Monday, October 29, 2007

McKinsey BTO Challenge @ ISB - A report

The McKinsey & Company's Business Technology Office (BTO) conducted the McKinsey Business Technology Challenge for the first time at ISB. The challenge was to use breakthrough technologies to bolster the competitive positioning of leading companies. The technologies to choose from included crowd sourcing and co-creation, ubiquitous broadband and persistent connectivity, virtual worlds and smart network elements.

Senior management from the Mckinsey Business Technology Office, Mr. Oliver Schein from the Germany office, Mr. Shameek Kundu from the London office and Mr. Akil Jain from the Dubai office visited the ISB for the final presentation on 27th October.

The challenge received twenty five entries out of which only six teams were short listed on basis of the quality of the plan submitted. The finalists then made a presentation on the spot illustrating the innovativeness, impact and practicality of their plan. This was followed by Q&A.

The six teams did a fabulous job with innovative plans on a wide range of areas. The six plans covered as diverse segments as a 3D virtual banking environment for a leading bank, smart vending machine for one of the world’s largest soft drink providers, a virtual world environment to aid recruitment process of a top consulting firm, sourcing creative inputs and market data from internet users for animated movies and TV shows of a giant media and entertainment corporation and credit card fraud detection using broadband connectivity for one of the ubiquitous banks. All the ideas were backed by their economic impact, implementation plans and risks mitigation strategies.

Commenting on the plans, Mr. Schein from Mckinsey said, “What distinguishes these groups at ISB is not just the technical content but also the quality of the discussion.” He emphasized the importance of balance among ideas, implementation and risks that brings out the best of technology and strategy giving the competitive edge. Mr. Kundu also appreciated the quality of work of the teams at ISB.

The excitement in the room was accentuated in the end when the audience was told to decide the winners by voting. The team comprising Udayabhaskar Bidurukontam, Sarat Burle, Neha Mittal, Atul Saraogi and Nitin Pandey was voted as winners. Hemant Garg, Rohit Sehgal, Nishant Rawat and Avinash Tiwari were the runners up. These top two teams got latest iPods and the winners also get to enjoy a sponsored trip to the McKinsey office in London.

“Imagine Disney making Hanuman! This can really happen with our idea. It was awesome the way we pulled it off with our presentation.” recalled Atul.

“‘Exciting and great way to showcase and listen to ideas; but more importantly it was fun.” added Hemant.

“The McKinsey BTO Challenge was a fantastic way to explore the application of emerging technologies to specific industries. The entire experience from brainstorming the various combinations of technologies and companies to choosing crowd sourcing for Disney to the unique peer voting to select the winning idea was very exciting.” concluded Udayabhaskar.
Overall an amazing experience, they all agreed.

Saturday, October 27, 2007

BCG - 24th October, 2007

Date: 24th Oct 2007
3rd visit to ISB this year

BCG Team:
Sachin Nandgaonkar, Partner and Managing Director [Chair of the Career Development Committee in BCG India]
Arvind Subramanian, Principal [Leads recruitment at ISB]
Ravi Srivastava, Principal
Anshuman Biyani, Consultant, ISB Class of 2004 [Senior most ISB alum at BCG]
Marc Weiner, Consultant
Sushma Vasudevan, Consultant
Rahul Kothari, Sr. Associate, ISB Class of 2007
Akshit Shah, Sr. Associate, ISB Class of 2007
Bindya Malhotra, Recruiting Manager

The talk consisted of 3 parts: (i) BCG Career track, (ii) Recruitment process followed by a chat over High Tea and (iii) Case Workshop

1. BCG CAREER TRACK: First Sachin talked about the different roles in BCG and the responsibilities of each of them. The roles are in order of hierarchy are:
Associate
Senior Associate
Consultants
Project Leader
Principal
Partner

ISB students generally get hired as Sr. Associates and can be described as Diligent, hardworking providers of insightful insights who typically work on a module of a project.
Sachin talked about his role as a Partner and a typical week in his life, about managing client relations and maintaining work life balance. Then Arvind spent a significant amount of time sharing his views on the role of a Project Leader and Principal. Finally Rohini discussed what does it mean to be a BCG Consultant, what does it take to be successful and how the load factor can change over the course of a year.

