That's a wrap folks..

Hello all,

It is over! 10 weeks flew buy. I am actually sitting in my flat/apartment in Ann Arbor as a write this at Woodbury Gardens. As much as I enjoyed living here during the school year, my wife and I are looking around the unit and realized we already miss living in downtown Chicago!

The final week of work was climatic as it was the week I wrapped up my work and more importantly received the decision whether I would receive an offer or not. However I already did my year end presentation the week before, so that pressure was off.

In regards to work, to be completely honest my week was rather slow. My project was a in a bit of a state of flux as my job manager throughout the project had been assigned to another project so his replacement was busy trying to keep his head above water. The senior principal assigned to the project was on vacation in in South Africa, and another team member was about to take vacation for her wedding. Furthermore I had actually handed in my major deliverables the week before. So I was kept busy with "busy work" to support my peers. Mostly building charts in excel, and providing analysis on 1000's of pages of data received from the client.

In reflection, I really enjoyed my summer. Loved Chicago and Boston, developed new business relationships, realized I didn't know anything about excel and powerpoint, and found out the importance of being able to write/tell a story.

At the beginning of the summer I felt my consulting experience was atypical, and I was at a disadvantage from my peers. When assigned to my project, the work was scattered and the team was over whelmed. As such I did not feel I received the direction I needed to truly understand my tasks. In those 2 weeks I was excel modelling for one day (task cancelled), building case studies in power point for 2 days (task cancelled), worked on a brainstorming initiative to develop next generation ideas for the client (task cancelled). Then to start the 3rd week of the project, the entire project was cancelled.

In addition, as mentioned above my team mates were re assigned, went on vacation and one of the senior most members on my team was brand new to Booz, and not necessarily interested in my personal development.

But what I realized at the end of the 10 weeks was, there is no typical consulting engagement. It is very difficult to answer the question "What is a typical day in consulting?" Each intern had a completely different experience. We all learned at difference paces, in different places, with different faces. Overall it was a challenge on one's ability to adapt to an ambiguous environment and provide value.

If I had to do it all over again, I would have spent more time developing my Excel skillset before arriving to work. In addition I would have tried to have more fun while I was in Chicago/Boston. There was a lot to see and do in both cities, and I may have been to occupied with trying to make a good impression and working late hours. With proper time management it is feasible to work hard and play hard.

So in conclusion last Friday I met with my senior and junior mentors to discuss wether or not I would receive an offer...after a lengthy discussion the verdict was......

Final Presentations, Client Deliverables, Internal/External Networking

Hello all,

Coming up to my last 2 weeks I have 2 major items to complete to round out my internship experience. Each intern is expected to present a year end presentation to their peers, as well as other full time Booz employees from their local office on Friday August 3rd. Forutnately the presentation is a low pressure environment, and is meant to be fun. The most valuable take away I will enjoy from the presentations, is that I will get to see what my 12 other intern peers (from the chicago office) worked on their entire summer. The 2nd major item was highlighted in my year end assessment, which is I needed more analytical experience (I may expand more on this in the next post).

The presentation itself is 5-8 power point slides, highlights the key take aways, learnings, and my contirbutions to the team and project. It also highlights the fun take aways outside of the actual work experience that each person experienced (in my case my 5:50am golf match with a senior partner, and the night I hung out with Shaq in the hotel lobby).

After 8 weeks I feel like I have a strong handle on the company culture in regards to the Chicago and Boston offices. And the reason I specify the office, is that I feel the culture and community of your city will have a profound impact on the people.

Chicago: Is a large office with a small town feel. There are over 200+ employees, but within the office there are several "communities" based upon industry practices. Whether those practices be IT, Financial Services, Engineered Product Services, CPG, etc each group has it's own network. And if you are considering a consulting career, this is a significant differntiator at Booz. Booz does not offer the generalist approach to consulting. Rather it provides a soft alignment model that has it's pros and cons. If you feel already have an idea about your passions (i.e., you love SOAP!!! ..CPG), even if you don't have experience in that field, I highly encourage you to consider Booz & Co. By joining the CPG practice you can ensure that your early experiences will be focused on that practice, and thus devleop your expertise earlier in your career.

This accelerated development is reflected in culture of the organization. So back off my tangeant, back to Chicago. The people are extremely friendly, and helpful. On Friday's in the office I have never felt intimidated to introduce myself to a Partner, Principal or other senior member to learn more about their practice. The challenge is, they are quite busy, and you may need to schedule time with their admins.

