You can also view the article on http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/ (Date 10 March 2010)

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You can also view the article on http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/ (Date 10 March 2010)

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You can also view the article on http://epaper.hindustantimes.com/ (Date 10 March 2010)

Views expressed by Authors/Users/Subscribers etc on this website are completely their personal views and in no way reflect the views of their employers or any connected parties including but not limited to their employers clients,vendors,competitors etc.Please view our detailed Terms & Conditions.

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A project timeline is a central component in any good project management strategy. But as many management consultants have learned the hard way, creating and sticking to a timeline is not as easy as it sounds. Depending on the type of consulting engagement, many project elements – from people to technology to operational and market factors — can generate unexpected complications and delays, quickly throwing a project off-track.

Regardless, a project timeline is an important early step in time management planning and a necessary project management tool for educating your client and keeping your project on schedule and on budget. Whatever your consulting project entails, a detailed timeline enables a management consultant to:

Give your client prompt, accurate status reports regarding what tasks are completed, due or behind schedule;

Track your progress toward project goals, and determine whether you’re coming out on-target or behind in terms of payment;

Identify potential setbacks and resolve them before they cause delays;

Alert your client earlier to any potential delays – before they put the project behind and create liability for you as a management consultant;

Invoice your client as project milestones are attained; and

Monitor how long project components actually take, so you can better estimate time required for future projects.

Developing timelines

At first, developing reliable timelines can be a challenge. If you’ve ever started a consulting project with a schedule in hand, only to encounter setbacks that push your project off-schedule, committing to a timeline may feel like an exercise in futility.

But even if your timeline is just a rough estimate, it is still a useful tool for time management planning. It gives your client a visual aid for understanding how the project will flow, and demonstrates that you have a clear vision of the steps that need to happen to achieve specific project milestones. And, it can protect you against management consulting liability by helping you educate your client about the impact of potential project delays that are beyond your control.

To begin, talk to your client to define the major project milestones that must be accomplished during the course of the project. Use these milestones as the building blocks of your project timeline. Then, consider the steps that must take place to get from point A to point B, C, D and so on – and the logical order in which each step must be completed.

Think about what task must be accomplished in order to begin the next. If multiple tasks can be accomplished at the same time, chart them in parallel. If completing one task involves multiple sub-tasks, it may need a small timeline of its own.

When estimating the necessary time to accomplish each step, talk to the people who will be involved, and realistically consider the amount of time each person can commit to the project. Clearly define any project components for which the client’s team members are responsible, and set deadlines for accomplishing those tasks. Involve the stakeholders in setting these dates, and gain their commitment that they can meet the deadlines.

As you continue to employ timelines to track your projects, it will become easier to create future project timelines. Continually tracking your progress against your timelines gives you historical project management data that will help you estimate the time required for future management consulting projects.

Sticking to Timelines

One way to help ensure that you stick to your timeline is to build in a little extra wiggle room. For example, you might decide to develop two timelines: one for your own use, with more optimistic deadlines, and another, with later deadlines that you share with your client. Then, when you hit your own internal deadlines, you actually come out ahead of schedule in the client’s eyes. This project management method helps compensate for less-than-perfect estimates and unexpected events.

Another project management technique is to simply build a little extra buffer time into your schedule – particularly in areas where you suspect that your assumptions and estimations could potentially be off.

If at any point you find yourself falling behind schedule, look at the tasks coming up, and see if there is any way to dedicate time or resources to them early, so that you can make up for lost time later in the project.

Creating a realistic schedule often means that committed delivery dates will land farther out than your client would prefer. However, a practical project timeline demonstrates that you’ve considered everything it will take to get the job done right, and makes it more likely that you’ll accomplish what you’ve committed to.

Stay Flexible

No matter how hard you try to keep a project on track, the fact is, there are situations when you’ll need to adapt your project timeline.

It usually happens when you or other team members run into something you didn’t expect, such as an insurmountable technical glitch, budget cuts, operational restructuring or personnel turnover. It can also happen when client priorities shift mid-stream due to changing marketplace conditions, or when the client realizes that what they’ve asked for represents just a small part of a larger goal.

