Case Interview Preparation & Management Consulting | Strategy | Critical Thinking

The CEO of LAB asked us to provide some perspective on three questions. (1) Should LAB, a bank, make coding a mandatory skill-set for new hires? (2) How should LAB position itself against other development finance banks? (3) What is the main benefits case we see in the study? Question 3 was answered in the live blog. Question 2 will be answered in the live-blog soon. This is the answer to question 3. Related: - You learn about LAB study from our Live-blogging a Financial Service Stratey Study - You also learn financial modeling with videos and ppts from our Strategy Library

This podcast explains the member changes we will soon make to the Firmsconsulting website. We are rolling out a new way to track contributions from members and reward members for their contributions and support.

This slightly humorous podcast draws an analogy to Nigerian gangsters (or is it “gangstas”) in a famous sci-fi movie and software counterfeiters to explain the problems tier-2 firms create in their obsession to replicate BCG’s analytics tools, toolkits and templates. Related: You can find previous in-depth discussion and comments on our site.

This podcast explains the common mistake all rivals, tier-2 firms, to McKinsey and BCG make: they value the wrong skills BCG has. This podcast explains the 4 capabilities a firm must have and how to use them: (1) Values (2) Strategy approach (3) Analytics (4) Ability to draw insights We can all agree that everyone is obsessed with the analytics at their peril. Tier-2 firms are truly shocked when they apply the same analytics as McKinsey but get a different result and still cannot raise their standing in a client's eyes. There is a reason for that. Related: - Interview a Deloittee Strategy and Operation Principal - Deloitte IT Strategy and McKinsey BTO

Many of us rely on titles to determine if we becoming leaders in a consulting firm. This podcast provides a more important of definition of consulting leadership: who does the consulting firm turn to in times of crises and how do they do so? In fact, you will see that a leader in a consulting organization can be as young as an analyst and a partner may not be a leader. In fact the level of candor between you and the existing leadership is the only measure that matters. This podcast explains this concept with various examples Related: - Competing with a high performing consultant - Learn all about consulting from our Consulting Offer

Those of you who follow my podcasts would know that I place an incredible amount of emphasis on not just being good at structuring issues and analyses, but also the way you manage people: consulting EQ. Learn more about the consulting EQ here Related: - Detailed videos about consulting EQ (managing, communication, motivating, coaching and mentoring clients and consultants) can be found in our detailed corporate strategy training library

What happens if you are doing a smaller study, but you identify an opportunity to sell-on a larger, more lucrative and glamorous strategy study? In this podcast I explain how the opportunity for sell-on strategy work is evolving at LAB, the financial services client whose strategy study we are live-blogging, and how an elite firm would handle the situation. It has nothing to do with sales. Related: - Learn more about strategy from our corporate strategy training - strategy library

Readers in other sectors like financial services, energy, retail, automotive etc., make a massive mistake when looking at the technology strategy study training we have up on the site. They assume that the study will not train them about corporate strategy since it is about corporate strategy for technology company. That is major flaw. This podcast elaborates on some of these reasons: 1. Every corporate strategy study must be done for a client in a sector. Therefore it is impossible to find corporate strategy training which is generic - that is, not specific to a sector. 2. The thinking, techniques and training applied to one sector is designed to be applied to any sector. 3. Even if you worked in financial services and we loaded the financial services strategy study shortly, a sector is so large, the study may not even touch the issues you want to learn - therefore focus on the techniques used versus trying to copy content across for your own studies. Do not get into the habit of simply copying analyses.

Week 1 of the financial services strategy study to enter the US retail banking sector is about done. You can see the detailed live-blogging of the day-by-day analyses, planning and insights here. This is a real study, done for a real client with a real team of consultants led by Firmsconsulting. Once the study is done, we will post the findings and detailed guide using the map format used for the corporate strategy study training. This podcast is a wrap-up of the week. We remind readers of the strategy we followed, all the goals we set for the week, our progress against those goals and our key findings thus far. We also discuss a potential scope change and how we will handle that. It is has been a great week and we wrap up things in New Mexico where the team is conducting more shadow studies / day-in-the-life-of studies of distribution financial intermediary in the border town of Columbus. Related: - Learn more about financial analysis in our strategy library

The majority of business gurus, journalists, periodicals, publications, journals, blogs, fashionistas and reality movie stars talk about the arrival of China like it is preordained by the Oracle. It is not. America has been here before. In fact America has been here 4 times in its history and each time the American model of government, system of capital allocation and creativity helped the country reinvent itself. In the next 18 months, Firmsconsulting will be leading 5 sweeping studies, at real clients, to find solutions to issues which impede US productivity growth. The detailed findings and extensive training videos to help you replicate such a study will be released once the studies are done. We will be bold and analyze some of the most vital and controversial issues including healthcare, immigration and the role of government. This podcast discusses the theme, training material and topic in more detail. Welcome to the era of America Renewed.