As this business (Consulting) follows an apprenticeship model, that is reflected at all levels throughout the organization. Every consultant was once a junior person who didn't know how to write a slide, present to a client, or manage a Vlookup function. They all learned on the job, particularly through trial and error and the support of their peers/mentors. Without that support, and formal/informal training, this business does not work. Once you get into the firm (and likely any other firm), it is in the best interest of everyone involved to ensure you are succesful. And that has been apparent throughout my entire summer. A great example is my job manager, entered booz with little to no experience using Excel. 5 years later he is one of the Excel rock stars who leads begineer and advanced internal training. He did not take any formal courses, rather learned by trial and error and support of his mentors.

A last point on Chicago, I love the city. For a big city life, the prices are much cheaper than others (New York, London, Paris, Toronto (my home town), and the space is much larger. I've never seen a downtown with such wide streets. As such, people in general are happier. I feel there is less stress to life in Chicago. People afford a higher quality of life with less money and it's reflected in the smiles and attitude.

A few words on the culture in Boston. Awesome city, incredibly small considering it's history and successes (do they ever lose in sports?!?!). The office itself is very small. Less than 15 people at any time (15 is generous), and the office essentially revolves around 1 or 2 clients. I feel it's a great place to work and learn from a project perspective, but because it is so small I don't think I would learn as much from a Booz culture perspective. In addition my networking opportunities are limited versus a larger office.

The counter to that may be with less people, there is less competition to stand out?  But that is a factor you need to consider when choosing your home office

That's all for now

Signing off
Omair

Final Presentation

It is the second last week of my internship. And I just finished my summer final presentation. It is not used to judge whether we could get a return offer or not. It is just a way to showcase what we have done and what we have learned. Each interns has 15 minutes to do the presentation and followed by 5 minutes Q&A. Most interns only worked on 1 project, but I have worked on 3 short ones. So I presentation went a bit longer. Even though I didn’t have much time to practice my presentation, I still felt very confident when I was standing in front of the group. I guess the business school life and the consulting experience have really prepared me for thisJ. I also feel that it is very helpful if you could make the presentation funny and interesting. It will help the audience to concentrate to the presentation.

I did learn a lot from my summer experience.  I learnt that consulting is about details. Yes, you do need to solve the problem, but at the same time you should make everything as perfect as you can. Consulting is about building your brand and network. In a consulting firm, one is always looking for next project to work on.  You need to make yourself known to others. You need to build you reputations in the project you worked on.  There are always people willing to help you, but you are your own master.  Last but not least, consulting is about expertise. Almost every project you work on is either a new topic or even a new industry. To really solve clients’ problem, you will need to do extensive researches on the topic even before working on the project and continue improving you knowledge along the way.

My view of consulting

I used to think consulting is all about problem solving, which is kind of true. But consulting is more than that. It is about professionalism, no matter what you do, whether it is important or not, always deliver the result with highest possible quality. It is about relationship, building trust with clients and teammates in an intensive short period of time.  It is about commitment, dedicating time and effort to learn clients’ business and problems, always deliver what you promised.  As one of my colleague said “consulting is not a job, it is a profession, and it is a lifestyle choice.”

 After talking with my classmates working in other consulting firms, I feel all the firms are more or less the same at the business side. It is the culture that differentiates the firm. One of the key cultures at Deloitte is “Networking”. It is the best way to make yourself known to the rest of the firm. At industry, your boss will tell you what you need to do. But in a consulting firm, you don’t have a fixed boss. You need to constantly look for your next project, so it is important to build your brand and reputation in those networking event and in your project. Good news is Deloitte will organize a lot formal networking event for you. And every Friday, partners, principle and directors will make themselves available, so you could schedule meetings to connect with them.

Another distinctive culture is that you can feel Deloitte really care about you. I still receive emails from the person that interviewed me and asking how I am doing. Several Ross alumni at the firm also contacted me and ask whether they can be any help. The firm also organized many expensive training and social events for us to learn and relax.  There are many other things that make you feel you are part of the big Deloitte family.

Eat, Sleep, Work, Network

You're social life in consulting, is going to vary significantly on your team, project, and location. For those of you who may get posted in a small town in the midwest that has 1 sheraton hotel your options after work may be limited. Having said that, it is likely you will really get to know your co-workers by the end of the internship.

For those of you who are posted in Boston, NYC, San Fran etc, there will be a lot more options. Having said that, your experience will end up being what you make of it.

In consulting, (and i'm sure many other fields) the social life is part of your networking, which is a significant part of your experience over the summer. In order for to obtain my full time offer, I am being evaluated on several factors which include the basics (written, communication, presentation skills, etc). But more importantly, am I a social "fit" within my team.

