation of their recommendations.
Acc banks on the breath of the IT practice to back it up on the implementations. He gave an example of a consumer goods manufacturer. There was a requirement of tracking the sales and times spent by different sales men in different outlets. The client had 150 stock keeping Units (SKUs). The sheer scope of the assignment required the assistance of an IT solution to manage the project. He used CRM and IT solutions to enable the implementation of the solution. This is where the IT BU of Acc enhances Acc’s competencies.
Today’s presentation was focused on these topics:
- Merger and Acquisition Execution and
- Post Merger Integration Execution (PMI)
Ajay talked about the drivers of M&A. the key drivers of M&A are
- Growth – new technologies, new products, new avenues of growth, new customers, manage regulation environment.
- Profitability through consolidation
Sometimes organizations want to enter a particular segment of a market. But due to the presence of a regulation, they can not enter those segments. Such organizations scout for acquisitions which would enable them to enter. Some of the acquisitions that have taken place in the Indian marketplace are
- Aviation – Jet-Jetlite, Kingfisher-Deccan, Air India-Indian
- Freight and Logistics – DHL-Blue Dart, TNT-Speedage
- Retail – Walmart-Bharti
- Auto – Nissan-Mahindra, Tata Motors-Ford
- Telecom – Idea-Spice, Vodafone-hutch
- Pharma – Ranbaxy-Daichi
- Banking – HDFC-Centurian
- Steel – Tata-Corus
An important question that the client should answer before acquiring a firm is – what is required to achieve the vision for the business and should I buy or build?
M&A Execution:
The larger problem is the decision to build or buy the capacity/capability? Sometimes it is profitable to build the capacity/capability, but at other times it makes economics sense to acquire the capacity/capability. The important metric to arrive at a decision is the correct cost model. If there are errors in estimation, then it could lead to severe problems.
Some of the key steps during the M& activity are:
- Identify potential growth or profitability opportunities
o Conduct market sizing and understand growth drivers
o Estimate future growth and profitability
o Prioritize opportunities
- What is the best way of leveraging the opportunity – build/buy/JV
o Develop scenarios for build
o Identify potential targets for buy, value them, estimate synergies
o Prioritize based on investments and returns
- Manage the deal process
o Exchange information through information memo/data room
o Conduct due diligence, refine valuation/ synergies (Tax, accountants, legal and various players are involved in this process)
o Define the parameters for negotiations, conduct negotiations to agree on valuation.
Risks involved from the legal and accounting angle is thoroughly explored. Tax is a difficult and sensitive subject. Management consulting team evaluates and verifies the data that is thrown up after the end of the above processes. The Management Consulting team assists in negotiation between both the parties.
Key reasons why deals break in M&A
- Valuation
Both the seller and the buyer have their own estimates of the valuations. The negotiation process is responsible for the deal breaker. Both the seller and buyer
- Regulatory challenges
Non-payment of taxes and liabilities of the seller
- Personality challenges
The personality of the negotiators plays an important role. Ego issues in the case of family business also come into play
- Organization culture challenges
- Breakdown in Mutual Trust between the buyer and the seller
Press leak
- Post Merger Integration Challenges
Some of the examples are different IT systems, cultural issues
PMI Execution: How does one do it?
The organization could acquire and not ingrate, if the processes are complex and does not make economic sense
If so which functions? Some of the functions that share synergies could be integrated, for example: Sales team, HR etc
Validation of synergy opportunities and identification of new opportunities
Form teams focused on implementing and realizing synergies
Focused monitoring of synergy realization – identify and realize the synergies
Fair and transparent processes
Select the better of the two processes
Assess technology involved on delivery of business requirements
Evaluate the cost/business impact of standardizing
Form focuses team for evaluation and implementation
Monitor progress of implementation
Key reasons why PMI are not successful
- Limited focus on implementation
- Inability to retain key people
- Absence of a fair and structured process in organization integration
- Absence of open communication
- Absence of a focused team and a senior leader driving the integration
- Organization culture differences
The success of the PMI is measured by the deviation from the forecasted P&L of the merged entity.
