39050 - Management Consulting

Learning outcomes

Companies compete everyday in an increasingly dynamic and challenging market. To build and maintain profitability it is vital to identify highest value opportunities, address the most critical challenges and transform the business continuously. Managers rely on consulting firms to help making the big decisions on strategy, operations, mergers & acquisitions, technology and organisation.

Companies can benefit from management consultants in many ways:

• Get independent, fact-based views and solutions to complex issues
• Get access to a global network of professionals with deep expertise in various fields
• Bring innovations to everyday management practices
• Identify company areas of excellence to leverage on and identify improvement areas based on market benchmarks and best practices
• Ensure good implementation to new ideas and concepts

Starting a career in management consulting is a great opportunity for a junior professional to be exposed to a variety of industry and business situations under the coaching and supervision of highly experienced senior colleagues and frame problems in ways that would be impossible in most traditional companies.

The course is aimed at providing basic management consulting tools and techniques to allow students to tackle with a real consultant case study. Main course goals are:

•   Introducing the job of a management consultant;
•   Providing basic consultant tools and techniques;
•   Experience team work and the development of a real business case;
•   Get hints on how to structure the solution of a complex problem and to present the result in a meaningful way; 
•  Prepare students for an interview with top consulting firms.

Course contents

Companies compete everyday in an increasingly dynamic and challenging market. To build and maintain profitability it is vital to identify highest value opportunities, address the most critical challenges and transform the business continuously. Managers rely on consulting firms to help making the big decisions on strategy, operations, mergers & acquisitions, technology and organisation.

Companies can benefit from management consultants in many ways:

• Get independent, fact-based views and solutions to complex issues
• Get access to a global network of professionals with deep expertise in various fields 
• Bring innovations to everyday management practices 
• Identify company areas of excellence to leverage on and identify improvement areas based on market benchmarks and best practices 
• Ensure good implementation to new ideas and concepts

Starting a career in management consulting is a great opportunity for a junior professional to be exposed to a variety of industry and business situations under the coaching and supervision of highly experienced senior colleagues and frame problems in ways that would be impossible in most traditional companies.

• Introduction to Management Consulting
• Development of a real business case to be solved in teams: the case will be presented by a professional, who will act as a real client. Students will have a chance to ask him/her relevant company information and will present him/her the solution developed in team. Work on the business case will continue throughout the whole course period.
• How to plan and structure a business case.
• Hints on how to structure a business plan 
• Management consulting toolbox – case studies will be provided to see management consulting tools in practice: Growth/Share Matrix, Product Line Profitability, ROS/RMS, The Experience Curve, The Value Chain, Product/Industry Life Cycle, Best Demonstrated Practices, SWOT analysis, etc. 
• Principles of Management Consulting Written and Oral Communication: how to structure a presentation, hints on slide design, communications skills, etc 
• Typical Management Consulting Job Interview: what to expect, how to prepare for it, examples of case studies, brain teasers, seizing exercises.

Readings/Bibliography

Supporting Books

The McKinsey Mind: Understanding and Implementing the Problem-Solving Tools and Management Techniques of the World's Top Strategic Consulting Firm, by Ethan Rasiel and Ph.D., Paul N. Friga

The McKinsey Engagement: A Powerful Toolkit For More Efficient and Effective Team Problem Solving, by Ph.D. Paul N.Friga

Teaching methods

Class lessons, case studies, open discussions, participation of industry managers and senior consultants from top consulting firms.

Assessment methods

Team development and presentation of a business case. The work will be developed by teams, each student will be assessed based on the quality of the work developed in team and based on his/her individual presentation skills.

Office hours

See the website of Laura Amadesi