As a team we spend a lot of hours together, especially considering that we travel. It is not uncommon after a 10 hour work day, to have a 2 hour dinner meeting/discussion. That's a lot of time to spend with people you just met. And if you don't enjoy each others' company it feels a lot longer than 12 hours!!!

Those are just the days where I am on the customer's site (in Boston). On Friday, I am typically in my home office in Chicago where I need to network with the peers at the local office, mentors, partners, etc. OH and somehow find time with the family as well (wife and son).

It is a daunting task, no doubt but that is what we sign up for in consulting. You will find you come become very efficient with your hours, and flexible. One specific example, there was a partner at my firm who I really wanted to meet to learn more about his work and experience. We both happened to be golf fans, so we played a round of 18 holes on Saturday morning, at 5:50am!!! That was his only availability!

The "easy" part about the networking, is the firm knows how important is too network and have made every effort to make it easier for the interns. A sample of events that they have provided to date:

• Every friday happy hour in the office at 4pm. The firm provides food and drinks, which has a magic affect on attracting people
• Cubs game - Attended by associates, partners, interns, etc
• Taste of Chicago festival: Provided free food tickets
• Various nights out at local bars/restaurants etc

In regards to workload, I'm not going to lie. There is a lot of work to do. However, there is no cookie cutter model to predict your workload. It is dependent on a multitude of factors which include

• The client
• The partner/principle driving the project
• stage of the project (starting, mid, ending)
• proposal work vs deliverable work
• location
• team composition

In my case, our project was at the early stages. Within 3 weeks the project was cancelled, and restarted in a lesser capacity with half the team. There have been days where I worked 12 hours, others where I had light 8 hour days. Read other blogs, talk to other interns, there are those who work 14 hours days.

The message here...be prepared for variability. Do not expect a 9-5 lifestyle. But expect variety, interesting work, really smart people, and to be challenged on a daily basis.

Until next time..

Omair

Networking and a typical week

As discuss previously, all the interns & consultants at Deloitte have a supervisor and an advisor. At the first meeting with them, we will discuss my goals and expectations, based on which my supervisor and advisor will help me to connect with Deloitte employees that share similar goals and had similar experiences. This match making process is really effective; I connected with many people by using this way.

I am working on a 5 weeks client engagement project, which is short and intense. But too be honest, it is not as bad as I thought it would be. Maybe it is because I am staffed in a local project, so I don’t need to fly every Monday. A typical week for me is like:

Monday: in the morning go to get the car I booked in last Friday and drive to my client’s site. In the morning, we will have some internal discussions and project manager will assign some tasks to me. Start from the afternoon, we will have meetings with clients to do first hand researches.  Go back home at around 6pm. During the breaks of the meeting, I will compile the meeting minutes and create decks to document them.

Tuesday – Thursday: Pretty much the same as Monday, but need to arrive at 8am instead of 9am. And we still have intensive meetings schedule with clients.  The project manager will have update meetings with client at Tuesday and Thursday. Occasionally, I will have early morning meetings (5am) with client at other countries. 

Friday: Go to Deloitte office at San Francisco, and submit my time and expense report, book car for next week and have meetings with my advisor and counselor. And I would at least set up another meeting with a partner in the office.

3am wake up calls, 6am flights, avoiding the consulting 15lbs!

Hi all,

I am behind on my blogging! I am behind on a lot of things!!! The life of a consulting intern :)

My experience I would say has been atypical of that of other consulting interns both within my firm and at other firms.

I was fortunate to be staffed onto a project that was just starting up. It was follow up work with an existing client. However as it was starting up, the goals and directions were vague and fluid. In the first 6-8 days on the job, my tasks changed 3 times which included changing the manager(s) that I reported too twice.

In regards to reporting and just working with the people, it has been excellent. When consulting firms tell you its all about the people, the really do mean it is all about the people. My team is fun, engaging, and overall a brilliant group. What I find really exciting is the motivation of each member in the team to ensure I enjoy my experience and to provide mentorship. They are investing a lot of their time and resources into me as the intern, as they want to ensure that I do join the firm next year (at least thats how I perceive it!).

While in contrast, I am evaluating the firm, work, people, etc to ensure that I want to join the firm full time next fall. It's an interesting dynamic

So the reporting structure is very fluid. I have junior and senior mentors that I touch base with on a weekly basis, project managers, and then practice champions (those who over see the IT practice). Not to mention the myriad of firm Partners who are available to meet. It really is an open door policy for me to discuss my goals, challenges, needs with several people within the firm. Not nearly as hiearchial as I was expecting.