Accenture has lined up series of events over the year. They will hold CV workshops, case prep, interview prep and people skills workshop. Accenture was the day zero firm last year.
Friday, August 01, 2008
TransCare Management Consultants - 31st July 2008
· Poul V. Jensen – Managing Director, TransCare Logistics India Pvt. Ltd.
· Jaffrey Thomas – Senior Lead Consultant, TransCare Logistics India Pvt. Ltd.
· Vipul Kumar - ISB Co2008, Lead Consultant, TransCare Logistics India Pvt. Ltd.
Paul started the session with a brief introduction to TransCare. He informed the audience that TransCare is a niche management consulting firm providing solutions in Logistics domain. They have an office in New Delhi, India (3.5 years old). TransCare deals with transportation and logistics planning. TransCare has a presence in all the BRIC countries.
Paul delved on the question “what is management consulting in a niche”?
- focus and expertise in a service or industry
- high impact in the niche industry.
Jaffrey took over from Pail and took the presentation further. He told the audience that TransCare has a global outlook and was founded in 1993. It has successfully conducted over 1000 projects for more than 250 clients. TransCare takes pride in adopting a pragmatic approach for the problems. Apart from coming up with solutions for the problem, TransCare also partners with clients to implement the recommended solution. TransCare gets a majority of its business from repeat clients. TransCare has a long term vision for India and it sees India as an attractive market. With the boom in the cargo and container traffic, logistics consulting is in great demand. Jaffrey further informed the audience about the current scenario in Indian logistics sector.
Current Indian Logistics Sector
Logistics industry
- Fragmented: regional players with limited geographical reach, lot of consolidation taking place in the industry. Huge scope for M&A and consolidations
- There are no economies of scale.
Poor infrastructure
- Indian infra has been unable to keep pace with economic growth in the country
- Created bottlenecks across all segments of transportation.
Low level of outsourcing
Only 60 percent of Indian customers outsourcd their transportation service
Almost 50 percent of warehousing services is not tapped by Indian
High costs of logistics
- Indian logistics spend 6-13 percent of GDP
- This is much higher vis-à-vis global average of 5-10 percent
- Room for major improvement
There are several growth drivers
- Introduction of VAT to replace ST and hence promoting more efficient logistics
- Increased FDI in auto, auto components, electronics manufacturing and logistics
- GDP growth driven by organized retail and manufacturing
- Infrastructure investments in road creation, port capacity, rail network and air cargo.
Indian logistics market has just crept out of nascent stage and is poised for an exponential growth. Growth potential is immense; roads, air, sea etc are the modes of transport.
TransCare classifies its clients under three categories.
- Industry/retail
- Infrastructure providers and
- Logistics service providers
Investors in all the above sectors also constitute an important customer segment for TransCare.
TransCare provides consulting in the following functions
- Management consulting
o Market Entry Strategy
o Market assessment
o M&A support
o Feasibility analysis and
o Economic analysis
- Global supply chain consulting
o Logistics audit
o Process optimization
o Network optimization and
o Implementation support
- Technical and operation consulting
o Warehouse planning
o SEZ/FTWZ Planning
o Site planning
o Location analysis and
o Operation simulation
Vipul (ISB Co2008) informed that TransCare has 60 consultants worldwide. It has 12 consultants representing 4 nationalities in the Indian office. Complete focus in the niche of logistics and supply chain. It recruits from IIM, ISB, IIT and SPA. TransCare has a small team, inspiring work environment, offers diverse projects, and provides high visibility of work.
At the close of the talk, Jaffrey explained to the audience that TransCare is also offering an ELP at ISB. The team is expected to address the following questions:
1) Are Logistics Service Providers (LSP) open to hiring management consultants to improve their operational efficiency?
2) Look at TransCare’s portfolio and develop a plan to attract LSPs towards it.
Overall it was a great talk and helped clear the doubts of several people about niche consulting firms. Many more firms are scheduled to visit the campus in the coming months.