Chip Greene, Partner & Asia Head

Vanessa Webb, Senior Principal

Ram Kapadia, Principal

Viren Pereira, Principal

Irina Kholkina, Associate

 

The Parthenon Group was founded in 1991 and has around 200 consultants in 4 offices across the world. Parthenon has offices in Boston, London, Mumbai and San Francisco. Parthenon has 16 members in its Mumbai office, which was opened earlier this year. Parthenon works across a broad array of industries with thrust on Private Equity due diligence and Education sector. India is Parthenon’s Asia headquarters.

Unique Business model: Parthenon combines Traditional Strategic consulting with At-Risk consulting and Strategic Value consulting. Parthenon charges its client on the basis of the quality of advice delivered and the enhancement in equity value of the client. It has pioneered a unique revenue model of taking up equity instead of charging a fixed fee. Professionals have the flexibility of working with a broad range of companies. Due to the niche operational space, Parthenon offers superior compensation to its advisory professionals.

Its three major revenue streams are Private Equity, Education (for-profit and not for profit companies) and Corporate Strategy. Most of the work done in Asia is focused on growth strategy. In Private Equity space, Parthenon focuses on due diligence on investment opportunities + strategy & performance improvement for portfolio companies. In its Education practice the focus is on growth strategy, business development and profit improvement.

The bulk of Parthenon’s professionals are graduates from Tuck, HBS, Sloan and Stanford. Parthenon had recruited 2 professionals from ISB last year.

Selection Criteria:

Parthenon looks for smart, nice and driven professionals having an entrepreneurial spirit. The firm focuses on building and preserving its relationships with clients and provides them with customized and actionable insights. The highly analytical nature of work demands that Parthenon recruit and retain extremely bright and intellectually curious individuals.

Pro-Bono assignments: Andre Agassi Charitable foundation, London Music Masters and Action For Kids

Charitable Donations: MESCO, Excel Academy Charter School and The Women’s Union

Volunteering: Action For Kids, INSPIRE

Career Track: 

The following are the positions and responsibilities in Parthenon’s hierarchy:

Principal: Execute & Manage

Case Team Leader: Execute, Manage and Lead

Senior Principal: Manage, Lead and Develop

Partner: Lead and Develop

How is Parthenon different?

Focus is on strategy formulation. The focus will predominantly be on strategy projects and not on operations and implementation

Responsibility: Consultants get a broader set of analytical, managerial and client responsibilities early on in their career

Opportunity: The opportunity to influence the direction of a growing entrepreneurial firm

Learning: Learning at an unparalleled rate with better access to firm leadership with a two-case model. Non-hierarchical structure

Compensation: Premium compensation driven by a unique mix of consulting and investing

Culture: Develop relationship with members for life

Timelines:

Resume submission: 15^th December

Interview: 17^th Jan

   

McKinsey & Company was represented by the following people at its pre-placement talk delivered at ISB on 25^th November:

Rajiv Lochan – Partner

Tilman Ehrbeck, Partner

Rohit Kapoor, ISB Alum Class of 2006

Rahul Sankhe, ISB Alum Class of 2002

Abhijeet Kulkarni, ISB Alum Class of 2008

Amit Jain, ISB Alum Class of 2008

Rishi Raj

Vikramjeet Singh

Ananya

McKinsey started its Indian operations in the year 1992. Around 22% of the professional staff is made up of M.D.s and PhDs. McKinsey had partnered with ISB (world’s youngest FT 20 business school) starting from 1996 to roll out and design the MBA program. McKinsey has worked on 120+ pro-bono assignments over the past one year.

People development is heavily focused on apprenticeship and mentorship.

Buddy – An experienced “buddy” in the office who can help each new hire integrate into McKinsey.

DGL – Every-one across tenures has a mentor to guide and help professional to perform better.

Engagement Directors/managers (ED/EM) – enable performance enhancement through timely and constructive feedback.

