Consulting Network » Consulting

Consulting Wallpapers – An ode to the consulting profession

Mohit — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:40:20 +0000

Back in September 2008, We started Consulting Network with one simple goal. “To make Consulting Network a knowledge sharing and networking platform for both aspiring and practicing consultants”. Two years hence and with over 1500 registered members, countless email subscriptions and a dedicated fan following on Facebook and Twitter, we think we have climbed up a few stairs towards our ultimate goal. Today, we are going to drift a little from the usual articles that we publish. We are uploading some consulting specific wallpapers for download (click on each wallpaper to download the high resolution version). We hope these wallpapers inspire you. We would love to hear your feedback.

Also, we are soon launching a full fledged blog network. A blog network will help you and your blog reach out to thousands of readers that visit Consulting Network daily. We will be publishing more details on the blog network soon. So if you are an individual blog publisher or a Consulting company. then do get in touch with us at contactus@consultingnetwork.co.in to receive updates on the launch of our blog network.

No Consulting No Life

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5 Cardinal Sins of Business Writing:Shakespeare versus the Consultants!

Mohit — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 06:59:38 +0000

No Consulting No Life

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Consulting Network

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The Art of Choosing a Hotel (Consultant’s edition)

Guest Author — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 11:54:10 +0000

No Consulting No Life

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Consulting, Money, Differentiaton etc etc

Mohit — Fri, 28 May 2010 18:44:38 +0000

No Consulting No Life

No Consulting, No Life

Think, Analyze, Present

Consulting Network

The Consultant

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Internet Networking Etiquitte and Some Secrets

Mohit — Wed, 05 May 2010 06:21:37 +0000

No Consulting No Life

No Consulting, No Life

Think, Analyze, Present

Consulting Network

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Consulting Jobs: A two step plan to land that coveted job offer

Mohit — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:47:41 +0000

No Consulting No Life

No Consulting, No Life

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Consulting Network

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Mastering the Management Consulting Project Timeline

Jim Cochran — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:18:49 +0000

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

Telecom Trends and Predictions

Dennis Schooley — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 15:55:37 +0000

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

Consultancies return to MBA hiring

Gary Preston — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:46:10 +0000

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

The Intended Consequences of Incentives and Compensation

Marc Emmer — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 16:46:07 +0000

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

Consulting Network » Consulting

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