Socrates Initiation 2014-16

Indian Institute of Foreign Trade

IIFT Batch of 2014-‐16 Initiation Document

Contents

§ About the Club�� § What is Consulting?�� § Job of a Consultant�� § Basics of a Consulting Interview § Types of Cases �� § Case Solving Frameworks § Assignments �� § Suggested Readings

Socrates: The Consulting & Strategy Club at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade

About the Club

You have brains in your head.��You have feet in your shoes.��You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own.��And you know what you know.��You are the guy who'll decide where to go.

~Dr. Seuss

Socrates is a platform where students who are passionate about making a career in consulting come together and learn the different facets of the world of consulting. The club aims to complement classroom learning and present a wider view of the consulting domain to its members in order to broaden their horizons.

• Provides a platform where students from diverse professional backgrounds and diverse interests contribute and thus provide different perspectives to the problems.

• To provide the students with an opportunity to work on consulting projects.

• To prepare the students for the recruitment process in consulting firms by conducting various mock case interview sessions and other related activities. With an access to a pool of Indian’s best minds, we believe that we are capable of providing a new perspective to solving problems. Driving our strength from the core values -‐ customer first, time is value and better than the best -‐ we strive to provide consulting services in domains such as Strategy, Supply Chain, Finance, Marketing, Service Operations, Project Management, IT Strategy etc.


What is Consulting? Consulting, in the business context, means the giving of advice for pay. Consultants offer their advice and skill in solving problems, and are hired by companies who need the expertise and outside perspective that consultants possess. Some consulting firms specialize in giving advice on management and strategy, while others are known as technology specialists. Some concentrate on a specific industry area, like financial services or retail, and still others are more like gigantic one-‐stop shops with divisions that dispense advice on everything from top-‐level strategy, to choosing training software, to saving money on paper clips.

Job of a Consultant Depending where you are in the project lifecycle, here are some of the activities that you could be doing as a consultant:

Pitching – Selling the practice

• Helping to sell and market the firm (preparing documents and researching prospective clients in preparation for sales calls)

Helping to write the proposal

• Presenting a sales pitch to a prospective client (usually with PowerPoint presentation)


Research

• Performing secondary research on the client and its industry using investment banking reports and other research sources (these include Bloomberg, OneSource etc)

• Ιnterviewing the client‘s customers to gather viewpoints on the company

• Checking your firm‘s data banks for previous studies that it has done in the industry or with ��the client, and speaking to the project leads about their insights on the firm

• Facilitating a weekly client team discussion about the client company‘s business issues ��Analysis

• Building Excel discounted cash flow (DCF) and/or other quantitative financial models

• Analyzing the gathered data and the model for insights

• Helping to generate recommendations ��Reporting

• Preparing the final presentation (typically a deck of PowerPoint slides, though some firms write up longer reports in Microsoft Word format)

• Helping to present the findings and recommendations to the client Implementation

• Acting as a project manager for the implementation of your strategy, if your firm is typically active during the implementation phase of a project

• Executing the coding, systems integration, and testing of the recommended system, if you work for an IT consulting practice

• Documenting the team‘s work after the project is over Administration

• Working on internal company research when your firm has no projects for you. (Being unstaffed is referred to as being on the beach, a pleasant name for what is often a tedious time.)

• Filling out weekly time tracking and expense reports


Basics of a Consulting Interview The typical management consulting interview generally consists of several parts. At a minimum, these include an introductory get to know you conversation, a resume review/prove -‐to-‐me-‐that-‐ you‘re-‐qualified-‐for-‐a-‐consulting-‐job Q&A, a case interview question, and a follow-‐up what do you want to know about us discussion. Although the case question portion of the interview inspires the most terror, the other portions of the meeting are every bit as important.

You‘ve heard it in other contexts: don‘t ignore the foreplay. Insiders tell us that many candidates, even at the very best schools, have already bombed the interview long before the case question slices them into tiny little pieces.

Part 1: Getting to Know You

Hey! How are you doing? What a great day for a consulting interview! It may sound like meaningless banter (and it probably is), but the interviewer is still checking you out.

First question in the recruiter‘s mind: Is this candidate alive? If not, the interview is likely to drag. If you are alive—and seem interested, perky, and excited about the opportunity to interview with company XYZ— then this is your chance to develop a rapport with your interviewer.

Some of the key goals to achieve here should be to:

• Show enthusiasm for the company.

• Practice saying, I reeeaally want to be a consultant—and here are the three reasons why!

• Don‘t talk about yourself in a negative manner.

• Demonstrate that you‘re a fun person. ��Our purpose here is to show the interviewer that you have an engaging personality, are fun to be around, and would be a valuable addition to the team. Known as the Pittsburgh airplane test. That is, the recruiter is thinking to himself, Would I be able to stand it if I had to spend an eight hour layover with this person in the Pittsburgh airport due to a snowstorm?