McKinsey holds structured training sessions that are mandatory at every tenure for all the consultants. McKinsey invests $ 150 million on knowledge development. McKinsey provides unmatched flexibility in terms of working lifestyle.

Application process

McKinsey looks for the following characteristics in the applicants:

Problem Solving – People who can think conceptually, logically, creativity

Leadership – Take initiative, seize opportunities, help build teams

Drive and Aspiration – Set high aspirations, achieve outstanding results

Personal impact – Interested in positively influence, listen to, understand and respond well to others

Important Dates:

30^th November – deadline for submission of resume

10^th December – announcement of shortlist

December – informals and interview preparations

17^th Jan – Interviews – 2-8 interviews (Case + personal) lasting around 45 minutes.

McKinsey recruits for generalists and does not recruit anyone for one particular sector/vertical.

 

• Shareholder wealth creation and EVA
• Implementing “Value based management” programs

                   o   How we do it

                   o   Does it work

• Current environment and implications for Indian business
• About Stern Stewart

Although Market Value Added (MVA) is the best measure of value, it poses some challenges from a performance measurement perspective, such as

1. Can’t measure if you don’t have a market
2. Volatility due to relationship with share price
3. Difficult to link with operating and/or financial metrics

Why EVA?

1. EVA is intrinsically linked to MVA and wealth creation
2. There is no need of a market to calculate EVA
3. Does not suffer from volatility on account of short term changes in market price

MVA is equal to the PV of all expected future EVAs

Current Operations Value (COV) = Capitalized Current EVA + Invested Capital.

Enterprise value (EV) = Future Growth Value (FGV) + PV of EVA + Invested Capital

FGV is subject to expectations and fluctuations and is highly correlated to market sentiments. FGV = PV (improvements in EVA year on year). Thus the job of the management is to improve EVA (current performance) and at the same time build options and initiatives for the future and communicate it to the market (increments in EVA y-o-y). This will improve FGV and EVA and result in improved EV.

The PV of EVA is fundamentally equal to NPV of FCF

EVA can be increased by increasing NOPAT (operations/profitability) and by reducing cost of capital (financing).

Stern Stewart’s value creation framework synthesizes organization’s value by

-          Profitability – affects NOPAT

-          Prospects – affects FGV

-          Financing – arrive at the ideal capital structure – affects cost of capital

Disadvantages of using EVA: EVA is not applicable if there are period of negative EVA and taking decisions in the short term, whereas in the long term net EVA could be positive.

Stern Stewart currently has 11 professionals in its Mumbai office. It has been present in Mumbai since 1999-2000. The growth (in terms of professionals) is based on the projects under implementation. The work is highly performance driven since the success of a particular project can be measured by the client and evaluated directly. Stern Stewart recruits professionals who have a corporate finance bent of mind. 

Somick Goswami, Associate Director PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) came down to ISB for the pre-placement talk.

He informed the batch that PwC has the following Strategic business units in its Advisory line of services: Financial Advisory Services (FAS), Performance Improvement (PI), Internal Audit Services (IAS) and Government Reforms and Infrastructure Development (GRID)

PI is the largest SBU within Advisory and has1500 consultants across 9 offices in India. Its primary task is to engage with clients to analyze the processes, transform the processes and eventually IT enable them. PI engages with the client for end to end projects.  PwC is the oldest advisory firm to set foot in India. It started out in 1880 with an office in Calcutta. PwC has been in India for 128 years and is the largest amongst Big 4 firms in India. In 1998 Coopers and Lybrand and Pricewaterhouse merged and formed a single entity known as PricewaterhouseCoopers.

PwC provides

-          World class training

-          Personalized career paths

-          Competitive compensation

-          Challenging projects

-          Bright, dedicated colleagues and

-          Innovative incentive awards

PwC has the following lines of services viz. Advisory, Assurance, Tax and Markets & Industry. Markets & Industry is a new business unit that caters to the business requirements of other business units and provides support in terms of expert industrial and market knowledge. In all its engagements, PwC draws its strength from being an integrated company providing services across the spectrum ranging from advisory, tax and audit. The entire work revolves around People, Technology and Process.