Now what makes my experience more atypical than most are two events:

i) In the lobby of our hotel last Tuesday night, as I was heading towards the bar to relax after a long day I walked into Shaquille O'neal. Now I'm not a small guy, I'm 6'2, but when I stood next to Shaq and shook his hand, I felt like a child. He was enormous. And one of the friendliest, if not the friendliest, athlete I ever met. He sat with us, chatted, took photos, and did the same for anyone else who approached him. He was in town filming a movie with Adam Sandler

ii) My project has been delayed. So I am currently "on the beach" so to speak, as the firm finds me an additional project. I really am getting the full consulting experience. Let's see how this plays out


In terms of getting my work done. I really do have a lot of freedom. Tasks are assigned to me, and I 'm expected to go get it done. My tasks have ranged from researching reference examples, modifying excel models, and building customer facing power point slides. In each case anything everything I have produced and shared with my manager has come back with "this needs work!". But that's ok! That's the way we learn in consulting. It's trial and error, iteration, receive and act upon feedback. It has been a great learning experience, in a positive environment.

Anyhow, enough of my rant for now

Until next time

Omair

Client engagement started!

Deloitte has a formal process of defining summer goals and project scope. All the goals should be made SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely). Then I will review the goals with peer advisor, my consoler and my project manager. They will also provide some suggestions for the goals, then I will update accordingly. After everybody agrees on the goals, I submit them to HR. My summer performance will be measured against those goals. It is a very transparent process.  

For the second week, I was on the beach which means I am not working on a client engagement. At that time, I did some practice development work, which is doing some research on a specific topic and increase knowledge of the firm. It is a very intensive project. I ready technology white papers, industry report, companies’ financial report and analyst report to get familiar with the topic and also collect raw materials for my deck.

Starting from the 3^rd week, I was staffed on a client engagement project. This project is to help client build an information technology roadmap to align with company development strategy. At the first week of the project, we conducted a series of interviews with stakeholders to understand the current situation and future needs. It is a really nice experience, not only that you could talk to many people from the management team, but also a great way to learn consulting. There is a small tip when conducting interview. One of my job scopes in the project is to collect raw materials, so I take meeting minutes during the interview. As non-native English speaker and freshman to the industry, I know it will be difficult to follow the conversation at the beginning. So I suggested my supervisor to record the meeting with my phone. My supervisor thought it was a good idea, but we have to check with clients before we do that. It turned out to be a great help, because the meeting schedule is very intensive and there is indeed a lot of new information. The recording helped to fill in many gaps in our meeting minutes. 

Well, here comes the boss. My supervisor is from Ohio. You know what I mean. But he is really a nice guy. He gives me many tips about client engagement, and told me many fun facts about the firm. At my side, first of all, I try to focus on my job and get the work done. I also try to be honest about my progress, asking for advice and help if needed and updating my progress regularly. 

Exciting first week

It has been a very busy but fruitful week! I started by flying to Atlanta for my 1st stage - 3 days training. I am very excited to find that we have interns from almost all 50 states of US. There are several Rossers in the crowd.

We had a series of workshops led by experts to introduce the company culture and some methodologies and tools that could apply to work. We were divided to different groups to simulate the real consulting team to solve a business problem. This exercise gave us a general idea of consulting and also prepared us with some basic steps to approach problems. After the training at the second day, we had a great networking and dinner event with some partners.

We finished the first stage training at the third day, and then I flied to my home office – San Francisco for my second stage training. San Francisco is a very beautiful city, built on mountains and besides the Pacific Ocean. I really like the weather here. It is a bit cool but very refreshing.  Its public transportation is very convenient. I commute to the city by taking BART (like subway).

I am very glad to find that I was assigned with a peer advisor who just joined the firm about one year ago. He could help me with any problem I may have during my day to day job. I also have a counselor, who is a senior level person in the firm and he can help me to plan my career path in the firm and point out direction for me. Most importantly, he will be the person evaluate me in the end of the internship.

The Last day of the training is a community event. This year we went to a charity organization to do some volunteer works.

Internship - Booz & Co

Hi all, this is Omair Rana Ross MBA Class of 2013.

I am from Toronto Canada, but prior to joining Ross I spent my previous 18 months working in London UK as the European Business Manager for a Software firm.

This summer I will be interning with Booz & Co (a Management Consulting firm) as part of their IT Strategy Practice in Chicago. I've been offered a position as a Summer Associate, and am looking forward to my first assignment.

Training will take place in Washington followed by 8 weeks of client work. I'm expecting a significant amount of travel, but I should spend every Friday in my home office.

Even though I don't have too much information about my actual position, I do know that the people at Booz & Co all seem to love their jobs. It will be extremely challenging, long hours, but the quality of the experience and personal development opportunities at this firm are second to none! It will be awesome!

