Internship done!

The summer is finally over, and what a great experience it has been. I got a chance to explore the world of consulting, work with some very smart people and learn a fantastic amount of information within a very short period of time. Since the project was ending the same week as my internship was, the last two weeks were critical. This was when we made the final push for our client deliverables. The model that I initially developed was used extensively by the team to nail down the quantitative aspects of our recommendations. Also, the principal on my project thought that this model would be a great tool for the client as they went ahead with the implementation in the coming months. So I had to spend some time cleaning up the model, making last minute changes and including the relevant background information so that the model was easily usable by the client. It’s one thing when you develop a model for your analysis. It’s something completely different when you are developing a model that someone else will use – this was a key learning for me. Always develop the model as if someone else were going to use it. I also had to do my final presentation at the Chicago office last week. My manager was extremely understanding about the criticality of that, and gave me some time off so that I could work on my deck. The team pitched in to review my deck and gave some great feedback on how to make the presentation stronger.

I just want to finish with another observation from my experience. There is one key skill that I have noticed is common among the senior folks. With any problem, they have a laser-like focus on the fundamental question we are trying to answer, and are always asking “how does this piece of work answer that question?”. This enables them to break down even the most complex problems into simple relevant blocks. And this is a skill I definitely want to develop over the next few years.

Well, to summarize I had a fantastic summer experience. I couldn’t have asked for more. Now, three weeks of down time before the next year at school. Thanks for reading, and take care!

Getting there

I can't believe that I am now in the closing stages of my summer internship. Two more weeks to go, and that's it! Since the end of my internship is coinciding with the end of the client engagement, things are really heating up now (as if they weren't busy enough already!). But I have had some great learning experiences over the past two weeks as I have been gradually pushed out of my comfort zone.

The first learning is the value of qualitative information. While my engineering background has made me comfortable with quantitative data, I am slowly learning that qualitative information also can make or break a recommendation despite what the numbers tell you. And since qualitative data is just that - qualitative, it is difficult to exactly structure what specific piece of information you need for an analysis. The second important learning for me was managing client interviews. This was something, again, that was completely new to me. As I conducted more interviews, I found myself increasingly asking direct and pointed questions to get to the point. I think this is an extremely important skill for leaders to have. with the amount of technology out there today, the data available is infinitely huge. Managers who having the ability to ask the right questions at the right time to the right people will have a huge advantage over those who don't. And I think consulting is a great way to develop and hone that skill.

Now, I am nearing the end stages of my analysis and my work is really helping the team build out their recommendations for a key part of the project. Yes, there are projected to be some $$$ savings (Good, now I can quantify another bullet point on my resume!). I also got a chance to present my analysis to the Principal on my project. He had some great suggestions to make, and I am currently working on incorporating them into my analysis. If all goes well, my workstream will be presented to the COO of the client organization!

The next week is a big week for me. I have to make two additional presentations - one to the partner on my project and the other, to the entire Chicago office. So in between all of this, I am working on putting those decks together too! Yes, good times.

Till next (and last) time, happy readings!

Half-way point!

I am now officially more than half way through my internship – and it feels like I just started yesterday. A lot has happened in the past two weeks – a couple of big client meetings, excellent team dinners, a new workstream and my mid-summer “pulse check”.

Let’s start with the work first. I completed the first project that was assigned to me (read previous post for details), and have now been assigned another workstream for the rest of the summer. The summer pulse check turned out to be balanced – with areas of strength and areas of improvement. I hope I end up improving on those “areas of improvement” by the end of the summer!

My next piece of work will influence a couple of key recommendations that we will make to the client. I am extremely excited, and a little apprehensive at being given this new responsibility. For one, the situation is a lot more ambiguous than my first project. And two, this project involves qualitative decision-making, definitely not my area of strength, in addition to the quantitative analysis. But the support from the rest of the team and other Booz folks has been tremendous. They have made themselves available to speak with me, exchange ideas, brainstorm and offer advice in a heartbeat. And being a Michigan guy helps too – there are tons of people here from Michigan, and the community feeling is stronger than ever. If I have one piece of advice to give it is this: reach out to people, and make the effort to ask if you are genuinely stuck at something. The absolute worst that could happen is that you remain where you started. Surprisingly, this did not come to me as naturally as I thought it would.

Now, for the fun part. The Chicago office is doing a fantastic job of keeping its summer interns entertained. They took us to the Taste of Chicago, organized a barbecue and are taking us on a cruise. Although my work keeps me really busy, I am trying to attend as many of these events as possible to get to know the people here. As I roll into the second half of the internship, the pressure will no doubt start to increase. But all in all, this experience has been immensely satisfying so far. Good times!

P.S: The Germany-Argentina game was an absolute shame. And we could not have asked for a more boring final. A disappointing world cup over all.

Consulting - three weeks in

I'm three weeks into my internship and Booz and honestly, so far I'm loving it. The work is challenging, and the people I work with are absolutely fantastic - extremely smart, yet down to earth. I can best describe the experience so far as an extension of the Ross MBA experience.