After that Sachin talked in some detail about Competencies across Career Levels. He highlighted the key attributes at each level that cater to these competencies but being most relevant to ISB students, I have only mentioned the attributes at Sr. Associate/Consultant level. The competencies and the corresponding attributes are:

A. Ideas and Insight - Problem Solving
B. Apprenticeship - Team Contribution
C. BCG values - Role Model
D. Influence - Credibility
E. Client Service - Effectiveness and Interaction

2. RECRUITMENT PROCESS: BCG is looking for 3 basic qualities:

A. Analytics and Insight (Problem Solving) - Structure, Judgement, Rigor, Creativity and Synthesis.
B. Communication and Presence - Listening, Precision, Presence, Relationship Management C. Effectiveness and Impact -Independence, Team contribution, substance, learning and achievement

Your CV should reflect the reflect skills and your differentiating factor.

You should try and bring out areas of strength and comfort for you that can be discussed in the interview. Based on the CV roughly 30-40 people would be shortlisted for interviews. The shortlisting is done by senior BCG people and is very thorough process with great attention given to each application.

There are 6 criteria in the evaluation of the CV:
(i) Academics
(ii) Work Experience
(iii) Co-curricular
(iv) Extra-curricular
(v) Position held (non-work related)
(vi) X-factor (Your USP)

It is ok to mention achievements before college if you find them to be significant.

The interview process is of two rounds and each round is two interviews. The interview is typically 35-45 min with the following general structure:

5-10 min: Personal/Resume based (Effectiveness and Impact)
25-35 min: Case (Problem Solving)
5 min: Questions you can ask (Effectiveness and Impact) Your communication and presence is tested throughout the interview.
After the interview you are categorized into a 2x2 matrix (OBVIOUSLY!!) the
2 dimensions being Hire/Reject and Strong/Weak. Within each you have three levels so finally you will be in one of the 6 categories: H+, H, H-, R-, R,
R+, with H+ being Definitely Hire and R- being Definitely Reject.

Do's and Don't's of the Interview:
DO's: Be genuine, relaxed, take time to structure your thoughts, organize the facts, develop a working hypotheses (it is ok to be wrong in your first attempt to come up with a hypotheses). Be willing to work numbers in a case.
DON'T's: Exaggerat, Fumble with the basics, impose artificial frameworks, ignore given information and clues, get bogged down.

Case Worskhop:
Satish kashyap gracefully volunteered for the mock case and Sachin gave him a real life situation in a manufacturing setting where Satish had to come up with the right product mix strategy (and of course he had to offer other insights along the case as well). After the case we had a feedback from the students and finally the expert opinion of the BCG partners and principals.

D'construct Report @ ISB

Oct 17th, 2007– Diamond Consultants @ ISB for the finals of the D'construct Competition

Participants
Vinod Nair - Managing Partner, India
Govind Balan – Sr Mgr Telecom Practice

Case Competition:
Simulation of a client consulting assignment – real live issues that were worked on

Feedback on the case competition:

Simulation of client interactions was a good experience
Choice of sector and topic was relevant
Backing up recommendations with the data – good approach
Clarity of Expectations/requirements

Vinod:

Imparting structure to the problem and drawing boundary around the same
Spending considerable time ahead to help customer define the requirement or the problem

As a consultant, data driven approach exhibiting a structured method to problem solving is best.