In these cases, you and all other project stakeholders must be willing alter your expectations and commitments. As the management consultant, consider the impact the changes will have on the time required to accomplish the project’s goals, and adapt your timeline accordingly. Any time you make a change, be sure to promptly inform everyone involved in the project of what has changed, and why.

By creating a realistic project timeline, and tracking progress against it as part of an overall project management strategy, you’re more likely to keep your management consulting project on-time and on-budget. Even if you fall behind, a timeline gives you a convenient and impressive tool for keeping your client informed of progress and the reasons for any delays. And an educated and informed client is more likely to be a loyal client.

Author: Jim Cochran
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

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My, how our dictionary has changed. Podcast, Skype, Wikipedia, Googlebot and WiMax were all regularly used terms during 2005. VoIP, WiFi, Blog, iPod, and SEO are in every day vocabularies. By the way, SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization just in case youre uninformed like the vast majority of the populace, and I believe Podcast was Websters Word of The Year for 2005.

That was then, and now its today. What was important and functional yesterday may not be the case tomorrow. There has been exponential change in relation to the calendar, in the field of communications technology advancement. What I mean by that is that the changes that have taken place over the past year or two have been far greater than the changes over the past decade, which in turn have been far greater than the changes over the past 20 years.

The common thread among the terms above is that they either relate to wireless or internet technologies, or both. The technology advances, and public acceptance of those new technologies in the year 2005, have been astounding. It would follow logic that the same will continue to happen in 2006.

So lets examine the recent past a little more closely to see how our behavior has been affected. John Campbell, a Telecom Consultant with Schooley Mitchell in Halifax wrote an article for The Nova Scotia Business Journal that described the experience of a Marketing VP. She was booking a trip through her travel agent and made a specific request for hot spots. As little as three years ago that probably would have meant the best beaches, bars, and restaurants. However, she was requesting the hotels where she could access the Internet through her laptop using wireless technology.

Whether its toll booth passes, debit transactions at the gas station, or courier package delivery, the wireless world is upon us.

Consistent with evolutionary theory, teenagers have sprouted a new appendage. Its a wireless device referred to as a cell phone. Except that cell phone isnt for conversations in emergencies. Its for text messages, playing MP3s, and downloading videos – and of course, you simply cant be without one if youre under 25.

In other developments, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has gained wide acceptance evidenced by the wide myriad of vendors that have entered that marketplace to carve out a piece of the market share pie. The variant flavors and options available in the world of VoIP seem to be increasing everyday, to the point where its very difficult for the average business person to determine whether they should or shouldnt, and if they do, which option do they choose.

Campbell mentions Advanced Call Routing, Unified Messaging, and long distance toll bypass as some advantages of VoIP. The Follow-Me feature makes it transparent to the caller in terms of whether the call is connecting to a conference room in Orlando, a hotel room in Vancouver, or a cottage on the Great Lakes.

Increased Internet functionality, including Intranet, Extranet, Enterprisenet, and more, are all variations of Internet business applications that have become widespread in the recent past to serve the needs of global economies. More and more hosted applications are being developed, which means that you can work on the same General Ledger or Contact Management Database in Salt Lake City and Singapore at the same time. In fact, in a book titled The World is Flat A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Thomas L. Friedman talks about the widespread changes to world economies based on technological advancements.

Friedmans message centers around the fact that web-enabled and wireless technologies are flattening the world so that basic business services such as call centers, back room accounting, and HR department management can be provided from India or China, just as easily as Pittsburgh. Restaurant reservations, income tax returns, and flower deliveries will actually be completed through Shanghai or Bangladesh, as opposed to Boston or Toronto.

His message is not one of dire straits, although it does carry a warning that we need to be prepared, and educated to adapt to the inevitable changes that a flat world will bring. Instead, the message is one of changing opportunities, and better efficiencies, if the reality is accepted, and the reaction is proper.

So, where are we going? Well, those teenagers will be watching TV on their cell phones next year on a regular basis. Actually, my prediction is that the term cell phone will disappear over the next few years because of the vast number of functions that will be available through a wireless device that will be portable. Telephone calls will be just a minor part of the mix.