Key focus areas are

-          Risk and Regulation

-          IT Effectiveness

-          Finance function effectiveness

-          Strategy and Operations

-          People and Change

-          Outsourcing Advisory Services

-          eGovernance

-          Forensic Technology Services

In eGovernance, recently PwC was involved in evaluating proposals for automation of passport process.  PwC has also acquired a site that has wealth of information about the best practices across the globe http://globalbestpractices.com. Forensic Technology Services is a relatively new SBU and focuses on the fraud detection and prevention aspect of business.

So what’s going on in the campus? Life has been BAD, if not worse. I had expected that elective terms will bring some relief and respite from the regular grind of assignments and case studies, but I was disappointed. Elective term turned out to be the same as core term.

An interesting incident happened two days back. I ran into an old acquaintance of mine (friend of a friend from IIT Madras) when i was going to attend a pre-placement talk of a company. He had come to the campus for his interview as an applicant for next year. We had an animated and short discussion before I excused myself and rushed off to attend the talk. Next two days of the weekend were like mayhem, with all the alum sessions going on for different companies. I ran into him again and asked him about the interview. He said “Dude, with the kind of pressure I have seen you guys going through, I don’t think i can sustain that myself. I am afraid of doing MBA now”. At first I was happy with the empathetic talk but then i knew i had to do some damage control. I did allay his fears and apprehensions but the fact remains, “the pressure ain’t going down any further”. 

To an outside entity 3 days of weekend break looks like a perfect soothing balm for the hectic 4 days of lectures. But trust me, weekends are crazier and worse than weekdays. Firstly almost all the assignment due dates fall on Monday 8 AM. That means that Sunday day and night is spent coordinating with disparate study groups and “managing” the assignments. With the placement season round the corner, weekends are now hogged by alums and companies visiting us for placement preparation tips, resume reviews, case workshops, pre-placement talks and what not. So a typical weekend is spent in hopping from one session to another. The International round of placement process has already started with the short lists trickling in for few companies. 

Life ain’t getting better from now, but believe me you, it does give you an adrenaline rush. Despite of all the deadlines assignments, resume review sessions, case prep sessions, PPTs etc etc we do find out time for a party. So our section got together to celebrate the 3 dot 3 coup that we pulled off in the previous term. To get a detailed description of this “3 dot 3 funda” please visit my personal blog. The alums who were on campus also joined us at the party. For 3 hours everybody forgot about other crappy things in the world and just mingled with old section mates. And I think it is this ability to let our hair down, despite being swamped with deadlines, which is keeping us alive in this place. And my friend (the acquaintance mentioned above) missed out this aspect of the campus life. I am sure after looking at these pics he will revisit his comments.

 

Snaps from a Sec C party

Vikas Kaushal, Partner

Manish Mathur, Principal

Mahesh Subramaniam, Principal

Pamela Pattabiraman, Manager

Shelly Kapur, Senior Business Analyst

Vignesh Shankar, Senior Business Analyst

 

The focus of today’s session was “The Consulting Process”.

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:

-          International Opportunities

-          Mentoring

-          Constructive feedback –  after every engagement and twice a year

-          Training

 

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

 

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

 

After spending 4-5 years of consulting experience consultants develop:

-          Expertise in functional practices across industry verticals and a

-          Strong network with CXOs and business leaders

 

A typical consulting engagement involves the following processes

-          Planning

o   Define commitments

o   Plan

o   Prepare for fact gathering – data collection etc

-          Fact Gathering

o   Gather facts

o   Synthesize

-          Analysis

o   Draw Conclusions

o   Generate Recommendations

o   Structure Report

-          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.

 

One of the most critical phases of any assignment is – Gathering facts. There are 3 main sources of information

-          Primary research

-          Internal expertise

-          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. 