What diamond was looking for:

Telecom – degree of knowledge, understanding of the sector brought to the table
Knowledge that goes beyond the online resource
Structure – Have you understood the problem theory, have you understand what is being asked to solve
Flow - Is the logic flowing smoothly, do we see the overall structure of the problem solving effort
Presentation – written and oral
Interaction – Q&A, how do you interact with the customer, subjectively + overall impact

Feedback from Diamond Team:

+ve:

Quality of work was very impressive
Very impressed with the content that was picked
The issues that were learnt and data collected and analysis was very impressive
Very professional

-ve:

Govind:
-How easy are the slides, to read and also visually
-Present sources of data
-Not content, focus on the message and then pick data to support the message
-Don’t read off the slide, impact is powerful if the speech complements whats on the slide
-Anything that is not thoroughly done, exercise caution while answering, if not sure, admit the same
-When answering questions, if one of the team mates has answered the question to the client satisfaction, avoid piling on answers on the same

Vinod:
-Structuring is very important – has steep learning curve
Client was looking at 3 things
1.Which markets/circles to go after
2.What segments to look at
3.What do the segments need

Teams should have set this upfront instead giving a presentation on the entire Indian telecom scenario

About Q&A Session:

In a team env, when it comes to interaction with external clients, there is a pyramid where one person leads the response with others supporting.

Congrats to the winning team of Harsh Singhal, Gaurav Bagaria, Ashish Aluwhalia, Sameer Desai

Monday, October 22, 2007

Everest Consulting PPT @ ISB

Everest Consulting @ ISB for PPT, 22nd October, 2007

Conducted by

Vivek, ISB alum 2005, Prior Work Experience at Sapient+Areva

Gaurav Gupta, Head, Everest Consulting, India - 10 years work ex, started off in New York . Worked with Infosys before joining Everest. Then moved to McKinsey as an engagement manager.Worked for 5 years before joining Everest. Was a part of the McKinsey and Co. team which saw through the inception of ISB.

About Everest Consulting


Experts of Global Sourcing, Captive Strategies, Services Outsourcing, Specific sourcing issues and Outsourcing. Also help clients with syndicated data.

15 -16 years old firm. 130 – 140 ppl world wide.

Distinction – Analytics Insight, Experienced outsourcing professionals, Research group.

Main verticals of operation – Travel and Transportation, Manufacturing, Distribution, Retail, Financial Services, Healthcare and Energy.

Facts
-85 % of the outsourcing is not labor arbitrage but for other reasons. They have set up a research institute to study outsourcing transactions. The Institute has around 30 – 35 people.

Indian Setup - 2.5 – 3 years in India. Mainly global projects. First Indian project completed 12 – 18 months back. Very focused career path. India to become the hub of all Everest activities in Asia. Office is in Gurgaon – 40 to 45 people.

Recruitment - No specific requirements for work ex. Two distinct skills will be given preference – strong analytical skills or some operational skills in terms of a shared service center. Moolah will not be a problem.

Oliver Wyman PPT, 19th October, 2007

These are the notes of the Oliver Wyman PPT on the 19th of October, 2007 at ISB.

The people present from OW were

Manny Montoria - Talent Manager, Mark Kremers - A principal from the Dutch(cluster) consulting and ISB alum of 2006 Sunil Rana.Mr. Kremers was a principal from the CMT group which is the Communications, Media and Technology group.

They informed the audience Mercer + Mercer O&W + Delta are al now under the umbrella of OW.The track record of OW was for all to see. They declared that OW makes 500 $ + per consultant per year. They have revenues of nearly 1.2 Billion $ and a market share of 3 % and a growth rate of 25 %.

Their CCG ( Core Consulting Group ) consists of the GMC ( General Managment Consulting ) and the FSC ( Financial Services consulting ). The GMC in particular caters to the following verticals-

- Automotive - Germany
- CMT - Middle East
- Aviation - Middle East
- Surface Transport - Middle East
- Retailing

They also explained as to why OW is placed in Dubai . Some key takeaways about O&W were

- A very collaborative environment
- Exposure to real clients and responsibility from day 1.
- Early and deep specialization
- International work from day 1
- Result oriented promotions
- Commitment to mentorship and feedback
- Large connected alumni network

Some of their major clients include Mashreq Bank, Q tel and Qatar airways. OW are specialists in capital markets. They have completed enormous assignments which involved due diligence and valuations of fast growing companies and hence specialized in M&A.

