AT Kearney kicked off their interaction with ISB with a captivating session on “The Consulting Processâ€. ATK was represented by the following people:
Vikas Kaushal, Partner
Manish Mathur, Principal
Mahesh Subramaniam, Principal
Pamela Pattabiraman, Manager
Shelly Kapur, Senior Business Analyst
Vignesh Shankar, Senior Business Analyst
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The focus of today’s session was “The Consulting Processâ€.
AT Kearney has been in operations for last 82 years and is one of the oldest management consulting firms. It has two offices in India, Gurgaon (Delhi) and Mumbai and has 110 consultants in its India offices. A career with ATK offers:
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â International Opportunities
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Mentoring
-         Constructive feedback – after every engagement and twice a year
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Training
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ATK has the following levels in the hierarchy and the skills required for each of the levels are:
Business Analyst and Senior Business Analyst–> analytical skills, problem solving, communication skills, creativity, teamwork
Associate & Manager -> Project Management and Team Management
Principal & Partner -> Business Development, Client Relationship, Thought Leadership
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Consulting offers a rewarding and fast paced career path, however some of the exit options provided by ATK at different levels are:
 Senior BA/Associate -> Senior Functional Manager
Manager -> CXO, Private Equity, Functional Head (Strategy, Finance etc)
Principal/Partner -> CXO, Board Member
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After spending 4-5 years of consulting experience consultants develop:
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Expertise in functional practices across industry verticals and a
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Strong network with CXOs and business leaders
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A typical consulting engagement involves the following processes
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Planning
o  Define commitments
o  Plan
o  Prepare for fact gathering – data collection etc
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Fact Gathering
o  Gather facts
o  Synthesize
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Analysis
o  Draw Conclusions
o  Generate Recommendations
o  Structure Report
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Communications
o  Communicate results
ATK conducted a role play based on a client meeting. 5 students played the role of ATK team who were scheduled to interview a client. This presented a real life scenario of dealing with and handling client relationships. The role play was very well enacted and the students enjoyed it along with some insights on how to handle and manage client relationships.
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One of the most critical phases of any assignment is – Gathering facts. There are 3 main sources of information
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Primary research
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Internal expertise
-Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Secondary research
Primary research means reaching out to sources of information in the industry and is the most challenging source of information. Some of the sources of primary research are Industry experts, leading researchers, current customers, material suppliers and potential customers etc.
ATK follows “Pyramid Technique†for structuring the analysis that it does for the clients. Pyramid technique works on the principal of logical grouping of information.Â
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