Life of a consultant

There is no typical day for a consultant but this is example of week on a traveling case. Again schedule depends from person to person and case to case. Also, this is based on my first couple of weeks on my first case so take this with a grain of salt. However, this should give you some insight into what to expect.

Monday

5:30 AM - Get up

6:30 AM - Cab to airport

7:30 AM - On flight, hello to other team mates on the flight and quick updates. catch up some quick work/reading for the case or get some more sleep

9:00 AM - land in Melbourne

9:45 AM - Client office

9:45 AM - 10AM - E-mails, quick chats, some planning

10 AM - 11AM - Joint planning meeting with client

11 AM - 12:30 - Getting done to some work Primarily follow ups but also Analysis, planning, data gathering or thinking time

12:30 - 1:00 PM - Lunch with team

1:30 - 2:00 PM - work stream planning and updates with Case team leader

2:00 - 3:00 PM - Discussion with partner

4:00 - 7:30 PM - get down to work

7:30 - 9:00 PM - Dinner and D chat with case team leader

10:00 PM - 12:00 PM - finish up days work. Must do work for client presentations next day

Tuesday

6:00 AM - get up

6:30 AM - 7:15 Am - Gym

8:15 Am - at work

8:30 AM - 10:00 AM - Call to international clients

10:00 AM - 11:00 AM - issues/roadblocks/planning discussion with CTL

11:00 AM - 12:30 PM - work

12:30 PM - 1:30 PM - working lunch and case team discussion

1:30 PM - 7:30 PM - Work (Data collection, Analysis, client calls, Thinking time, brainstorming, discussing hypothesis, solutions)

7:30 PM - 9:00 PM - casual dinner with team or other traveling consultants

9:00 PM - 11/12 - urgent work for next day

Wednesday

Very similar to Tuesday some different meetings, different activities. More stressful.

Thursday

Simlar except

5PM - Catch cab to airport

Work in the airport/plane and back home if a C-level client meeting is coming up.

Friday

9 AM - At Office

9 - 10 AM - E-mails, catch up

10 - 11AM - Administrative work, expenses.

11 AM - 12PM - Work

12PM - 1PM - catch with other consultant/friends over lunch

1 PM - 4PM - Very focussed at work. Get things done!

4 pm - 6 PM - Office meeting(once a month). Drinks and cake(always)

7 PM - After work drinks...

Ready for weekend

Consulting summer internship in Sydney

I have done so much in the past few weeks both on and off work that I feel I can write a book on my summer internship and time in Australia. I am still a blogger though and I will make an attempt to distill all that in a blog post. As a result this post would naturally appear more as a laundry list rather than insightful write up of my experience. Hopefully in the near future I can follow up with some thoughts and reflections.

After the first couple of weeks of settling in I was beginning to get deeply involved in my project. The project was an organizational transformation initiative for a Business unit for a huge telecom company. As part of this initiative we were looking at Profitability analysis, operational performance, organization, performance evaluation, service and growth strategy all organized into different work-streams. I got to own a work-stream as well as contribute to analysis and discussions in other streams. Our team was based out of Melbourne so I was on the road for most of my internship. I definitely did enjoy the traveling-consultant lifestyle but it does get tiring. Another interesting aspect of my team was all the five members were from different continents. It was also somewhat reflective of the diversity in the office. For obvious reason I cannot divulge the details of the work I did but it was definitely exciting and I got to contribute a great deal. Darden first year had prepared me really well for this internship as I was well versed in different business areas as well had more than adequate analytical, communication and leadership skills to excel in my work.

Our company also organized numerous events and social activities. These included the Sydney harbor bridge climb, several lunches and dinners with other consultants at some of the best restaurants, client briefs with partners, AFL (Australian football league) experience at MCG in Melbourne, experience sharing meetings with consultants and managers and a dinner at partner's houses. There was no dearth of activities to keep us engaged and entertained as well as give us a good insight into the lifestyle of consultants, managers and partners. To add to that we also indulged in the office social events and the consultant off-site.

We (SAs) did get together to plan a few events ourselves. First was an exciting trip to Blue Mountains where we hiked one day and explored the ‘Jenolan caves’ the next. The place is just a couple of hours drive from Sydney but being there it felt isolated and exotic. All of us really loved this adventurous experience. The second was a trip to Phillip Island where the highlight was seeing the penguins, feeding the Koala, wallabies and kangaroos. I have never seen these animals live before so that was great first for me.

