ABC to Consulting
Donald Zhu & Yulan Guo
Peking University Consulting Association
Peking University Consulting Association
agenda
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What is consulting?
Why consulting?
How is a consulting project operated?
How to step into this industry?
Peking University Consulting Association
What is consulting?
• The definition
consulting can be omnipresent
how we define consulting in the business context
• The history
why consulting came into being?
how consulting evolves
• The classification
of consulting
of consultancies
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The definition
• Consulting, in the business sense, means the
giving of advice for fees.
• Management consulting refers to both the
industry of, and the practice of, helping
organizations improve their performance,
primarily through the analysis of existing
business problems and development of plans for
improvement.
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The history
• The first consulting company was founded in
1886 by Arthur D. Little. (MIT)
• Hiring consultants outside the company is
acceptable in the U.S. while it is not in the
Europe.
Booz & Company
In 1914
McKinsey
In 1926
Monitor
In 1983
Milestone
B.C.G./R.B.
In 1963/1967
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The Trend & Classification
• Spin off of the compound consulting company
McKinsey & Company
PWC
A.C. Nielson
DTT
Gallup
Siemens
Mecer
IBM
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The Classification of Consulting
The classification of consulting vertically
战略咨询
战略规划
业务领域设计
决策咨询
管理咨询
投融
资
财务
会计
税务
市场
营销
人力
资源
生产
管理
工程
技术
业务
流程
重组
信息咨询
市场调查
市场分析
市场信息
管理
信息
化
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The Classification of Consulting
Companies
Large, diversified
consultancy
Boutique
Firms
Medium-sized
IT consultancy
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Why consulting?
• Weigh pros and cons
Great exposure
Sound training
Considerable income
Glorious prospect
Travel a lot
Charisma
….
Less time with your family and friends
Work overloaded
Under pressure time and then
Bad reputation outside this industry
….
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The procedure of a consulting project
•Pitching
– Sell and market the firm
– Sometimes you have to provide a low advisory price
•Research
– Performing secondary research both on the company and the industry
– Interviewing the clients
– Checking your company’s database
– Facilitating a group discussion, brainstorming is preferred
•Analysis
– Build a reasonable solution mode with the assistance of reachable software
– Analyze the model and relevant data for further insights
– Provide sound recommendations
•Reporting
– Prepare the final presentation, usually in the format of PowerPoint but
sometimes a word version is demanded
– Present to your clients
– Act as the project manager of the team to implement the proposal
with the help of the employees inside the company
– Execute what you have promised to your client
– Test whether your solution is feasible (it must be) and effective
– Document what you have done for records
•Implemen|tation
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How to step into this industry?
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Resume and cover letter
Pre-talk
Sit for a test (McKinsey)
Case interview (in the format of group interview
and one to one interview)
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