Booz gives a lot of importance to team work. Individual star performers do not succeed in Booz. Maintaining close and long lasting relationships with clients is key to Booz’ success in the industry. Booz is present across 30 countries. People model, Incentive and Rewards system are global and uniform across different territories. Telecom, Energy and Utilities, Financial Services, Automotive and engineering and consumer products are some of the key market segments that Booz has a formidable presence.

Booz has a major presence in Middle East and its business is growing rapidly. Booz started off in Middle East by setting up its office in Dubai in 1993 and built a solid foundation by educating its clients and helping them to grow their business. Booz is working with several Middle East governments to define national agenda to drive growth. Booz’ Dubai office has around 350 consultants hailing from diverse nationalities.

Booz is bullish on its Indian operations. Booz is opening its Delhi office in November. Booz’ Indian office will provide the flavor of a startup. By the end of April, Booz India office will have 25 consultants and will be ramped up to 100 within 3 years. The range of responsibilities that will be gives to the consultants will be diverse and Booz is looking at ramping up its staff in India. Quality of people, quality of work and quality of working environment are the three key motivators. There are 3 critical elements of management consulting, quality of clients and type of relationship, primacy and ability of the ideas and the quality of the professionals.

Analysis, problem solving, structure in dealing with clients are some of the qualities that Booz looks for in a prospective candidate. Comfort with numbers and analysis, pragmatism and softer aspects like team work, communications skills and leadership skills are some of the skills that Booz looks for. The most important skill is empathy. The quality and ability to empathize and understand the problems faced by the client is critical.

Roles at ISB: Booz offers two entry level roles for Graduates/Undergrates and MBAs. Graduates and undergraduates enter Booz at Consultant and Senior Consultant level. Typically MBAs and those with other advanced degrees join Booz & Company as Associates, whose focus is working with clients to identify, clarify, and resolve complex issues critical to strategic and operating success. Typical time taken for progression to the next level is typically 2-3 years. Booz does have an up or on model and uses 360 degree appraisal extensively. Booz extends help to its professionals who are looking to exit the company for another function.

Booz will be hiring for its India and Middle East offices. Usually there are 3-5 case interviews as part of the selection process CAS office will be uploading the details soon. Candidates will be interviewed by both India and Middle East team. Candidates can give their preferences for geographical location during the course of the interviews. 

India is the fifth largest energy consumer in the world, and its demand for energy is expected to increase further in the coming years. Moreover, India has the largest incremental energy consumption in the world and despite the country being the seventh largest producer of energy it is a net importer of energy.

On the one hand this poses a challenge to meet the increasing demand, while on the other it presents a great opportunity for the country to emerge as one of the most energy efficient countries of the world. There exists new energy paradigm that can fundamentally alter the ways in which the energy is produced and consumed. Emerging economies like India have the potential of becoming energy innovators in the future as they are confronted with the high cost of energy. In a bid to understand the changing dynamics of the Energy Sector, and explore the road ahead in India, Energy, Manufacturing and Operations Club (EMO) at ISB is hosting the ISB Energy Conclave.

In line with the theme, some of the topics that will be discussed are as follows:

1.      Energy self sustenance for the world – is it possibility?

2.      Challenges and opportunities considering growth of India Inc

a.       Hydrocarbon Opportunities in India.

b.      Nuclear Energy – the future opportunities for India?

c.       Opportunities in Alternative/Green Energy

3.      Emerging business model in the energy sector

4.      Rural energy problems – scope and economic feasibility

 

The Conclave is primarily targeted at the students in the school with a limited external participation.

The flagship event of the Energy, Manufacturing and Operations Club has been initiated for the first time at the Indian School of Business (ISB) this year. To address the dynamics of the energy sector with changing times, the club hopes to make this a regular event. At the Indian School of Business, the student body in general and the Energy, Manufacturing and Operations club (EMO club) in particular are very keen on understanding the current and future Energy trends and the ways to meet the future energy demands. The EMO club also focuses on identifying new opportunities in this sector and is looking forward to understand the future implications of the same. The club therefore, proposes to organize a panel discussion with the key energy producers in the country to understand the strategies to meet the impending energy challenges.