Part 2: Prove Yourself to Me

You‘ve had a clever little chat about the weather to demonstrate that you really are alive; you‘ve told a good story about why you love your alma mater more than your own mother; and now it‘s time for the recruiter to pull out your resume. So, tell me about the work you did for . . .

What‘s going through the recruiter‘s mind? Something along the lines of What has this candidate done that shows he or she is smart enough to handle the consulting workload?

How To Impress a Consulting Recruiter

Just exactly what impresses the hard-‐nosed consulting recruiter who has not only seen it all before, but likely has done it all before (or at least advised a client on how to do it)? One word of caution —you‘ll want to walk that fine line between providing evidence of your capabilities and seeming like an overbearing braggart.

Talk about situations in which you have assumed a significant leadership role. Your goal should be to demonstrate, with well-‐articulated examples. Think of several examples of projects at school, at work, or in an extracurricular setting in which you were challenged and survived with flying colors.

Prepare for the questions that you know are coming. In particular, have a good, concise explanation of why you want to be a consultant and why you specifically want to work for firm XYZ.

Be prepared to be asked about anything on your resume.

Think of examples of work in which you had to use consulting-‐type skills.

Part 3: The Case

The case interview is essentially a word problem based on a real-‐life (or simulated) consulting situation. Thus, the interviewer might say, Okay, suppose a client comes to you and says, =We‘re thinking about going into the light bulb business, and we want you to tell us what to do.‘ What should you tell her? Cases come in all shapes and sizes, from the simple, straightforward question designed to see how you think about a problem, to the highly complex business strategy issue that takes 20 minutes to explain and involves charts, graphs, and buzzwords. However, they all have one thing in common, They test a candidate‘s analytical abilities. They show his or her resourcefulness, how he or she thinks about problems, and ultimately, his or her aptitude for consulting. How does the interviewer evaluate you? By watching for several things: how you analyze the problem, how you ask for additional details, how you slice through extraneous information to get to the key issues, how you pursue a particular line of thinking and stay with it, how you propose to identify the information that will allow you to solve the problem, and, most importantly, whether or not you can develop (and present) a particular framework for organizing your thoughts and answers to the case question.


The Bottom Line

Like it or not, if you‘re planning to get a job in consulting, you will have to learn how to handle the case interview. Although different firms and different interviewers have different approaches to the case question, all of them use it as an important tool in selecting and screening out job candidates. Indeed, you may have to clobber ten or more cases on the way to landing a job with a major management consulting organization. Fortunately, by studying up on the case process and honing your case interview skills through practice, you‘ll soon be able to amaze friends and family alike with your frameworks and graph-‐drawing skills. Even better, when that dreaded moment in the interview arrives—and the interviewer pops the question—you‘ll be more than equal to it.

Steps to surviving the Case Interview

So how exactly does one ace the case? Although the specifics of each case question will be different, there are approaches that, if used correctly, will take you a long way toward giving the consulting interviewer what he or she wants.

When the interviewer asks the question, listen carefully.

Take notes if necessary. Make sure you know what the interviewer is seeking. It‘s particularly important to keep this objective in mind as you work your way through the dense forest of detail that may be coming your way.

Everything there?

Determine whether you‘ve been given the whole picture. If the question is unclear, it‘s probably unclear for a reason. Ask your interviewer for clarification. In particular, if there seems to be a gaping hole, ask about it. The interviewer may be testing whether or not you realize that there are missing pieces to the puzzle. Or he may be holding back a key piece of information to see if you ask for it.

Think before you speak.

It‘s acceptable to spend a minute or two jotting down notes for yourself to follow, just as you would before writing out an essay for your final history exam. So take a minute and think about your answer rather than starting too quickly and digging yourself into a ditch.


Frameworks! Identify a framework, or a combination of frameworks, to help you structure your answer. Be sure to inform your interviewer how you plan to proceed. Remember, choosing a framework isn‘t the goal of the exercise—it‘s supposed to help you structure an answer to the question. It will also help your listener (the interviewer) follow your presentation and show her how you think.

Explain your thinking methodically.

Start with the most important issue first. Remember, if you run out of time part way through, you want to have already delivered your most important insights. A structure or framework will help you plan how to cover all the major points during the time allowed.

Every hint helps.

Interviewers often give hints, extra data, or suggestions. Listen for them. When you hear a hint, a suggestion, or additional information, use it.

Talk action.

