If you want to hone your managerial skills and climb the corporate ladder, management consultancies are where you should be, says Rahul Chawra Management consultancy is fast becoming indispensable in assisting mainstream management in issues regarding innovation and change. It is a dynamic profession offering a wide range of services to senior corporate management. Kennedy Information estimates that total management consulting revenues worldwide hit a whopping $100 billion in 1999 and was growing rapidly at that time. Experienced in industry and commerce, one can apply one’s skill and knowledge on a wider basis as consultants, drawing from a variety of situations that no one firm can provide. Management consultancy thus acts as a good training ground for those wanting to broaden their managerial skills and a veritable ladder to senior management positions in the industry. Of course, to those who are prepared to accept the challenge and discipline the profession demands. Professor Rajat S Bakshi of Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, defines the management consultant as, “a person who has to address the same problem as a manager, that is, how to tailor situations, external and internal, to arrive at the desired objective for an enterprise. It is not that capable internal managers cannot achieve this but there are certain inherent advantages when you call for outside specialists, which is mainly the unbiased and detached way of looking into the problems.” What consultants really do Management consultants are primarily required to provide wider expertise than is available within a single organisation. Thus a change in production or marketing may require expertise in designing and implementing a new system. Secondly, management consultants are needed to provide objective appraisals where it is often easier for the trained outsider to see the long-term requirements of the company. Thirdly, the management consultant may have to provide additional assistance where there is a temporary increase in the management workload, which may arise with a major change or a new development. Reet Chaudhuri, a business consultant in a renowned consulting firm, says, “We usually have two types of work. Firstly, an assignment wherein we have to work on the site of the client. Secondly, the internal work of an organisation such as preparing proposals.” On joining a management consultancy firm, a novice will normally receive several months of induction and training whilst also being under the guidance of an experienced consultant. During this period, the diagnostic skills of the trainee consultant are developed and the professional standards of the firm impressed on the mind. Possessing good communication skills is a must, for the ability to present thoughts and ideas clearly to clients is of utmost importance. Trainees are also given the opportunity to conduct detailed day-to-day assignments and surveys designed to diagnose clients’ problems and establish agreed terms of reference for future consulting work. Assignments are reviewed regularly at meetings where progress is monitored and recorded. At the end of an assignment the consultant presents findings and recommendations in the form of a report. He/she may also be involved in the process of implementing the report’s recommendations or for having regular progress checks. A consultant often has to work with both senior management and employees of lower levels, depending upon the nature of the assignment. Dr M L Shrikant, Dean S P Jain Institute of Management and Research, says that the consultancy professionals should also be socially savvy to be able to interact with all kinds of people representing different hierarchies. Some typical assignments n Reviewing an organisation’s corporate objectives and strategies.

U21Global, the world’s premier online Graduate School, announced its second cohort of graduates today. A special ceremony was held in Singapore to mark the graduation of 192 students, an increase of more than 100 over the previous year. The graduating class consists of working executives from 22 countries including Australia, Canada, India, Malaysia, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, Korea, China, Hong Kong, USA and Singapore.

Speaking at the graduation ceremony, Professor Sir Colin Campbell, Chairman of the U21Global Board and President and Vice-Chancellor of The University of Nottingham said, “It gives me great pleasure to congratulate this year’s graduating class. At U21Global, we take pride in our reputation as pioneers in providing the highest quality of education in an online environment and the fact that our programmes are quality assured by leading international universities. We are confident that the education that has been provided towards this degree will allow our graduating students to surge ahead in their careers.”

At the ceremony, U21Global presented the Academic Excellence Award, an award that recognises Master degree graduates who not only achieved academic excellence but demonstrated high standards of social responsibility and ethics throughout their degree. This year five students were chosen from the graduating class to receive the award.

One of the graduating student, Imran Vohra, Product Manager at DA-Desk, Hamriya Free Zone Sharjah, UAE said, “My aim in doing the MBA programme was to make it easier for me to climb the corporate ladder from middle management to senior management, and I can see I am getting there. It has been worth the time and effort invested in getting my MBA at U21Global.”

Another graduate Stephen Pearce, Training Manager, Dubai, UAE added, “U21Global has surpassed my expectations of what an online degree entails. Without the flexibility, structure and ease of learning of the course materials I would not have been able to complete my MBA. I can also feel that my outlook on future employment is a lot more positive than it was two years ago and I am very much looking forward to utilising my newly learned skills by means of imparting my now comprehensive and up to date business knowledge on peers, colleagues and senior management alike.”

“This is indeed a momentous occasion and it gives me immense honour to congratulate all our graduates on their academic accomplishments. I take this opportunity to also wish them success in their chosen fields and personal pursuits,” said Nick Hutton, Chief Executive Officer, U21Global.

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Byline: Reported by Arnab Mitra, Kushan Mitra, Priyanka Sangani, E. Kumar Sharma, Supriya Shrinate and Nitya Varadarajan

Sanjiv Lamba boasts the kind of resume any MBA would die for; only, he isn’t an MBA. At 39, Lamba is the managing director of BOC India. He started off as a junior exec, “doing all the things no one else wanted to, including photocopying documents and fetching coffee for the bosses”, as he once mentioned to this magazine; three-and-a-half years later, he earned a two-year stint with the parent, impressed people there sufficiently to have his stay extended by a further two years, and returned to India in 1997, when he was just 32, as General Manager (Finance). In late 2001, after he had turned around the fortunes of the company, he was named CEO (he was then 36, and the average age of employees was 43). “I emphatically disagree with the view that an MBA is sine qua non for running a company or indeed, for rising up the corporate ladder,” he says. “What matters most is the ability to envision and execute; here, experiential learning provides the single most important input in a successful manager’s repertoire.” The man is right, of course, but circa 2004, even he would find it difficult to replicate his success-without an MBA, that is.

It isn’t that business has changed enough in Lamba’s years at BOC-he is a lifer, and has spent 15 years at the company-to make an MBA qualification indispensable, even at the entry level. It is just that the market has changed dramatically since the time Lamba signed on with BOC. Today, no one stops with a mere graduate degree. Those with a bachelors degree in arts, science, or commerce, proceed to a masters degree, either in their own discipline, or in management; and those with a bachelors degree in engineering, opt for a Master of Science degree in the US or an MBA from an Indian or US B-school. At one level, this phenomenon has resulted in the mushrooming of business schools. At another, it means it isn’t really worth its while for a company to recruit from undergraduate campuses; there may be some undergraduates good enough to merit admission to B-schools who choose to work instead, but their numbers are insignificant. In effect, to get ahead and land a job with a blue-chip company, an individual needs to possess an MBA.

Just ask Ravinder Zutshi, Director, Samsung India. The man is a science graduate (from the University of Delhi) and while he has himself not suffered from having not gone to a B-school, he believes the times make it imperative to do so. “The current dynamics of business do not allow growth without being an MBA, and there is no time for any internal (training) initiative on the company’s part.” That is an opinion seconded by B.V.R. Subbu, President, Hyundai Motor India, and another non-MBA (he holds a masters degree in economics from Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University). So, what is it that makes a stint in a B-school crucial? “In addition to developing general management, analytical, and strategic thinking skills, business schools also help in developing attitudinal skills,” says Rajiv Kaul, Managing Director, Microsoft India, and an alumnus of XLRI, Jamshedpur. “B-schools not only teach you resilience, but also help you learn to cope with tremendous pressure.”