 

The placement season was kicked off with the pre-placement talk by Arthur D. Little. The Consulting Club of ISB had the honor of hosting Mr. Thomas Kuruvilla from Arthur D. Little for its pre-placement talk on 21^st October 2008.

These are some of the key issues that he discussed with the student body:

Presence in India: ADL has no presence in India currently and does not intend to in the near future. However if the project is based out of India, ADL will be glad to move associates in the region.

Selection Process: At Arthur D. Little (ADL) the selection process does not give advantage or disadvantage to people with substantial years of work experience. Thus prior work experience is irrelevant for ADL. Ideally what ADL looks for, is excellence in previous work profile. This is because the type of work that recruits indulge in after joining ADL, has little correlation with their prior work experience. ADL is looking to recruit candidate across all levels, thus candidates with entire range of work experience are welcome. Process involves:
- Screening resumes
- Short list based on the resumes: each resume gets 30sec view
- 4 to 5 rounds of interview
- initial rounds based on cases
- later rounds are more soft skill based

Career Progression: The lowest level is a designation called Business Analyst. These are for candidates with zero years of work experience. This is a research and analysis sort of a role. Movement in ADL solely depends on the performance after joining ADL. Prior history of the candidate becomes irrelevant as soon as he joins the company. The next level is Associate Consultant; this is for people who have 2-3 years of work experience but does not have prior strategy experience. Such recruits are expected to become Consultant within 1 evaluation period. Business Analyst and Associate Consultant are not expected to engage with the client at the strategic level. Consultants interact with clients directly. The next level is “Manager”; he manages a team of consultants and handles the interactions with clients on his own. Above manager, there is a designation of “Senior Manager”. Senior Managers are expected to involve themselves in business development role (with existing clients) in addition to their responsibility of case delivery to the client. Partner comes next and his role involves a wide gamut of activities, including selling projects to new clients.

Performance Management System (PMS): ADL does not have an “up or out” policy. People sometimes get double promotion and some remain in the same designation for a couple of years. The movement across hierarchy is purely based on the performance. PMS includes evaluation done by the case team and evaluation by the client. This forms the crux of the Performance Management system at ADL. Every person joining ADL is allocated to a mentor, who is two levels above the new recruit. Mentor’s role is that of a coach and he gives regular feedback on continuous improvement of the individual. Group of mentors decide on the compensation and bonus levels of their mentees.

ADL does not follow a rigid hierarchical structure or/protocol in its work. The team is empowered to delegate work among them, however the team is responsible and accountable for the results. The freedom given to the team members is on the higher level. ADL gives utmost importance to team work and willingness to share with and learn from colleagues. The entire team has to work at the client premises and with the client for the entire duration of the project.

ADL sometimes leaves the project at the stage of recommendations. Implementation of recommendation is a costly phase and thus certain clients want ADL to give its recommendation. Sometimes the strategy phase adds more value than implementation phase. Around 30-40 percent of the projects go on to the implementation phase.

Selection Criteria: The selection process is not only limited to Middle East or Singapore office. ADL Dubai office is responsible for Middle East and Singapore region. The final office location is decided after the candidate clears the initial 3 rounds and has been interviewed by the desired office.

There are around 5 rounds of interviews in the hiring process. Each round has a case and a general interview. The short list is done based on the resume. 80 percent of the candidates are screened out in the first 2 rounds. Most of the remaining candidates make it to the final round. If somebody wants to apply to the London office, then the first 3 rounds are handled by the Dubai office and the rest of the rounds are handled by London office. Around 80 percent of the recruits from Asia join Middle East, Malaysia or Singapore office. The selection criterion is standard across all locations. Openings are present across all levels and ADL does not have a number in mind. Usually ADL hires around 2-6 candidates from a B School. There is no fixed criterion for short listing the resume. Achievements in the past are given weight age and performance above average is expected in whatever a candidate does.  Prior experience in Middle East does not give a candidate any undue advantage. The EOI should cover the following points, Why Consulting, Why ADL and why should ADL hire you?