My wife and son will be with me, and we plan to enjoy every weekend in Chicago which is one of the best cities to spend a summer!

Ideally if all works out, I should be able to convert this internship into a full time position. As my son was born in Michigan, it would be great to live and work full time in the United States!



Blog Post #2! - June 17th

Hi all,

It has been a ridiculously busy first week of work. In addition to training which was hosted in Washington, for I met a 50+ interns from all over the world, my family and I moved from Toronto/Ann Arbor to Chicago.

1 day after moving in, I learned that my client site will be in Boston for the entire summer! Such is the life of consulting :)

As I have only had training to this point, I have yet to experience the Booz & Co office environment. And on that note, Booz & Co, not Booz Allen Hamilton which is a completely separate business that we are unaffiliated too.

In addition I will travel directly to the clients site next week, so the office environment will have to wait. However I am expecting an entirely different work culture from my previous life. Travelling Mon-Thur with people I do not know, but fully expect to develop very strong personal and business relationships with should be exciting.

One thing that became very clear from training, is that consultants want to work with people that they genuinely like. We are going to spend more time with each other than our own families, we will be stuck in airports together, miss flights together, etc. We better really enjoy each others company!

My client is in the financial services industry, and I'll be working with a team supporting optimization of their IT infrastructure, as I am part of Booz & Co's IT Strategy practice.

In terms of personal support, Booz & Co has made a huge effort! I have been assigned a junior and senior mentor from the Chicago practice. The Job Manager of my project has overloaded me with information, and I am still days behind on reviewing all of the material from orientation. There is no shortage of work or challenges, and I am expecting an awesome summer.


Finally, from a settling into Chicago perspective, we are still getting our feet wet. Only been here 2 nights, its an awesome city and reminds me of my hometown (Toronto). Friendly people, excellent food (DEEP DISH PIZZA's...500 calories per slice at least), hot summers (30C+ each day). I hope to find some time for golf on the weekends.

Until next time,

Cheers!

Omair

Excited about my internship!

I am an MBA1 student at Michigan Ross School of Business. I will intern at Deloitte Consulting LLP San Francisco office as Summer Associate. Even though I don't know which project I will work on yet, it will be a typical consulting project. We will work with clients to solve an issue they have together.

Consulting is completely new to me, so I am really excited about it. I will have a chance to travel to many different places, meet people from different industries and solving all kinds of interesting problems. From those exciting experiences, I want to learn how to engage with clients, communicate professionally and project management.

Even though there are a lot of fun and excitement, I am a bit nervous about it too. It is totally different from my previous job which is software development. In the internship, I will do a lot of relationship management and business communications, which I don't have many experiences with. Luckily, my MAP (Multidisciplinary Action Projects) project is very similar to a consulting project. We have a team of 6 Ross MBA1, and work onsite with our sponsors at Madrid, Spain to propose a new product launching strategy. I learned a lot from the project and my teammates, who are from very diversified industries, such as consulting, CPG, banking. It is a really good preparation for my internship. 

This is just a quick overview about my internship. I will post some more exciting experiences in the near future. 

Death Valley

I have been through 8 weeks out of my 10-week internship. Although I had a very easy and smooth start, it is getting crazily busy as my internship approaches its end.

As I mentioned in earlier post, I have not been assigned to a real client project for the summer, but instead, I have worked on two Bid and Proposal projects. While the first one lasted only a week which is norm for B&P effort, the second one that I am working on has been going on for more than a month and there is almost another month schedule ahead of it.

To give you a sense of what I have been up to, I just sent out version 55 of the project deck to my boss. So, basically I have been intimate friends with PPT and Excel. Unlike normal projects, I have to deliver some new slides or spreadsheet models on a daily basis. I spent 10 to 16 hours every day in office, worked more hours after coming back home, and sometimes need to get up 4am to catch the 6am flight to New York, and flew back to Chicago the next evening. So, are you still thinking about consulting??
However, on the bright side, due to the importance of this proposal, I have been given great exposure to high level leadership team during the project. I spent 6 hours this Wednesday with IBM Global XX industry Leader, North America YY practice leader, and other VPs and executives in a tiny meeting room in IBM New York office. Can you believe it?

Although tired, I have been learning and improving a lot during the past weeks! Not only excel and PPT skills, but also the way I think and work. I leant to pay attention to details such as font size of a text box, meanwhile I think strategically from higher level and different perspectives. I become more comfortable with uncertainties and vagueness and am able to make educated assumptions wherever necessary. I realized that we are actually employed and paid to solve those uncertainties which clients found difficult to solve themselves. I am happy with my progress!!

Wk 9: See you next time, Bhutan!

