454: Lifestyle check: Improvement through self-assessment (with Shir Nir)

Week 1 of the financial services strategy study to enter the US retail banking sector is about done. You can see the detailed live-blogging of the day-by-day analyses, planning and insights here. This is a real study, done for a real client with a real team of consultants led by Firmsconsulting. Once the study is done, we will post the findings and detailed guide using the map format used for the corporate strategy study training. This podcast is a wrap-up of the week. We remind readers of the strategy we followed, all the goals we set for the week, our progress against those goals and our key findings thus far. We also discuss a potential scope change and how we will handle that. It is has been a great week and we wrap up things in New Mexico where the team is conducting more shadow studies / day-in-the-life-of studies of distribution financial intermediary in the border town of Columbus. Related: - Learn more about financial analysis in our strategy library

8 Aug 201528min

The majority of business gurus, journalists, periodicals, publications, journals, blogs, fashionistas and reality movie stars talk about the arrival of China like it is preordained by the Oracle. It is not. America has been here before. In fact America has been here 4 times in its history and each time the American model of government, system of capital allocation and creativity helped the country reinvent itself. In the next 18 months, Firmsconsulting will be leading 5 sweeping studies, at real clients, to find solutions to issues which impede US productivity growth. The detailed findings and extensive training videos to help you replicate such a study will be released once the studies are done. We will be bold and analyze some of the most vital and controversial issues including healthcare, immigration and the role of government. This podcast discusses the theme, training material and topic in more detail. Welcome to the era of America Renewed.

2 Aug 201514min

For those of you who want an update on where we are in Week 0 of the US financial services study, this podcast will provide a detailed update of the final preparation as the team goes into their on-boarding with just 5 days before the start date. Expect a few podcasts this week since I am leading the onboarding training and it is much quicker, and less rude, to prepare podcasts versus typing up updates in front of the interns. Next week, I will shift back to more written updates with a few podcasts and videos thrown in. Note that this study and the underlying issue of the economics of small business loans is a complex topic. It is best to read the live blog from the beginning to see how we have thought through the issue and structured the team to analyses the hypotheses. Related: - You can read about strategy related articles from our Quarterly - Learn more about financial analysis in our strategy library

27 Juli 201513min

Our managing partner Michael Boricki gave an interview at Accepted, a well known site for MBA admission.

21 Juli 201549min

This podcast is a response to the email below. The client wanted to know how to change a consulting firm so that her firm could compete against McKinsey.

15 Juli 201517min

This podcast is a controversial and thoughtful response to a letter from a reader who overheard his career counselor describing him as a "dumb black kid" who "has no future in business."

9 Juli 201525min

In this podcast we look at the rise of value modelling as a shiny new management technique in 2003 and its implosion in 2009. Value modelling is a lot like other big trends like the balance scorecard, business process re-engineering etc. which went belly-up.

3 Juli 201519min

Young consultants make some very common mistakes when they start out, and I explain how to use the strategy insight ratio to correct these problems.

27 Juni 201510min