539: A strategy to navigate a paradox (with Wendy Smith)

This series of detailed podcasts provides prospective applicants to our program all the information they need to put together an application package, do well in the screening interviews, and, should they be the offered a place in the Firmsconsulting program, succeed at their McKinsey, BCG et al interviews. MBA clients are the dominant group we train. We serve clients from over 30 MBA programs worldwide with a wide range of backgrounds. The majority of our teaching techniques are designed with this group in mind and tested with our core clients at the Harvard Business School. "The Consulting Offer" for example, was designed and tested with this group, and modified for all clients.

27 Maalis 20147min

This series of detailed podcasts provides prospective applicants to our program all the information they need to put together an application package, do well in the screening interviews, and, should they be the offered a place in the Firmsconsulting program, succeed at their McKinsey, BCG et al interviews. How we select candidates: We select candidates from a wide variety of schools: the Ivy League schools to regional schools outside the U.S. and have worked with clients from over 50 different schools. We have a policy of balancing each month's intake with stronger candidates and Firmsconsulting Emerging Fellows. At least half the intake is from the emerging markets and is female. Our most important criteria is whether a candidate could be taught the skills to obtain an offer, maintain our very strong value systems and rise to leadership in consulting or their chosen field.

21 Maalis 201413min

This series of detailed podcasts provides prospective applicants to our program all the information they need to put together an application package, do well in the screening interviews, and, should they be the offered a place in the Firmsconsulting program, succeed at their McKinsey, BCG et al interviews. This is a selective program run by former principals/senior partners of McKinsey and BCG who conduct all the training and mentoring. We prize client confidentiality and never disclose client relationships, and clients are expected to reciprocate and never disclose our extensive support of their careers.

15 Maalis 201424min

In this podcast, by the editor, we discuss the very counter-intuitive manner in which McKinsey and BCG partners manage engagements, teams and clients. We present 5 crucial differences which may seem nuanced, but have a powerful ripple effect in managing client relationships. Set in the Brazilian interior, this book follows an engagement team as they assist Goldy, a large Brazilian gold miner, in diagnosing and fixing deep and persistent organisational issues. This book will follow an engagement team over an 8 week assignment and explain how they successfully navigate a challenging client environment, develop hypotheses, build the analyses and provide the final recommendations. It is written so the reader may understand, follow and replicate the process. The book is 252 pages in length and written by former management consulting partners and case leaders. This is the only consulting guide taking readers on a day-by-day and step-by-step journey through a complete engagement. MBA students contemplating a career in management consulting will find this book to a useful companion introduction. Consultants can learn the techniques of the leading management consulting firms. This book contains the 252-page book and a single power point file of the material used in the book.

9 Maalis 201419min

This is a related podcast to our mining book.

3 Maalis 201412min

This detailed podcast, by the engagement partner, discusses a striking reality of most engagements: a problem is never what it appears to be at first. In this Succeeding as a Management Consulting book, the engagement begins as a broad study of the agricultural sector in Canada and the economics of various business models. The study quickly focuses on the physical retail operations as this appears to be the main opportunity to fix this organizations decline.

25 Helmi 201412min

This detailed podcast, by the engagement senior-partner, discusses the most challenging assignment Firmsconsulting took on to advise a client in preparing one of the Succeeding as a Management Consultant books. The client was a state-run electricity utility in Latin America which was undergoing a significant build program to add capacity for a burgeoning economy while dealing with an aging asset base causing power outages, impacting foreign-direct-investment and decimating national productivity.

19 Helmi 201410min

This detailed podcast, by the engagement partner, discusses the difficulties faced by many European State-Owned-Enterprises during the 2008-2011 recession when many simultaneously saw a drop in revenue and state subsidies. The engagement team in this book led the work to develop a strategy for the courier business of a heavily-indebted European Postal service.

13 Helmi 201411min