It’s crunch time! I have only three weeks left in my internship here in Bhutan. I’m working non-stop to finish all my deliverables. I have three major deliverables (cost analysis for four benchmarked companies in different industries, standard cost of transportation of sand, and standard price for three natural resources products). I am 90% done with my cost analysis and about to start with creating my presentation material and report document. I met with my Director last week who, I am happy to say, liked the direction and content of my Rev1 output. This week, I plan to finish my two other deliverables. Yes, I am a bit worried about the time constraint that I have but I will not let this fact stress me. I will focus, will eat a lot (ha!), will listen to classical music (Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 in A major Op. 92 and Mozart's Sonata in D major for two pianos on repeat), and will keep on working.

I studied hundreds of companies in different countries to find the best peer set for the four Bhutan companies. My benchmarking activity is very challenging, exhausting, but definitely a value-adding endeavor for my skill-building. My internship has taught me that, in these uncertain economic times, many companies are indeed diversifying their businesses to lessen the risk of profit losses. I found a company that not only offers extraction and trade of timber but also sells audio and visual electronics system and products. Another one is an airline company which also operates a call center for other companies. It will be interesting to explore after my internship the financial considerations of, strategies in, and limits of diversification.

I will not get a full-time job offer at Druk Holdings & Investments (DHI) because I am here on a semi-volunteer and fellowship work only. But, I still want to leave a very good impression about the quality of education and training at the Ross School of Business. Few Bhutanese know that the University of Michigan is one of the best schools in the US. It is time to introduce our great school to them. Go Blue!

This is my last blog entry here. I hope all the stakeholders at DHI and its four companies would like my final project output. I had a great time exploring a different culture and seeing the amazing sights in Bhutan. I will definitely go back here. See you around University of Michigan this fall! J

Exploring Chicago!!

Most of you must think that consultants travel all the time, however, this is just not the case for me. Unlike my other IBM GBS fellow interns who have been traveling to clients, I have been assigned to work on two bid and proposal projects, both of which unfortunately don’t require traveling. So, basically, I have spent most of my internship working in IBM Chicago downtown office in the Loop and right across Deloitte building. Actually, out of 18 interns of GBS this year, I am the only one working in IBM office and don’t travel. Although not ideal and different from what I have expected, it allowed me to explore Chicago a little bit more and deeper. It is truly an amazing city in terms of whatever you name it, although a little windy sometimes, but just sometimes, not always. As I have been to almost all the major big cities in US, I can say that Chicago is second to none.

Since I live in the Chicago suburbs, I commute between work and home by Amtrak train, and one way trip takes around 45 minutes if I catch an express train, otherwise it will be 1.5 hours. If you have seen the new movie ‘Source Code’, you should know how the Amtrak train in Chicago looks like. It is comfortable and safe, although not too new. Actually, it is pretty convenient for those who live in suburbs and work in downtown Chicago. You know, the traffic in Chicago during rush hours can be really bad and parking fees is just crazy.

During the past one and half months, I have been to lots of wonderful parks, museums, restaurants, and bars in Chicago. However, nothing is comparable to the experience on the national day weekend. I went boating on Michigan Lake with a few friends! It was really a unique and hilarious experience for me. Prior to that, I had never been on a private boat before. It was just great to look at the skyscrapers of Chicago from another angel and enjoy the sun shine a little bit after spending most of my time in office since my internship starts. Unfortunately I had been made fun of having the so called farm’s tan after whole day exposure to sun; I should have taken my t-shirt off!! Need to work out a little bit though!!

Transformation from Engineer to Consultant

After more than 5 weeks in IBM GBS, I have experienced and learned a lot in consulting and am getting used to my job role as a business consultant, which is no longer that mysterious to me as it was before since my previous background was a software engineer and I had zero experience in consulting or even client-facing job roles. To my satisfaction, I like my new role, since I had more mental challenges than before, and accordingly more impact with what I do.

As an engineer, all I was supposed to do is to implement the ‘Requirement’ written by Product Managers within ‘scheduled project deadline’ decided by Project Managers. I don’t need to be really creative or innovative to get my job done; it was actually straightforward and ‘easy’ if you master the technical side. However, as a consultant, I need to manage myself and be relatively independent on what I do. And my work becomes more diversified than before. Firstly, I need to collect business requirements from both team members and clients. Then, I need to come up with some proposal documents describing what the hypotheses and deliverables will be. Lastly, I have to come up with a work plan document regarding those deliverables which could be either strategy or implementation in nature. Although I mentioned the need to be independent as a consultant, don’t get me wrong, we can actually never achieve anything without effective team work no matter how senior or knowledgeable one becomes.