At a recent presentation I attended that was hosted by the Gartner Group, the predictions included the ability to take temperature and heart rate with the wireless device that will soon be on the shelves, and therefore attached to your belt. Diabetics will be able to monitor blood sugar. You will be able to read bar codes, and check out right in the store, including the monetary transaction. Your earpiece will talk to you to tell you to turn left so you dont get lost as you drive through the city. I dont think the device will make your lunch or tie your shoes just yet, but perhaps I need to open my mind.

At a recent Conference for Schooley Mitchell Telecom Consultants, Mikko Salminen of Nokia in Finland made a presentation describing the migration of businesses to wireless devices as opposed to the desk phones everyone has been using since telephone invention. The statistics from around the world are astounding, but thats the subject of another article. Suffice it to say that businesses will benefit from the ability of their people to communicate with customers, vendors, and coworkers without having proximity to their desk.

Yes, its a brave new world. In order to prosper, we must heed the message that no mans knowledge here can go beyond his experience. In other words, embracing new technologies, and accepting flatness will lead to opportunity. Opportunity, like oxygen must continually be exchanged. Once oxygen is taken into your lungs it turns to carbon dioxide. So as oxygen is the fuel of the body but has a limited life, opportunity is the fuel of success and future achievement. However, opportunity must be used before it turns to the metaphorical carbon dioxide.

So the message is to accept that these changes are upon us. The world will continue to develop more and more Internet applications to make the rudimentary parts of life easier to manage. Wireless applications will continue to develop and will astound us in terms of what can be achieved. And the world will be flatter. If thats a problem its also an opportunity.

Maybe its an even bigger opportunity than an economic one for those wise enough to take advantage of the fluid and changing environment. One of Friedmans tenets is that as the world supply chains become more intermingled and interdependent based on these technology advances, then the likelihood to war with each other will become less. If companies are dependent on companies in other countries to provide accounting functions, HR management, and day-to-day services, then it will be an encourager to work it out, instead of shoot it out. Now thats a nice thought.

Author: Dennis Schooley
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

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These days a top MBA is almost a prerequisite in order to reach senior or even mid-management levels at many of the major consulting firms. The leading strategy consultancies in particular have redoubled their recruiting efforts: McKinsey hired over five hundred MBAs in 2005 and this figure was set to rise in 2006; Booz Allen Hamilton, BCG, Bain and IBM Consulting all hired over one hundred MBAs in 2005 and were expecting increases again in 2006. By comparison, the larger banks have been hiring as few as two hundred MBAs a year and the numbers relating to the technology and industry sectors are significantly lower again.

According to the 2005 TopMBA.com Recruitment and Salary Survey, demand for MBAs in the consultancy sector rose by a colossal 35% in just twelve months (June 2004-5), and its a trend that looks set to continue. The dip in economy and the consulting market at the start of the decade meant that many consultants used the time to study for an MBA; now that the market is on the rise again, consultancies are looking to these MBA graduates with prior consulting experience to meet their needs.

More MBAs hired from non-consulting backgrounds.

There are also an increasing number of MBA graduates who are being hired from a non-consulting background. Cambridge Universitys Judge Business School, for example, reports that in 2005 only 13% of those entering a consulting career post-MBA had previous experience in the field. Similarly, at INSEAD Business School in France the number of graduates being hired into consulting from different backgrounds, such as industry, rose from 36% to 47% in one year (2003-4). What is behind the change? Consultancies are recognising the diversity and wealth of experience and expertise that candidates from a non-consulting background can bring, particularly as the average age and work history of MBA students rises. There is an increasing need for consultants with specialist skills and knowledge and these attributes can often be acquired outside the consulting profession.

Strong UK market attracts more MBAs than anywhere else in Europe.

Demand for MBA graduates is particularly strong in the UK. The healthy economy and policy to attract highly skilled migrants make it the most popular destination for European MBA graduates. Overall the UK drew 23% of INSEAD students in 2005 and of those choosing to remain within western Europe, it attracted an enormous 37% (the next most popular destination being France with 18% and Germany with 8%).

Consulting remains a highly lucrative option for MBA graduates.