Let's put things into context - what exactly did I do the last couple of weeks? As I mentioned in my last post, I am working for a client in NJ and we are helping to design their organization structure (strategic objective, reporting structure, incentives, metrics, etc.) for the COO. So yes, this is one of those high touch engagements, and as a result, the attire is business formal. The first week was all about ramping up and setting the expectations for the rest of the summer. Booz & Co. gives its interns the undiluted consulting experience - this means that we are expected to contribute just like we were full-time Associates. So as you can imagine, the learning curve is extremely steep. I had a lot of reading up to do to develop an understanding of the industry. After I spent a day doing that, it was time to understand the client firm (one day). After that I had to get going, and any other background learning would have to come from the job itself. Given that 9 weeks is an extremely short period of time, I wanted to become productive as soon as I could and made a conscious effort those first few days to ramp up my knowledge. Once my manager noticed that I was relatively comfortable with the knowledge (at least I knew where to look for what!), I took over the workstream of developing the model of the current view of the organization. The team had already collected data from various client units. I had to collate the data, clean it up and integrate it into the model in a meaningful way.

We had a big client presentation scheduled the following week, and my manager said that my model would be driving a few slides on the deck. So I had to put in a lot of effort (yes, I even worked a couple of hours over the weekend) to build the pages. My biggest takeaway here is that great excel modeling skills is not just about being able to model close to real life scenarios while making good assumptions. It also involves being able to automate a lot of the repetitive tasks so that you can spend more time thinking about how best you can do the former. As my manager had mentioned, my pages did end up going into the deck. It was a pretty good feeling to see that my analysis was directly impacting the client. The presentation went well, and now my task is to extend this model so that we can use this to design the new organization.

The biggest surprise for me has been the people. There's no question that they are all extremely smart folks. But the best part is, despite how busy they were (there was quite a bit of pressure within the team before that first deliverable) they always took the time out to help me with my questions, and made sure I was comfortable. To summarize, the first two weeks on the project have been fantastic, and I am really enjoying myself so far. Stay tuned!

Consulting - Week 1. Check!

Phew - week 1 of my consulting internship at Booz & Co. is almost over, and I can already feel the heat of the fast paced consulting career! My first week was very similar to what the other Ross-er at Booz has experienced - drinking from a fire hose. Think first week of RLI - on steroids.

The first day involved the "logistics" - laptop, paperwork, welcome presentation and address, etc. The second day onwards, "the game" was on! By "the game", I mean a training simulation where we are all assigned to teams and have to work together on a client engagement. Our engagement working sessions were peppered with training sessions for Excel, Powerpoint, Company culture and policy, etc. "The game" ended with the teams presenting and the team coaches giving each of us feedback. My, how much we all had to learn! The final day involved Booz's version of the follies. Given the high quality of the skits that were put up with less than 45 mins of preparation time, I strongly believe that most people in my class would do wonderfully in the entertainment industry! And oh, did I mention that we all ended every night with copious amounts of alcohol in our systems? Good times.

Today is my first day at my home office - Chicago. I have received my project assignment and couldn't have asked for anything better! I strongly believe that I will get a chance to apply concepts learnt from multiple classes at Ross. My client is based in New Jersey, which is also awesome, because my wife is in New York, and this makes things a whole lot easier! So right now, I have received a couple of project documents and am busy poring over them to make sure that I show up on the client side with an informed view of the current situation. I expect to be challenged significantly - both in terms of analytical skills and organizational skills. Do not underestimate the latter. The number of things that have to be managed, in addition to your regular work, is fairly daunting - timesheets, learning sessions, conference calls, mentor meetings, office luncheons - the list is seemingly endless! But this is exactly what I signed up for, and I am eagerly looking forward to the next 8 weeks of the internship.

And oh yes, before I forget: Viva Argentina!

Prologue: A clean slate

Hi there – my name is Kripal Kavi and I a second year dual–degree student (MBA/MS) here. I will be spending my summer as a consultant with Booz & Co. in their Chicago office. I am an international student from India, and yes, I was an engineer before I came to school. I am very excited to be going to a top–notch consulting firm this summer. And quite frankly, I feel a little lucky as well, given the caliber of the students here at Ross and the high level of competition for consulting internships.

I, like most other business school students, want to generate a full–time offer out of this internship. That would make the final year a lot less stressful! But at the same time, I am using this internship to determine my fit with consulting, and decide whether this is a career I would like to pursue for a prolonged period of time after business school. I have multiple reasons to be worried: never worked in the US before, don’t have a background in consulting, not sure what to expect, etc. etc. But at the same time, this is a tremendously exciting opportunity for me – to work with some really smart people, do some fantastic work and basically have a great time over the summer. Right now, it's a clean slate, and it's up to me to see how the story gets written!

Take care, and happy readings!