The other important learning from the past 5 weeks is that a good consultant needs to be comfortable and efficient in working with uncertainties and make educated assumptions or guesses whenever necessary. Nevertheless, because of my engineer background, I was really bad at working with uncertainties at first. I was afraid of making wrong or inappropriate assumptions if I don’t find ‘sound’ evidence to back them up, therefore, I turned out be slow and ineffective and felt lost of directions. Luckily, I got a wonderful project buddy who has always been patient in giving me instructions and transferring his experience to me since he was an engineer as well and had gone through what I am experiencing. Although I think I am getting better, Rome was not built in a day anyway.

Wk 7: Almost done

I have just started the second half of my internship. I am in the thick of my cost benchmarking activities. This second phase of my project is very difficult because most of the comparable peers of the Bhutan companies are unlisted and therefore, do not disclose annual reports. This makes my job difficult in getting enough and relevant data to compare the cost of local companies with that of international companies.

Oh, and guess what? I have two new project deliverables! The CEO of a company I am studying informed me a couple of days ago. I am happy to have had a long conversation with a CEO to discuss business. It was interesting to hear his thoughts on the local market, business constraints, and potential growth opportunities. I am excited to hear that my new cost project deliverable would greatly help improve their operations. I am going to a forest this Saturday to observe the operations of the Natural Resources Development Corporation. I have five more weeks to finish all my projects.

On another note, I have been wearing Michigan gear almost every day hoping to meet a fellow Wolverine here. But, so far I have no luck in finding one.

What I did encounter is this:

Bhutanese: Where are you studying?

Jofresh: At Michigan

Bhutanese: Oh, Michigan State

Jofresh: (gasp!) No! At University of Michigan

Bhutanese: Ah…

Hmm… the locals seem to know Michigan State more than U of M…

Last week, the other interns went to a city 8 hours away from Thimphu to see a festival. I did not join them because I had work. Nevertheless, I went on another trip to a nearby city to see a different festival. We went to the Haa district. Below are some pictures of the colorful festival.

Waiting for the event to start

Opening ceremonies

Traditional song and dance

Stalls

Delicious buckwheat momos (dumplings filled with vegetables and cheese)

Wk 5: Work + Fun at the Tiger's Nest

Wow, time really flies when you are having fun. I cannot believe that I am one-third done with my internship. I look forward to seeing my classmates again at school but I am also sad that my interesting, fun, and skill-building experience in Bhutan is almost over.

As always, I was busy with work these past two weeks. I continued my internal scan of the four Bhutan companies by studying cost trends, performing the tried and tested ratio analysis, and interviewing finance managers and CFOs. I am happy that the Bhutan companies have an open door policy. The top executives are all very accessible and helpful. They also do not sugarcoat financial results. It makes my job easier to know that I have the complete and accurate picture of their cost performance and activities.

Of course, I did not forget to have fun while working. An American lawyer, currently working at DHI, took me, my co-interns, and a visiting Berkeley MBA student, who did a project for DHI, to the most majestic place in Bhutan, the Tiger’s Nest. Taktsang Monastery, more popularly called the Tiger's Nest, is situated on a nearly vertical cliff at 3,000m altitude north of Paro in Bhutan. It is a prominent Himalayan Buddhist sacred site. Learn more about the Tiger’s Nest here.

I consider successfully hiking up to the Tiger’s Nest one of my best accomplishments to date. The climb up and down the steep mountain took four hours. It was raining that day so it was a very very slippery and difficult climb. I almost slipped a number of times and nearly fell face-down in the mud! Thankfully, I stuck my umbrella in the mud just in time to break my fall. Whew… The altitude also hampered my breathing and I was pitifully panting and taking deep breaths from my mouth. There were also numerous times when my legs refused to move another step but I stubbornly refused to give up. So, I pep-talked myself until my head convinced my legs to continue the hike. J I am happy that I persevered because I saw one of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen in my life. The Tiger’s Nest, perched on top of a mountain and partially covered by clouds, is breathtaking! I will definitely not forget this climbing experience.

This is the mountain we climbed. Do you see the white monastery near the top?

No?

Well, here is a closer look at our destination. It is partially covered by clouds (yes, so high up)!

Starting the hike

Slippery trail

View from the top

A mini waterfall and many prayer flags

Almost there…

Finally, the Tiger’s Nest!

First week in IBM GBS

The first one and half week of my internship has passed by quickly, and I have received my first paycheck this morning, which is my first one after I quitted my job in China one year ago!