According to the 2005 annual report from the London Business School, earnings for consulting jobs outweighed those in both finance and industry, averaging at 65,000 per annum before bonuses. This compares with an average figure of 58,000 for those who found jobs in the finance sector and 55,000 for those in industry. Employees also received an average annual bonus of 25,000 and a sign-on bonus in the region of 10,500. Companies are also attempting to lure in the brightest graduates by offering a range of perks, from company cars to all-expenses-paid days out.

Lifestlye and choice are stronger motivations than salary.

Interestingly, though, the reason that are given by the majority of MBA graduates for making consulting their preferred career choice is not high salaries. According to the students, the real motivation for making the move into consulting is the career and lifestyle options it can bring the opportunity to find a stimulating and varied role with the chance to progress in different directions.

Author: Gary Preston
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

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The public is mad as hell at AIG (and other recipients of Federal bailouts) who have handed out lucrative retention bonuses. One might wonder, are incentives appropriate in such difficult times?

It is not incentives that are on trial; it is distribution of bonuses when a company is performing poorly that is so infuriating. At a time where companies are facing a harsh business climate, industry leaders such as GE and WalMart are keeping score on their vendor’s performance on price, quality, cycle time, etc. Those vendors have become more vigilant about scoring their suppliers and employees to insure that specific deliverables are met. In this economic mayhem, there is momentum towards more rigorous accountability and transparency.

Thus incentive laced compensation systems (often known as pay for performance) are all the rage, as they reward the best performing employees for doing good work. In AIG’s case, the design of their system was terribly flawed because it triggered massive payouts, even at a time when the company was crumbling.

Every year, Bain and Company does a study of all the management initiatives (those fancy ideas consultants throw at you such as Six Sigma, customer satisfaction, time motion studies, etc.) and they found that pay for performance is the one proven to yield the greatest financial return. At a time when companies must do more with less, frameworks such as The Balanced Scorecard (also ranked high in the Bain study) help organizations to develop metrics that allow them to manage their strategic priorities and track individual contributions.

The difference between the metrics used in a scorecard and those more typically found in financial statements are that they are more apt to include predictive indicators that are communicated to employees in public view. Using such numbers can provide a foundation on which individual performance measurements can be established. Tying employee compensation to predicative indicators is a powerful method for ensuring that employee behavior is consistent with the mission and goals of the organization. In a well designed compensation plan, an employee’s pay is balanced between company performance and individual contributions, and poor corporate results typically trigger very modest incentives; or none at all.

One of the more important lessons learned for some in this downturn is that companies must be vigilant in calibrating labor costs with demand. For years, employers have faced the prospects of labor costs increasing faster than profits, a zero sum game that can eat away profitability. Escalating employment costs such as health care inflation directly hit the bottom line. Over the long term, a shift to a higher proportion of incentives and lower salaries (which represent a more rigid cost structure) is both advantageous to the employer, and potentially to the best employees.

Incentive pay has been somewhat controversial in H.R. circles, as organizations have pondered if it is inherently fair to treat people the same, or to reward those who accomplish the most. Organizations which are slashing costs are conflicted with the prospect of cutting or freezing the pay of some workers, so that they can afford to keep the most productive employees. Clearly, sharing the burden of variability in profitability is better than eliminating jobs, or cutting base pay.

Certainly, there is a movement in leadership philosophy towards softer, trendier management techniques that enable innovation and employee growth, but that shift has to occur within the context of profit. A framework that includes scorecards and pay for performance can be used as a carrot (in lieu of being a stick) in a way that enhances the employee experience. For example, posting a handful of strategically significant numbers, and celebrating accomplishments after hitting specific targets is a great way to boost morale and enable results.

A couple of years ago, Best Buy offered their 5000 corporate employees the opportunity to take part in a “results oriented work environment” test. Participating workers were provided the opportunity to work virtually, with no fixed schedule and had the option to work from home. Employees were told that they would only be judged based on quantitative business results. After achieving a staggering double digit increase in productivity, Best Buy is testing the program at the store level. Within our firm, we employ a similar model with our staff. If members of our team have to take their kids to soccer practice or the dentist, we just don’t care, as long as we provide the best possible service, every day.

