Why Management Consulting as a career

Why Business Consulting ?

Business consulting helps in the following respects

1. It helps you find out about a number of companies and sectors in a much
shorter period of time compared to somebody in the industry
2. You would be able to understand and adopt best practices and hence over some years have the ability to retro-fit solutions from one industry to the other.
3. As you are mostly interacting with the CXO’s you have a birds eye view of the problems companies face and hence are closer to the strategic decision making of
the company.
4. It fairly exciting as no day is like the previous day in consulting. Every
new day poses a different challenge.

The cons…

1. Consultants are the CXOs ears. Which means that he has the power to choose your idea or not. It can be frustrating that you idea is not implemented.
2. Its a huge challenge advising a person who has been in the industry for more number of years than you are. Here the only quality that helps is confidence.

And to conclude this gyan here is the very phamous consulting joke

“A shepherd was herding his flock in a remote pasture when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of the dust cloud towards him. The driver, a young man in a Broni suit, Gucci shoes, Ray Ban sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the shepherd… “If I tell you exactly how many sheep you have in your flock, will you give me one?” The shepherd looked at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looked at his peacefully grazing flock and calmly answered “sure”.

The yuppie parked his car, whipped out his IBM ThinkPad and connected it to a cell phone, then he surfed to a NASA page on the internet where he called up a GPS satellite navigation system, scanned the area, and then opened up a database and an Excel spreadsheet with complex formulas. He sent an email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, received a response. Finally, he prints out a 130-page report on his miniaturized printer then turns to the shepherd and says, “You have exactly 1586 sheep. “That is correct; take one of the sheep.” said the shepherd. He watches the young man select one of the animals and bundle it into his car.

Then the shepherd says: “If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will
you give me back my animal?”, “OK, why not.” answered the young man. “Clearly,you are a consultant.” said the shepherd. “That’s correct.” says the yuppie,”but how did you guess that?” “No guessing required.” answers the shepherd. “You turned up here although nobody called you. You want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked, and you don’t know crap about my business…… Now give me back my dog.”

Edit this entry.

Stuff Before

vThere are a number of things to do once the admission are done. One can do this even before the admission letter is received.

1. Loan shopping - ISB has a tie up with banks so you can pick up loan without any collateral. This is so important because with an average experience of 5 years, most people dont have any collateral. And it really doesnt look nice putting your fathers property as an insurance to your loan. At 26 you want to support your parents, rather than take support. Thanks ISB for making such a provision . I looked at a number of banks - Andhra, SBI, Union Bank, HDFC, Canara etc. etc. The list goes on . Well when its about money best to look at the most profitable solution .

Also remember education loan interest is exempt from tax. So effectively the loan rate becomes 30% lesser.

Tension relieved:)

2. Pre Term - Before the term starts ISB gives an option to pick up concepts that will help in the course. As a 1 year MBA goes at lightning speed, its better one brshes up the concepts before hand as one step back with be 10 steps behind later on. I am looking forward for the three courses as they will definitely help me in this course. These are

a. Business Statistics

b. Introductry Accounting

c. Quantitative methods

These courses are taught byindustry renowned professors. Hence even though I know these, I would want to learn them again from these professors. This is an extra 15000 INR.

3. Exchange programs - Looking at the possible electives in other business schools. ISB offers a large network of business schools - including wharton , kellog. It would be good to know before hand which electives do these schools offer. I was looking to find INSEAD in the lsist as the enterprenuership electives are the best there. Unfortunately, INSEAD is not a part of the network. Maybe I would initiate the network process.

4. Electives - Now now I know I have some time to decide this as electives come only by Term 8 and go on till Term 8 . But it is better to figure it out early as I would know what I have to bid for.

Apart from all this , I am currently trying to spend as much time as possible with my family . Sad to leave them for a year:( .

That is the only tough part. Apart from this currently doing my last days in office. I feel bad leaving my office in these times.

I speant three years here and have learnt a lot through the management consulting experience. Cant stop to thank my managers who gave me the opportunity to learn so much in such a short time.

Welcome to ISB

Welcome to ISB


On 5th of March I accepted the ISB admissions. My father decided to go and pay the 2L DD himself. A very kind Mr. Ravi accepted the DD and redirected me to the new admit website.

The new admit website welcomes you to the world of ISB.

"You are among the select few who have been invited to be a part of the new class, and I am delighted that you have accepted our offer. All entrants in the incoming class, like yourself, are among the best and the brightest and have gone through a rigorous selection process"

I definitely feel nice after reading this.

Inside the admit website are information of what is coming in the coming year.

1. Accomodation - I decided to choose a quad even though I am married as my husband would only come and stay with me occasionally

2. I like the part about the CAS photo shoot. It advices to get a set of formals to ISB as we will have a photo shoot in May.

3. ISB fee is a cool 20 lakhs. Now i dont have these savings. So i decided to take an education loan. And the good thing is ISB has partnerships with banks. These banks give you loan without any collateral.Thanks ISB for this facility as most banks in india give a max of 7 lakhs loan without collateral.

Another month to go before the term starts and i am all excited to get into the 15 best schools in the world.