2. Lecture 1
Introduction & Syllabus
• Types of consulting and consulting organisations
• Need for consulting and consultants – how businesses use them
• Consulting roles
• Why become a consultant?
• Day in the life of a consultant
• Leadership – the need for self-awareness (15 mins)
• Discuss syllabus and what will be covered in each session (15 mins)
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3. Consulting landscape
• Corporate Strategy
– McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Booz, Accenture
– Examples of corporate strategy consulting
• Market entry
• Growth strategy
• Merger & Acquisition
• Product strategy
• High level technology strategy
• Functional Strategy
– Deloitte, KPMG, PwC, EY
– Examples of functional strategy
• Go-to-market and sales effectiveness
• Operational process reengineering
• Shared-services
• Finance processes and transformation
• IT strategy
• Process improvements using technology
• Delivery and Implementation
– System Integrators
– Consulting companies
3
• Commercial models
– T&M
– Fixed price + buffer
– Range
– Revenue/growth share
VIDEO – IT Strategy
4. Why do companies hire consultants?
• Advisory
– Gain cross-industry knowledge and experience
through consultant
– Gain good advice from consultant’s past experience
with similar organisation and subject matter.
• To enable decision-making at the Executive and Board
levels
– Non-impacted party – objective advisory
– Support for executive’s decisions
– Board’s review of executive decision
– Advisory to board
• Resource capacity
– Current team do not have capacity to undertake
project or program of work
– Consultants are meant to be able to quickly learn the
business and processes and add value and get the
work accomplished
4
• New ideas
– Gain access to new ideas of doing things – based on
consultants experience
– Brainstorm with intelligent and experienced
consultants to resolve challenges
• Influence change
– Bring in externals to influence changes within the
organisation and teams
– Team sizing exercises so there is little influence of
relationships when making decisions on reduction of
workforce
• Deliver
– Manage and run project delivery, including managing
internal employees as part of the project.
– Manage and deliver IT projects that suit business
needs, based on delivery experience in other
organisations and industries
5. Reading Material - Case Studies
• AI related – McKinsey & Co.
– https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/how-we-help-clients/an-ai-power-play-fueling-the-next-wave-of-innovation-in-the-
energy-sector
• Digital Transformation - KPMG
– https://kpmg-digital-design.com/roadmap-for-digital-transformation-in-the-energy-sector
• HR Solution - SAP
– https://www.sap.com/australia/about/customer-stories/kmart.html
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6. Consulting stories…
6
Problem Statement
Approach
Outcomes
• Losing sales in a specific segment to
competitor
• Customer satisfaction was moderate
• Customers were asking for self-
service
• Assess and determine true challenges -
customer experience, manual processes
• Option design: 1) Improve existing
processes, 2) Create online experience
• Recommendation
• Deliver
• Implemented a new online experience for
customers who wanted self-service.
• Growth in double digits
• Reduction in churn of customers
• Improved customer satisfaction
• Revenue targets met, with better
forecasting and planning
7. Consulting stories continued…
7
Problem Statement
Approach
Outcomes
• Current ERP provider is getting costly
while also lagging in quality of features
and scalability
• System performance is lacking
• Customer experience is significantly
lacking
• Financially, vendor seems unstable
• Assess current situation
• Option design 1) Replace, 2) Build skin
on top of ERP, 3) Integrate to new
financial system, then replace
transactional system
• Recommendation: #2
• Deliver
• Delivered a new cart-like experience
(UI/UX) skin on top of the ERP, using API
integrations with ERP.
• Significantly improved transaction
processing
• Competitors began to emulate this setup
and ERP vendor asked to buy the product
8. Consulting roles
• Partnership consulting organisations
– Partner
– Director
– Senior Manager
– Manager
– Senior Consultant
– Consultant/Associate
• Privately owned consulting organisations
– Owner/Director
– Head of Consulting
– Senior Manager/Principal Consultant
– Manager
– Consultant
– Associate
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• IT Consulting project roles
– Product manager
– Project manager
– Functional consultants
– Test manager
– Testers
– Business analysts
– Developers
– Integration specialists
– Change manager
– Change analyst
– Technical analyst
– Solutions designer
– UI/UX designers
– Solutions architect
– Program manager
– Others…
VIDEO – IT CONSULTANTS - Deloitte
VIDEO – IT CONSULTANTS - EY
VIDEO – IT CONSLTING SKILLS - SAP
9. Why opt for consulting?
• Training ground for fast paced knowledge transfer to you
• Gain experience across multiple types of projects and learn to deal with different types of people and stakeholders
• Soft skills training – not easy to gain in a non-consulting environment
• Work with smart people
• Learn more in shorter timeframes
• Ability to move through project teams and take up different roles
• Content knowledge especially with delivery roles can increase significantly
9
Q: Please write down for yourself – 3 reasons you want to be an IT consultant.
