Consulting - Management, Strategic, IT et all

[Scorpio_19]

Hi folks,
I am looking to the following profiles after doing my MBA, am appearing for CAT and other tests this year. Apart from the IIMs', which b-schools in India would typically be offering opportunities in treasury, risk mgmt., analytics, non-IT consultancies (I am a plain vanilla graduate). I'm primarily interested in finance and Economics combinations in MBA, I know SCMHRD and XLRI do offer these combos'. Hope to get reply from you folks soon.

[i_m_listening]

Ahem..U make me sound like a kid. I am a BE from BITS Pilani and had an offer from a KPO (Evalueserve) on campus. I went around asking people about what would be an ideal career path. We have an amazing aluni network and I got talking to an alumnus who is currently in Mckinsey USA. He referred me to McK Mumbai and at the same time to my current firm which is smaller (30 in India) but offered a better package and greater growth opportunities (this is not a cliche!) . I went through bothe the processes simultaneously and after the first round was kinda convinced about my current firm and chose to value suitablity over brand name (for now of course) . I dropped out of Mck's process got placed here after 6 rounds of interviews ( 3 of them Case interviews). I have had the opportunity to work in international assignments already (we do not have indian clients ) and have started heading my own agenda. So I guess am happy with the choice I made. My company has just arrived in India and so in the 4 months I've been here already become some sort of a senior. I am of course not a consultant full time and carry the of a research analyst. Since I work in teams on consulting assignments anyway I guess I am a consultant too albeit a rather inexperienced one.The job offers you the level of challenge enough to keep on you on your toes eternally and also the chance to work with the sharpest minds around. Its good fun for now but I need an MBA fast cos I don't think I can last for more than 3 years without an MBA in this business. So thats my story.
Have any specific queries pm me. I am not very comfortable discussing my firm's name in a public forum.

thanx for d insight

is it a KPO or something??? Can a non MBA, non engg guy workin in a KPO enter this field???

[Psychodementia]

BTW curious to know a few things:

(a) The list of pure consulting companies based out of India.

(b) Also, what kind of work is McK doing here ? Biz Consulting or Data crunching to provide stats to supplement their core work done out of elsewhere ?

(c) In the list provided for consulting companies recruiting from BSchools, why is ISB (pardon the cliche') conspicuous by its absence ?

Arun

PS: Just mailed Suhas about this thread. Now he is a guy who can provide a lot gyaan here

[convolutedsignal]

Originally Posted by Psychodementia

BTW curious to know a few things:

(a) The list of pure consulting companies based out of India.

(b) Also, what kind of work is McK doing here ? Biz Consulting or Data crunching to provide stats to supplement their core work done out of elsewhere ?

(c) In the list provided for consulting companies recruiting from BSchools, why is ISB (pardon the cliche') conspicuous by its absence ?

Arun

PS: Just mailed Suhas about this thread. Now he is a guy who can provide a lot gyaan here

a) I think u r referring to the India offices. Then we have Mck, BCG, Accenture, Everest, TPI and a host of boutique firms.
b) Biz consulting. That data crunching part is done by their Delhi office. MCKC (Knowledge center)
c) Its a list only for Mckinsey not all the firms. Not aware of ISB's strength in this field though.

And Suhas is goin to Hay I suppose. IIMA guys have all the fun

[convolutedsignal]

Originally Posted by i_m_listening

thanx for d insight

is it a KPO or something??? Can a non MBA, non engg guy workin in a KPO enter this field???

Its not a KPO. Kpo's do not do consulting . They normally take on custom projects of usually small sizes.
Non MBA, Non Engg wud find it tough but not impossible though. I have a guy in my office who is just a grad from Stephens. quality work experience though.

[better4worse]

Originally Posted by convolutedsignal

a) I think u r referring to the India offices. Then we have Mck, BCG, Accenture, Everest, TPI and a host of boutique firms.
b) Biz consulting. That data crunching part is done by their Delhi office. MCKC (Knowledge center)
c) Its a list only for Mckinsey not all the firms. Not aware of ISB's strength in this field though.