Wrap up your case by briefly summarizing how you have approached the problem and noting where you would go if you had more time. The goal of consulting is almost never just analysis. Usually, a consultant is looking for good, solid, data-‐driven recommendations for the client


Case Solving Frameworks

Overview

• As the interviewer describes the situation, think about what are the key issues facing general management

• Develop hypotheses

• Decide what data you need to better understand the issues

• Listen to the facts

• Evaluate which facts are critical to the key issues

• Probe for more detail in critical areas

• Use facts and numbers appropriate in building argument

• Summarize options before making recommendation

• State pros and cons-‐ be fact driven

• Make your recommendation ��Using Frameworks

• There is no golden rule, more than one framework may be applicable

• Use an appropriate framework

• Do not force a framework

• Be hypotheses driven


• Be prepared to revise your hypotheses

• Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive (MECE)

• Listen for clues from the interviewer

• Accept direction from the interviewer

• Display your thinking visually / graphically

• Be transparent in your analysis

• Leave time to summarize and make recommendations ��Some general Frameworks

• The Three C‘s

• The Four P‘s

• Porter‘s Five Forces

• BCG Matrix

• Supply & Demand

• The Profit Equation

• Internal -‐ External

• NPV Analysis ��(Readers are request to start reading up on these frameworks. Further information on these frameworks will be provided during the Socrates Sessions) ��Follwoing are some illustrations and flow diagrams to help you with very typical problems. Please note that they are only indicative in nature. Remember history has always been written by =free thinkers‘ , So if you have a different approach to above problems then feel free to discuss them and share with your friends. Socrates Gyan Sessions will provide you that opportunity.


Market Sizing

Decling Profits


Increase Profitability

Increase Capacity


New Product Introduction


International Expansion (An IIFT Speciality ;))


Assignments Instructions:

• To be submitted at [email protected]

• Submission should be in a zip/rar file

• Include a one page write-‐up describing your profile. Please include details of any skill you ��consider relevant.

• Mail Subject : JuniorBatch_Initiation_<FirstName>_<LastName>

• No timeline but preferably before session starts

• SUBMISSIONS ARE NOT MANDATORY BUT ADVISABLE

1. Sample Brain Teaser

An elephant must travel 1000 miles to the nearest city. He has 3000 bananas but can only carry 1000 at a time. For every mile he walks, he needs to eat a banana. What is the maximum number of bananas he can transport to the city?

(We Don’t want your answer we want to see your approach)

2. Sample Guesstimate

The warden of IIFT Hostel, wants to keep a check on alcohol consumption in the campus but the warden is not clear about the current status and consumption level. Help the warden by estimating how much alcohol is consumed in IIFT in a year. (Again answer is irrelevant...but approach is not !!)

(Also anything happening like this is a remote possibility!)

3. Pitch it Right!

Your younger sister just graduated top of her class from the best fashion technology school of the country. As an entrepreneurial management graduate you decide to use her skills and set up a boutique for designer clothes. Prepare a pitch for an application of loan to a near bank estimating the market, clientele, loan requirement and break even for the new firm.

(APPROACH!!!) A final piece of saintly advice : Logic can take you from A to B but imagination can take you anywhere!!


4. ConsultantQuiz

The role of a consultant is to ask relevant questions!

4.1 Which was the first firm to use the term management consultant ?

a) Mckinsey b) BCG c) Booz Allen Hamilton d) AD Little

4.2 Identify the framework –


4.3 Identify the person below –

. 4.4 There is an activity "A". The earliest activity "A" can be completed is 8 days, the most likely time is 10 days, and the latest activity "A" can be completed is 12 days. Assume that a Beta Distribution is used to describe the activity time. What is the expected time needed to complete activity A?

. 4.5 The below mentioned framework is used as a measure in many domains of the industry to see the current status and future outlook of a company. Id the framework


4.6 A clothing retailer places an order for goods from an overseas supplier for delivery within one month. The retailer negotiates to pay the account at the exchange rate existing at the time the order is placed which of the following the retailer is doing?

a) Hedging

b) Factoring

c) Cushioning the economic cycle

d) Engaging in foreign direct investment

4.7 The logo of which company?

4.8 Connect a person to the three images below


4.9 Identify the framework used while designing of goods and services.

4.10 Name the consulting arm and the bank in India that specializes in consultancy services in the field of agriculture and rural development.


Suggested Reading

Interview Preparation

• http://www.joinbain.com/apply-to-bain/interview-preparation/default.asp Sample Case Studies

• http://www.bcg.com/join_bcg/default.aspx

Frameworks

• http://www.quickmba.com/strategy/

• Vault Guide to the Case Interview ��During Club Sessions other relevant material will also be shared with the club member


Contact Us Website http://www.socrates-‐iift.com/

Email [email protected]

[email protected]

Blog www.dare2compete.com/blog/socrates

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/203305099679750/

Senior Co-ordinators

Neelesh Sahay

[email protected]

9999035105

Prasun Bhaiya

[email protected]

9742742970

Parikshit Saha

[email protected]

8826823832


Date post:	07-Feb-2016
Category:	Documents
Upload:	avinash311990
View:	214 times
Download:	0 times

Socrates Initiation 2014-16

Documents