10. Day in the life of a consultant
• Stakeholder management with
– Your manager
– Your client project sponsor
– Client team you are interacting with
– Your coach within the consulting organisation
• Meetings with
– Your manager
– Your project team lead
– Your client contacts
– Starting positions may only sit in meetings as
observers
• Presentations to
– Your internal project team members
– To clients (as you move up the chain)
• Solve
– Problems on-hand
– Assist your manager with resolving challenges
– Assist your team mates if they get stuck
– Think for your team and manager! (V.IMP)
10
• Analysis and reports on
– Processes and tasks that are assigned to you by your
manager or project team
– Understand and use tools available, with guidance
from manager or project team
– Be proactive to learn more
• Participate in
– Client socials
– Internal team socials
– Knowledge based sessions
– Trainings
– Be proactive
Q: Please write down for yourself – what kind
of consulting work you would like to do.
VIDEO – IT CONSULTING VS MGMT. CONSULTING
11. Key traits of leaders
• Why is this topic important?
– You will be working with leaders in your client companies
– You will want to move up the chain and take up management roles in future
– Leadership is important irrespective of any role you take up, irrespective of where the role sits within the organisation
– To understand people and conduct stakeholder management, one must understand oneself, be self-aware
– Smart consultants need to advice, ideate, guide, and deliver. To do this one must constantly learn and grow
• Management is 80% people management.
– Requires understanding of people and what their motivations are, what their challenges are and their strengths.
– Requires managers to be on their toes and be available to their team
– Take responsibility and accountability for their team, create an environment of loyalty and respect
– Work is not challenging, managing people can be… so get better at it faster and sooner if you want to become a manager.
– It is okay to be a subject matter expert and not manage people (specialist doctors, testers, trainers, business analysts)
• Importance of self-awareness
– The only way is to go deeper to understand better - take an inside-out approach, introspective approach
• Conquer your fears – key to growth
– External fears
– Internal fears
• Constantly learn and grow
– Physical
– Emotional
– Mental
11
Q: What according to you are three traits necessary for
leaders of today and tomorrow? Share them in class.
12. Key traits of leaders continued…
• Breaking patterns – important for growth
– If you keep doing the same thing and expect different results, it is a sign of insanity – Albert Einstein
– Seek out experts to analyse your behaviors
– Understand what is causing those behaviors.
– One must learn to analyse situations and people in those situations to be able to ideate remedies or mitigations for situations
BIG LESSON LEARNED: Unless you change yourself, you will not be able to attract different things to yourself
• Resilience
– How you deal with tough situations will determine the type of leader you are and will be
– Forgive yourself. Learn to move on after you have learnt what you need to from the event/situation.
– Must try something at least 3 times, before you quit and let go.
– Play golf – it will teach you patience and resilience. Play some sport.
Seek out expert advice when you need help. Always!
Something I struggle with is ‘Just Being’. This is also important. With consulting, one multi-tasks constantly and
there can be a tendency to constantly achieve and constantly push oneself – but equally important is to learn to
let go and relax when you need to. Find your ways of balancing work and life.
12
Q: Make a list of 3 things you want to change in yourself. Analyse and go deeper into
what may be the cause and then seek out advice on how to change.
VIDEO – 7 TRAITS OF A LEADER
13. Group Assignment Inputs: Problem Statements
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GROUP Industry PROBLEM STATEMENT
Group A
1. Electronic
goods
2. Non-specialty
or commodity
Clothing.
3. Home
accessories
4. DIY tools
Customers of a retail chain are
requesting better turnaround times for
their purchases and delivery and your
organisation needs to figure out
solution/s to it.
*Make your assumptions on what is
causing delays in turnaround for
customers – typical to retail industry
Group B
1. Car rental
2. Construction
equipment
hire
3. Motorbike
rental
4. Furniture
rental
Operations team of a product rental
company are complaining about the
amount of repetitive tasks they have to
do on a daily basis, taking away time
from doing their jobs – dealing with
customers.
*Make your assumptions on the types
of repetitive tasks typical to a rental
operations company
Group C
1. Medical device
2. E-commerce
3. Construction
4. Space
operations
Sales team is unable to provide
accurate forecast of their sales as
everything is managed using
spreadsheets and they are updated by
multiple parties.
*Make your assumptions on the types
of sales forecasts needed in the
industry, and sales metrics used as KPI
for measuring performance
Discuss your problem statement
and come up with an interview
guide.
Identify roles you will need to
interview within the client (who
will you interview and for what
reason? – think about your
questions and also about testing
your hypotheses of potential
reasons for the company’s
challenges)
VIDEO – LEADERSHIP Vs MANAGEMENT