Key Dates

Deadline - 25th of Nov, 2007 ( Cover Letter + CV )
1st Round interview - Jan 2nd week ( knock - out ); 1 -2 interviews
2nd Round interview - Feb Mid;3 interviews at Hyderabad or Dubai

Additional Points - Try and be creative in the Cover letter;focus on industry rather than functional specialization

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Oliver Wyman @ ISB

The students of the consulting club at ISB had an informal session with Oliver Wyman on the 29th of September, 2007. The highlights are as below

ALUMS PRESENT :
Abhishek (Class of 07) - IITD, Dubai Office
Sunil (Class of 05) - REC, Worked with Satyam, ISB, Oliver Wyman – Dubai Office

PREPARATION


FUNDAES FOR MAKING GROUPS
o Start with people you are comfortable with
o Later swap groups, to expose yourself to different styles

Team Size – Ideal 4
Frequency of meeting - Daily or 3 to 4 days / week * 1.5 hours = 8 hours + 3-4 hours study on your own = ~ 15 hours a week
Sources: Michigan, Kelloggs
Typical Time – 30 min per case in a team

TIMELINES
Groups who had started in term 5 were in good shape for interviews
Start PI by end of term 5
Started swapping groups at the beginning of Term 6
Mock interviews
Post shortlist, have mock again

CASE PREPARATION
Step 1
- Start on your own instead of a group. Helps you get familiarize to the cases and have better group interactions.
Step 2 - Individually spend 5 min on structure and share structures amongst the group members
Step 3
One Interviewer, One Interviewee, 2 Observers.
Observers play a very important role – should make exhaustive notes
Make case logs and share your way (structure) of solving
Develop the skill of developing your own structures. Don’t stick on pre-determined structures

TIPS FOR CASE SOLVING
Focus more on structure and rationale than the answers.
Work more on the approach
Structuring means breaking a larger problem into smaller problems. E.g. Use porter’s framework to break the problem not for the sake of using framework. Use frameworks to be comprehensive.
Once you have broken down the problem, prioritize the smaller problems
Here, interviewer helps incase you are off track. Pick up clues here.

Example - One person – very good at structuring but he couldn’t because he went straight to the answer without taking the interviewer through his logic. Hence, try and use MECE (Mutually Exclusive Collectively Exhaustive ). Make the interviewer feel that you have complete control over the case.

COURSE KNOWLEDGE
May not be vital. But could make a difference at the last stage
Individually or in group – upto individual style

HOW FAR CONSULTING PREP WILL HELP IN OTHER PREPS
Marketing & Sales – Theory ques could be asked
Finance – Needs a lot of subject knowledge

GRADES

HOW IMPORTANT ARE GRADES
Grades are always a consideration. Though some with low grades got shortlisted, majority of who get shortlisted have good grades.
Why? – Because it tells how consistent a guy has been!
Easiest to compare people
Min grades – avg grades

HOW DO YOU GET AROUND GRADES
Show that you were outstanding in your under-graduate!!!
Show that you have done great acad work like ELP
Diamond gives a lot of weightage to work experience
Last year's shortlist, had non-Dean listers!!

HOW IS AN INTERNATIONAL POSTING DIFFERENT FROM INDIA

DUBAI
All consulting firms – Mck, BCG, AT Kearney, Bain, Oliver present in dubai
More than 85% expats
Cleaner Mumbai with better infrastructure
Though accommodation is a big problem, it shouldn’t be a problem with the salary you get!
Clients don’t know much about consulting
Negatives - No clarity on expectations from consultants; no clear problem statements, Less push back
Positives – Opportunity to start from problem definition; Open to suggestions, respect for consultants

ABOUT THE FIRM - Some basics to know before PPT

No plans to open office in India in near future
Highest revenue per consultant
World Leaders in financial, aviation, retail and value engineering. They work for all large airlines
Lifestyle – possible to be in India once a week?

Related to recruitment
Timing of interviewing is an issue – we don’t want to come early as students are not best prepared. We weren’t happy with the interviews last year.
We visit Harvard, Wharton, Kellogg, Insead – hence expectations are high
Lot of pressure from IIMs – recruiting from IIMB this year
Last year – 13 shortlisted, 3 were recruited
Positions – Analyst, consultant, SA, Associate
Top payer
3 to 4 rounds – typically 7 interviews – PI + Case