I would sum up my summer experience as very rewarding both on and off work. I don't think this post does justice to that but if you get an opportunity to see some of the pictures you will get a better taste. I came off learning a lot, enjoying myself, developing good relationships and not to forget getting the offer! I was definitely very pleased to secure the offer. Too wrap it all up we received personalized cuff links from Tiffany and co as parting gifts. With the summer internship wrapped up I am excited to get back to Darden for the Second year program.

Management Consulting Summer Internship in Sydney – Week 1-2

We started our internship with 3-day training in resort in cape-cod. We were all provided lavish rooms in villas on the resort and most of the training took place in the conference rooms in the villa. The event as much for socializing with other interns form all over world as familiarizing us with tools used by the firm. Also included were case practice and sessions to help us understand what to expect in the consulting world. I particularly enjoyed the social events in the evening; casino night was easily my favorite.

After a long flight we reached Sydney on Monday and were glad that we didn’t have to go to work today. I joined another intern to explore the surroundings and get a first look at Sydney. At first impressions I compared Sydney to New York, lot smaller with little more culture and lot more flair, ah and of course lot better weather too.

View of Sydney harbour bridge from down the street

Our office was on the 22nd floor right in downtown with a great view of the opera house, Sydney harbor and the bridge. You feel truly blessed to have such a view at work. We figured that concentrating on work would be a challenge to which our manger joked about putting us on the opposite side of the building but thankfully didn’t. We were setup with laptops and familiarized with the processes and policies. The rest of the week was slow as we got onboard and up to speed on the project. We did get opportunities to meet with partners and they briefed on some of the work they were doing. I was amazed at both the quality of the work and opportunities to make such a huge impact. It all sounded very interesting. Some of the B-school myths about consulting were getting cleared.

View from our office

There were 4 interns from US B-schools HBS, Tuck, Hass and Darden (me) and one from Melbourne Business school. The US school interns were all based in Sydney, by choice. I was assigned to a project for one of the big banks in Australia. However, the client suddenly decided to cut back on costs as it approached end of financial year (End of July in Australia) as a result the project was delayed. As an intern, it was not possible for me to wait so they reassigned me very quickly to a project for a telecom client. This work pertained more to organizational change and turnaround, which I had no previous experience in and hence very excited to pursue. I always thought I would be pretty good in organizational issues through my years of experience in service industry but I guess I’ll find out soon. IN spite of quick reassignment I had free time on Thursday and I was offered an opportunity to leave early and explore Sydney. I took the opportunity and headed to check out Bondi Beach which though not crowded was a good sight. I still firmly believe that nothing can beat the beaches back home in Goa.

Bondi Beach
The weekend the office headed for a Ski-trip offsite to Thredbo. The winter here has just about started and we landed their on the first weekend the Ski slopes opened. Rumour has it the entire event was moved up so that Summer Associates could participate. That would make us an unpopular group but if the office folks felt such emotions they did a good job of hiding it! With only one ski slope open most people chose to skip skiing in favor of hike to Mt. Kosciusko. There was plenty of snow around and it was just slightly above freezing. The 3 hour hike and back was delightful. A small group of us had some extra fun slipping and sliding on the slopes rather than sticking to the trail. The scenery around was beautiful and especially so while sitting on the lift up and down as it allowed us time to view and absorb it. Later that night we had bit party at the local bars and club. It started just before the France-Australia rugby test and went late into the night. The dinner and drink expenses were all borne by our firm which I thought was exceptional generosity. My HBS-buddy and me ordered a Kangaroo and we had the pleasure of cooking it as well. It’s very common to find “cook it yourself” places in Australia apparently and I enjoyed both the Kangaroo and the experience of cooking it.

On our way up to Mt kosciusko

Next morning we tried a run on the bob-sled which was lot of fun. On our way back our colleagues were generous enough to divert to Canberra to give us a glimpse of the city. We also stopped by parliament building for a few minutes. We were back in Sydney late evening. I reflected on the exciting and eventful first 2 weeks on my internship.

Parliment building in Canberra
To be continued…