As a business culture, we need to move away from measuring activity (such as how many hours a person works) and towards measuring their output. Paying people based on their specific results is simply a natural extension of the needs of organizations to be more productive, more efficient and more profitable. When structured properly, incentives can be a win-win for both employer and employee.

Author: Marc Emmer
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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33% of geographic expansions are not in existence two years later and only 31% are profitable. Successful attempts require commitment: profitable expansions take up large amounts of senior management time, on average 28% of it. This sounds like a major investment to make something work, until you realise that unsuccessful expansions took up even more time, on average 39%; i.e. the senior management of these businesses spent 2 days of every week creating either a loss-making international presence or one that would close within 48 months. (Source: Latitude study of 74 international expansions).

Successful expansions we identified followed four stages, which are essentially a series of steps to stack the odds in the company’s favour, and are summarised below. There were exceptions, but this is the rule:

1. Prepare the company for geographic expansion

Create a clear replicable business model that can adopted easily by the new country team and can serve cross-geography teams.

Ensure that there is a clear agreed accountability and decision making process between head office and any potential new country or region teams, i.e. who is responsible for what.

Develop a consistent global review and evaluation process with no differences between offices.

2. Select the right country or region to enter

“Follow the money” – set up to serve existing clients with significant budget over a long time frame AND where the market offers long term possibilities, i.e. follow your best long term clients but don’t follow them into a backwater.

Choose a location where you have knowledge, experience and contacts.

3. Prepare the market for entry

Warm up the market with existing relationships where head office can give introductions to buyers – never go into any market cold.

Recruit, or ideally transfer, local sales people and nationals who have local budget-holder relationships and know the local language and culture. The ideal person is a country national who has worked for you for years, the next best is recruiting that same national several months in advance of opening in the new country.

4. Commit to the chosen geography

Take one country at a time and make each successful before moving onto the next.

Have conviction – commit to the geography only if you know you want to be there long term. Don’t dabble in markets.

Bed in the business by taking time to integrate new recruits properly into the company.

We’ll expand on each one of these stages in the sections below, and give good and bad examples of each.

To give some perspective on the benefits of investing in such a deliberate approach and following these stages, clients of ours that have taken this approach have on average grown local sales by 25% annually, all have been profitable within 12 months, and new offices have supported international growth by an average 10% annually.

Step 1: Prepare the Company Internally

The first step is to create a clear, replicable business model, if one doesn’t exist already. An employee from head office should be able to go to the new office and know exactly what to do without changing work habits. Without this, the new office will be at best completely autonomous and at worst in constant conflict with head office, either failing to second guess or having to constantly check on every step it takes. Chaotic environments that thrive by winging it, or companies that change tack rapidly at the whim of their current CEO, create chaos-squared when they expand. In the words of a now-global business consultancy: “If our existing model wasn’t easily definable, then the new one certainly wouldn’t be either – it would have caused complete confusion.”

Second is to make sure that there is clear accountability and agreed decision-making processes in place. In most cases, this means having one person with the remit and decision-making power for the new office, before any decisions have been made. If that person can project manage, then all the better.

Third step is to introduce a consistent review and evaluation process that can be applied in the same way to the same standards across all offices, with head office being able to crack the whip to make sure the process remains standardised.

Example: Bain & Company

Bain & Company is a classic example of this disciplined approach. Bain is considered a cult within the consulting sector, with an intensive standardised induction programme where new recruits become “Bainies” before being let loose inside the company. Read a Bain presentation or review a Bain project plan anywhere in the world and it looks the same, because everyone goes through the same training programmes. Every Bain office uses the same set of 6 month performance benchmarks in a consistent global review process. With consistent processes and performance standards worldwide, clients have the same experience whichever office they work with. This tightly-managed simple business model has enabled Bain to grow into a genuinely global consultancy, attracting some of the world’s top talent and serving some of the world’s largest companies year-on-year.