I started my three-day orientation and training with other 40 interns, including both MBAs and undergraduates, in Herndon, Virginia, which is a nice city near Washington DC Dulles international airport. It is really nice to know all of the interns, and I talked with almost everyone and made quite a few new friends from different MBA programs and universities all over the U.S. Actually, what impressed me most is the diversity of the intern class; people are originally from all over the world with different academic and professional background. But one thing in common, all of us are passionate about consulting, especially information technology oriented strategy consulting. So our conversation topics are mostly around the unknown consultant life ahead of us in near future.

All of the interns were recruited by IBM Global Business Service and will be based in either New York or Chicago office during the summer. In IBM GBS commercial sector, consultants are aligned with different industrial sectors, including financial services, distribution, communications, industrial, general business and internal practice. Each of these sectors is an independent P/L, consisting of Strategy transformation, business analytics optimization and SAP and oracle application practice. As I mentioned in my previous post, I am aligned with strategy and transformation practice within Industrial Sector for the summer.

I spent most of time in the first week studying industrial sectors’ learning material, and more importantly, familiarizing myself with all kinds of administration tools within IBM. Although I had sort of expected the complexity of the administration system of IBM since it is such a huge company, I was still surprised after a glimpse of how this ‘elephant’ company is actually run. At the end of last week, I finally got to know my project assignment and I will probably travel to client site starting from the mid of next week. I will come back with new stories about my internship in 2 weeks. Good luck to everyone!

Wk 3: Hiking around Bhutan

The past two weeks have been a blur. I interviewed CFOs, researched comparative data, summarized project findings, and created preliminary cost profiles. The government-owned for-profit companies are so interesting that I could not help but ask numerous questions about the organization and business drivers. My project deals with finding opportunities for cash savings. The saved capital will allow the companies to carry out more investments and business expansion. I am excited and humbled with the chance to contribute to Bhutan’s development. As you might know, Bhutan is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. I am still waiting for more internal and external data to complete my analysis. I have nine more weeks to recommend remarkable cost strategies to Druk Holdings & Investments (DHI).

I am extremely proud to represent the University of Michigan and the Stephen M. Ross School of Business in Bhutan. Many top universities also send interns here. There are two other interns at DHI, a Stanford Law student and a Columbia Masters in Sustainable Development student. The three of us are sharing the large and homey office attic. J Besides my co-DHI interns, there are two Harvard Public Policy students in another government agency, the Gross National Happiness Commission. Three Berkeley MBA students also did a class project for DHI a couple of months ago. Yale also regularly sends graduate students to undertake diverse projects for the government. I am happy that the William Davidson Institute (WDI) at U-M was able to arrange my internship here so Michigan is also represented. Go Blue!

The arrival of my co-DHI interns signaled the start of my exploration of Bhutan. Last week, I hiked around Thimphu for seven hours! We climbed a mountain to visit the Motithang Takin Preserve. Takin is a goat-antelope and is the national animal of Bhutan.

We also visited the Thimphu Dzong (The Trashichodzong), which is the seat of the government and the headquarters of the clergy in the capital city. Beside the Dzong is the King’s Royal Residence. Unfortunately, pictures are not allowed to be taken of the place. I shot this picture while walking down a mountain. The Dzong is on the left while the Royal Residence is on the middle-right, covered by trees.

We also went to the world’s tallest Buddha, standing tall at 169ft. The site is still under construction.

And, we saw an archery competition in Paro, another town. Yes, they need to wear ghos, traditional Bhutanese dresses, when competing.

This weekend, we are trekking to the Tiger’s Nest, Bhutan’s most spectacular sacred site, and going to Punakha, the old capital of Bhutan. I heard the climb up the Tiger’s Nest is rigorous. I hope my lethargic body can handle the exercise. J

Happy Centennial Birthday, IBM!

My name is Jiawen Mou, an MBA student in Ross School of Business at Univ. of Michigan. After finishing my first year in Ross, in less than one week, I will start my internship at IBM GBS (Global Business Service) Strategy and Transformation Division, working as an MBA intern consultant. Although I don’t know my specific project assignment for the summer yet, I was informed that I would be staffed in Industrial group in Chicago. I am really excited about the opportunity to work for IBM, especially after knowing that IBM is going to be 100 years old this June 16th.
Prior to business school, I had been working as an engineer and project leader in eBay China Development Center, however, I had always been looking for new learning opportunities outside engineering, and that’s why I came to US to pursue my MBA degree. As for the internship in IBM consulting division, I am expecting to experience the life as a consultant and challenge myself to learn new things and think differently.
While being excited about my new job function, I feel more pressure and nervous as the start date approaches. Actually, my biggest worry is still my English abilities. What if I can’t fluently express myself in a conference call!? What if I stumble in a presentation to clients!? Challenging but intriguing!