And Suhas is goin to Hay I suppose. IIMA guys have all the fun

hey ... by anychance.. u checking ur messages box ??...

Better4worse

[snan]

Originally Posted by Psychodementia

BTW curious to know a few things:

(a) The list of pure consulting companies based out of India.

(b) Also, what kind of work is McK doing here ? Biz Consulting or Data crunching to provide stats to supplement their core work done out of elsewhere ?

(c) In the list provided for consulting companies recruiting from BSchools, why is ISB (pardon the cliche') conspicuous by its absence ?

Arun

PS: Just mailed Suhas about this thread. Now he is a guy who can provide a lot gyaan here

Hey thanks, psycho for mailing me bout this..

Apart from mck and BCG we have atk/monitor/kpmg/pwc/E&Yaccenture etc..but again lot of them are not "pure" consulting firms - E&Y's strenght wud be more accounting related stuff and corporate finance...but then Mck is also eyeing at corp fin engagements in India -recently formed a corp fin group...so the lines are fast getting blurred

MCKC does the data analytics part for foreign and domestic engagements of Mck..but Mck per se does strat and operations work mostly in India.(Just like anywhere else)....they also have an organistion practice (same case with BCG)..Hay has only organisation practice/strategy decode & implementation as far as consulting is concerned....
Lot of firms like CRISIL / ICRA have their business advisory section - which essentially is similar to what the big firms do....so options are a lot...Then one also have firms with specific market focus like Feedback Ventures in Infrastructure, KSA Technopak in Retail. Another interesting player is TSMG - started of as captive for TATA but now have clients outside of the group...
IBM BCS, Accenture,Deloitte etc do not do high end strategy work...they can be said to be doing derivative strategy - defining systems/MIS/IT backbone etc taking the business strategy as given.....They often claim they also formulate the biz strategy too but i dont believe they get a lot of engagements in that..

Though there is this perception that strategy consulting is the most "intellectually stimulating" I guess each of them have elements of stimulating work as well as laborious data crunching and interviewing and presentations...at least in the analyst level.

I think McK have recruited from ISB but probably the list was their key long term partner schools and hence IIM A...btb they also recruit frm B and C in India atleast for finals though they stick to only A for summers....

[convolutedsignal]

Now that's some detail. Actually even when Accenture and the others in that rung get strat consulting , the work is more on the sourcing strategy than any real high level strat work. btw Hay does HR consulting and organisation strategy right? Do they work on Indian clients?

[capreal26]

Enlightening discussion this.. as snan said.. not all claimants to mgmt consulting do strategy consulting. Mck & BCG are the only ones among top tiers having sizeable presence in India. Mck has arnd 150 & BCG would be less than 100 in India. Not sure of the verticals they work in India but Mck does a lot of work for State & Central govts.

Some useful links for a high level gyaan on consulting.. Nothing specfic though ..

http://www.careers-in-business.com/consulting/mc.htm
http://www.managementconsultingnews.com/
http://www.consultingmag.com/
http://top-consultant.blogspot.com/

& the usual suspects like the vault/wetfeet guides to consulting careers.

& psychoD.. regarding your query on consulting scene at ISB.. we've been slowly building strength in strat consulting. Mck offered 6 jobs last yr, BCG 2 or 3, Marakon 2, Diamond Cluster 1 & then the rest like ATK, E&Y, IBM BCS, Accn, Deloitte, PwC, Sapient & some boutique firms. Booz Allen & Bain didnt come last yr. Overall, pretty wide variety of offerings if you're interested in consultig & have the grades.

[uRmad]

Whoa !! Some interest in consulting I guess Never seen a thread in this forum generate so many posts so fast

Anyway, I ain't got much to contribute here, except for this very funny line that I read the other day from this site

What do consultants do?
In terms of level of difficulty, the question is arguably next only to Freud's legendary doubt-what do women want?

Cheers

ps: btw, dontya guys think "strategy" is a thoroughly abused word in general, and more so when it comes to a field like consulting

pps: Wetfeet guides would give a pretty broad idea of consulting....Although they take a spoon-feed approach