Step 2: Choose the Right Location

We have a mantra for this step; and if we want people to remember one thing from all our findings about geographic expansion it is this mantra: “follow the money”. Follow the money means two things. First, it means following demand from existing clients that have major budgets that you expect to be spent on you over a period of years. Second, it means moving into locations that have strong latent demand for your services. These factors both need to be in place. It’s just as bad to follow a single client into a backwater as it is to set up in a major corporate centre with no established ongoing client to support you.

“Follow the money” is the demand-side of selecting the right location, but we should also look from the supply-side perspective. That is to choose from locations where you have knowledge, experience and contacts. Failed and loss-making geographic expansions are littered with examples of talented, energetic people starting from scratch in a new location, to abandon the project with few leads and no sales six months later. Even if you are following an existing client, a new location needs this broader base of contacts and internal local knowledge to grow and thrive.

Example – Monitor Company

Monitor Company’s geographic expansion was based at its core on following the need of long term clients. But if you look at Monitor’s network, these client locations are also all major corporate centres. With each of its new offices, Monitor was deliberate in using the knowledge and contacts of nationals of the new location that already worked at the company. At the time of writing, Monitor had established profitable offices in more that 25 locations world-wide. We can contrast Monitor with a supply chain consultancy (which we won’t name for obvious reasons) that took the more usual approach to geographic expansion: an enthusiastic individual opened an office on the basis of a one-off client project, but had no knowledge, contacts or experience of the location. After the six-month assignment finished, work dried up; the office was closed two years later with a write-off of more than one million dollars.

Step 3 – Warm Up the Market

You should never, ever go into a market cold and start from scratch there. If you’ve followed the previous step, you are following the money and will already have at least one long term client in the new location. But the new market needs more warming up before taking the big step of opening up a local capability. This usually means working local contacts and introductions from head office, so that the MD or salesman of the new office has a ready list of warm relationships before even stepping foot in the new country or region.

These salespeople must also be local with market relationships and contacts, and an intimate knowledge of the local culture. The ideal person will have spent time in your company already, and therefore already knows how you do things.

Example – The MAC Group

The MAC Group was a business advisory firm that sold itself for an enormous return in the 1990s to what became Cap Gemini. MAC’s expansion followed a very deliberate path with three important steps always taken before entering any new country. First, MAC always followed the money in the form of local demand from long-term clients. Second, MAC’s model was to work with business school professors in client projects, and MAC’s senior partners always established and warmed up these academic contacts before moving into any new region. Third, MAC’s new offices founders were sales-orientated country nationals. The result: MAC grew into a highly-profitable $250m business at the time of its sale.

The success of MAC’s deliberate approach can be contrasted with an operational management consultancy that again we won’t name for obvious reasons. This consultancy opened a US office on the basis of a very large one-off project for a client. But the company did no further market preparation, and sent in joint office heads that delivered the client project, but they had no sales skills and were not US nationals. After the client project ended, the two founders achieved no further sales and left the company after six months. They were replaced by a US national who had no knowledge of the company. This person in turn sold no further business and returned to the EU head office, with relocation for his family to be employed as a consultant at head office. The US office was closed on his relocation.

We hope these examples illustrate the importance of the third step in our approach to geographic expansion: spending time and energy warming up a market before committing resources locally, and the likely perils of not doing so.

Step 4 – Commit to the Chosen Location

Such a commitment is about three things. First, focus on one country or region at a time, and make it successful before moving on to the next; each new location will take up serious management time, and multiple additional locations are major distractions that pull management further back from the required tipping point. Second, don’t dabble in markets. Just like learning a new language, you either need to immerse yourself or accept that you will never be credible. Third, take active steps over a major period to bed the business into your global business, for example by using six-month exchange programmes for new recruits at head office.

Example – Lane4

Lane4 is one of the leading and most successful executive development consultancies in the UK. It has strong demand for services world-wide from global clients. Conscious of the need to retain control over quality and have a commonly-understood way of operating, Lane4 is very deliberate in its new office opening. It has effectively created a queuing system so that one office is opened at a time, every 2-3 years. It has done this successfully in Australia, the US and Switzerland. New offices always contain long-term senior company employees in their management teams. Lane4 even relocated one of its founders to the US office to invest in the offices development and support local academic relationships with his contacts.