Compensation Package: ADL does not have any plans to open an office in India and there is no active business development in India. ADL pays the same package across all locations. In ADL the fixed variable proportion is different. The variable component is higher in ADL. The fixed pay is around industry average and the variable pay is at a substantially higher level. Thus the salary levels are linked to the firm’s performance.

Functional Domains: ADL is known as a strong player in functions where technology has a role to play. ADL operates in almost all the function though its strength lies in TEACH (Telecom, Energy, Automotive, Chemicals and Healthcare). ADL also does a lot of work with family owned businesses. Roughly 60 percent of the projects are from Middle East region, 20 percent of the projects pertain to Dubai and the rest are located in the rest of the world.

 

Amit Jain (Class of 08, HLL 4 yrs)
Neha Kalra (Class of 08, ITC 3 yrs)
Neha Mittal (Class of 08, Deloitte 2 yrs)
Sambit Sathapathy (Class of 03, ITC 11 yrs)
Vikas Chadha (Class of 07, L&T 6 yrs, Sharp 6 yrs)
Lav Agarwal (Class of 2005, HLL 5 yrs)
Raj Kamal (Class of 03, IAS 8 yrs)
Ruchi Kalra (Class of 07, Evalueserve 2 yrs)

Saket Pradhan (IIMA PGPX, 10 yrs)

 

I feel that the highlight of the visit was getting to know the work culture more closely instead of the usual projects or the life of a consultant at McKinsey.

Life at McKsiney
Our conversation started around trying to understand the work-life balance at Mckinsey. We spoke at length about different support systems available at McKinsey that help employees cope with their work mixed with travel and their personal lives. We got a first person account of this from Bharati, who is the recruiting coordinator at McKinsey. Since joining McKinsey, she had to quit the firm 3 times for personal reasons and was able to join back again. She also told us how flexible McKinsey was, and that the company was willing to work with her and gave her the option of working part time when she had to quit for personal reasons. Our conversation also revolved around the up-or-out policy that most of us are familiar with. It was pleasantly surprising when our alums told us that they know of no one who had been asked to quit. They admitted that on a day to day basis, work does get stressful, but that there are excellent support systems available to help employees to cope with it and the firm makes all possible efforts to retain its people.

Experiences of Alums
The alums shared some of their experiences with us and their motivation for being a part of McKinsey. A theme that resonated across all of them was the opportunity that McKinsey provides for individual development and personal growth. Each of them related a unique memorable experience at McKinsey. Besides this, Ruchi walked us through the different phases involved in a typical client engagement and answered some of the questions we had. The alums also highlighted McKinsey’s role in ensuring implementation of its recommendations after the consulting phase is over in order to ensure the client’s success.

Office tour
We also had a quick office tour where we got to know about the facilities available to employees. The office does not have cubicles for every employee since most people travel often. It instead has team rooms where different consulting teams work together on their projects. The McKinsey office also houses a Gymnasium and a cafeteria. There is also VA (Visual Aids) group dedicated exclusively to the Delhi office. This group provides support to the consulting teams by helping the teams with their PowerPoint and any other form of communication document that they want to present to the client. We also had a quick chat with a partner who shed some light on the clients served out of the Delhi office. The Delhi office serves clients in various sectors including power, healthcare, retail, infrastructure, real estate, technology, government, public sector, non-profit, media, etc.

Life after McKinsey
Towards the end we also talked about some exit options that consultants have. The alums were very open about discussing this topic. Around 20% of people leaving McKinsey go on to become entrepreneurs. Most others go on to join PE firms or some top management position in the industry, depending on the position from which they leave the firm. Quite a few of them also opt to work in the development sector with NGOs.