This deliberate, committed approach can be contrasted with a famous operational consultancy (unnamed in this post out of respect for interviewees) that experienced a rapid growth in international demand for its services based on a best-selling business book. It opened a series of international offices simultaneously to support overwhelming demand. It made no proactive effort to integrate new staff, though the rapid expansion would have made this unviable anyway. Furthermore, the company’s laissez-faire appraisal system reduced the chances of a uniform approach to close to zero. The result was a patchwork of offices with inconsistent approaches, and numerous false starts within many countries. With a series of loss-making international offices and investment write-offs, the company itself closed down after five years of losses, despite the fact that its home office was highly profitable over the period.

Summary

Our messages from this article are, firstly, that the perils of international expansion should not be under-estimated and, secondly, that there are a series of steps companies can take, that are common to successful expansions we have observed and that can be used to stack the deck emphatically in your favour.

Of course, there are legion other issues to consider in expansion, such as what business model to use, whether to have a physical location, etc. These are determined by the specific circumstances of the particular company, and will be the subject of a future article.

Author: Steven Hacking
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

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Deciding which consulting firm offers the best work situation and growth opportunities may be difficult. Consultancies come in a variety of forms – there’s the big four, the top consultancies, the boutiques, e-consultancies. When determining which consulting firm is right for you, you must make the following considerations:

Reputation – What is the consultancy’s record of accomplishment? Is the firm growing? Has it experienced recent bad publicity? How did the company approach past economic downturns?

The reputation of a firm might have an impact on how well you are perceived if you decide to leave the firm for an industry job (or another consultancy). Make sure to check newspaper articles, press releases, and industry opinions of firms when applying.

Size – How many people work at the consultancy? How many clients does the firm serve? How many offices does the consultancy have? What opportunities for advancement does the consultancy offer?

Size is important to consider for several reasons. First, choosing a small firm means you will likely know the people you work with. If the consultancy is small, but growing, there may be a good opportunity for advancement within the company.

The size of the firm affects the type of training you receive. A large firm like McKinsey operates on the apprenticeship model. Bain also offers matching with mentors.

Training – How much training does the firm provide? Are you paid during training? What sort of training will you receive?

Every firm has a different way of doing things. At McKinsey, a basic consulting readiness course is provided, consultants can experience through their Mini-MBA program, and workshops on leadership are held. AT Kearney assigns a mentor and courses are available. Bain offers many different certification training programs allowing consultants to move up the ranks – including “Experienced Consultant Training” and “Senior Associate Consulting.”

Also, some firms will pay for you to obtain your MBA. If this is a degree you are interested in obtaining at some point, you may want to consider this bonus.

Job Description – What tasks will you be performing? Will your job include a variety of work? Will you be part of a team or work individually?

Different firms will have you performing different tasks. Some firms will have you enter as an associate if you have an MBA but not real-world experience. Talk to others with the same position. Find out what will be expected of you in the firm. If you don’t understand certain responsibilities, don’t hesitate to ask about them. Many companies are happy to respond to questions and concerns of applicants.

Will you be doing research for long hours or will you get a chance to get in the field and work as part of a team? What will your role be and what will your impact be? These are two questions you will want answered – before you sign with a company.

Benefits – What benefits are offered to consultants? Will you receive health insurance? Dental insurance? A moving bonus?

Most consultancies offer health and dental insurance. Make sure the benefits that cover your lifestyle. Some consultancies offer moving bonuses, annual bonuses, or signing bonuses. Once benefits have been added in to your salary, you may find that one firm pays more.

International Travel – What opportunities for travel exist? How much travel is expected? How much do you want to travel?

You will most likely travel wherever you work. However, large firms with consultancies in many countries may require more travel than smaller firms. Make sure that the amount of travel required agrees with your lifestyle. Some companies, like Bain, allot for international transfers.

Ability to do Charity Work – Are opportunities to perform pro-bono work for non-profit organizations available? What opportunities? Do these align with your goals and personal values?

Companies like Deloitte and Bain are jumping on this bandwagon, offering opportunities to perform pro bono consulting work, volunteer opportunities, green teams that work to reduce the carbon footprint on environments, and more.

Network – Does the company provide a solid network for after you move on? What support do employees have available?

The company network will help you to launch off – as an entrepreneur, someone in an industry career, or elsewhere. For example, Bain offers those leaving the firm a network of 7,000 people who are “Bain alumni” as potential resources for jobs and clients. McKinsey also offers a network including leaders of multibillion dollar corporations, non-profit organizations, and start-ups.

Culture – What is the work culture like? Would you fit in here? It might be helpful in talking with some of the people working at the consultancy you are considering to ask them important questions.

You should feel at home within a firm. Make sure to ask lots of questions. If you do not like to work after-hours on a regular basis, avoid firms where your cohort regularly work late. Take note of how people dress and carry themselves. If you are a formal person, you will not feel at home in an informal office.

Work-Life Balance – Does the company support work-life balance? If your lifestyle changes, is the company flexible? Can you work from home?

Some companies, like Bain, offer work/life options. Bain allows you to choose part-time or job-sharing options, extended breaks, and sabbaticals and other leaves of absence so that employees can enjoy rewarding careers while still maintaining a life outside of work. McKinsey also offers flexibility in working relationships, for high performing consultants.

As you answer these questions, it might be helpful to construct a chart. As you browse company websites, you can easily eliminate consultancies. For example, if work-life balance is important to you, companies that require long hours of employees (or where those you speak to mention long hours) are out. If you value close-knit circles, you will probably want to consider work at a smaller consultancy or a boutique as opposed to a large firm like Accenture.

When whittled down, schedule appointments to visit consultancies or discuss career options with consultants at desirable firms. This will eliminate companies not adhering to the work environment you seek. Finally, when you have choices whittled down to only a few rank the firms and apply. If you receive multiple offers, compare the companies based on offers and desirability. Accept based on preference and offer.

Author: Raj Modi
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

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Whilst case interviews are considered the more challenging side of the consulting interview, it is important to be aware of other types of interview questions that you will inevitably face when interviewing with a top management consulting firm such as Mckinsey, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Bain, Booz Allen Hamilton, Mercer, L.E.K Consulting, A.T. Kearney, Roland Berger or others. A case question is often only 30 minutes of a 1 hour interview. This is especially true in long interviews (one hour or more) and later round interviews once you have proven your abilities in answering case questions.

Below you can find some common behavioral interview questions that you may be asked in a management consulting interview as well as some additional consulting specific interview questions. Try to think how you would answer these interview questions if they were asked to you!

Behavioral Interview Style Q’s

• Describe a time when you were faced with a stressful situation that demonstrated your coping skills.
• Give me a specific example of a time when you used good judgment and logic in solving a problem.
• Tell me about a time when you had to use your speaking and presentation skills to influence a groups opinion.
• Explain a situation when you had to go above and beyond the call of duty in order to get a job done.
• Have you ever had too many things to do and you were required to prioritize your tasks.
• Give me an example of a time when you had to make a split second decision.
• What is your typical way of dealing with conflict? Give me an example.
• Have you ever had to motivate others? Tell me about such an experience.
• Give me an example of a time when you used your fact-finding skills to solve a problem.
• Highlight your top achievements accomplishments?
• What is the most important thing that you have learned in the past year?
• What has been your biggest setback?

Common Consulting Interview Q’s

• Why do you want to work in consulting? And why this firm?
• What do you believe a consultant does? What would you consider to be the three most important qualities of a successful consultant?
• How is our practice different from other consulting firms?
• If I was to review your performance after six months, what do you think my evaluation of you would be?
• Which firms are you interviewing with? How have you gone?
• If given an offer, how will you decide whether or not to accept it?
• What do you think are the differences between your current company and this firm?
• What do you think you’ll add to this firm?

Author: Blake McNaughton
Article Source: EzineArticles.com

Views expressed by Authors/Users/Subscribers etc on this website are completely their personal views and in no way reflect the views of their employers or any connected parties including but not limited to their employers clients,vendors,competitors etc.Please view our detailed Terms & Conditions.

Do visit and register on our Member’s Section by Clicking Here

Aspiring Consultants can seek free & valuable advise by Clicking Here

Apply to the following Jobs posted on Consulting Network Jobs

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