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Category: consulting-abroad-program

Published on
Blog written by Jessica Goodman

 

Our team faced challenges that consultants face on a regular basis. How did we want to present our team’s recommendations to our client in a compelling way? What data points and case studies from our internal and external research should we include in our presentation? What questions did we anticipate to receive about our ideas and findings?

 

We certainly needed to have answers to those questions by “Preliminary Findings Presentation” day on April 26. This was the day when all of the CAP Australia teams had an opportunity to present deliverables to a panel of faculty and industry experts. In the weeks leading up to our presentation, we practiced storyboarding our recommendations with one another and a group of second-year GMBAs.

 

Storyboarding is the practice of using the headlines of a slide deck to convey a central message and insights from an engagement with a client – that way, your client’s colleagues can follow your recommendation despite not having the benefit of hearing your presentation. As you can imagine, white boards and dry erase markers were prized resources as we fine-tuned our ideas and brainstormed our recommendations.

 

The morning of April 26 was here before we knew it. CAP Australia teams presented to a panel of professionals from George Washington University, KnowWho, Inc., Fannie Mae, and The World Bank. By 9:00AM, the halls of Duquès were packed with tired GMBA students buying coffee at Point Chaud Café, practicing our presentations, and putting finishing touches on our decks. We received some great feedback, including which parts of our presentation included “Americanisms” – like “playbook” and “bootcamp.” Some of my CAP Australia classmates said this about the experience:

 

  • “It was a great opportunity to practice presenting in a professional and supportive setting, and we received insightful feedback that will help us rethink and refine parts of our presentation. It was a great feeling to be done with the presentation and amazing to see how far all the teams had come from our first day in January!” - Adam

 

  • “The external panel review was both intimidating and rewarding; presenting for the first time in front of an audience of subject matter experts proved to be a wonderful opportunity to see how the story of our project flowed throughout the presentation, better understand how our information is received by an outside audience, and how to prepare for tough questions from our clients. The feedback we received on presentation day was incredibly helpful to fill gaps in our presentation, while also helping us understand areas where we might have too much information for our clients to digest. Our final deliverable is so much stronger, thanks to the expertise and insight of our panel.” - Ashley

 

We now have great feedback in mind and more work to do! On to Australia!

 

Published on
Blog written by Alyssa Passarelli

 

Throughout our Global MBA experience, congregating in Duquès 151 has generally meant hearing big news of some kind. It was where we first reported on day 1 of our MBA orientation. It is where we learned which classmates were in our academic learning teams. Keeping with tradition, it is also where we learned about which projects that we could participate in for our CAP experiences come Spring 2018.

Duquès 151 is where we GMBAs have often been provided key updates from faculty. Our CAP projects were no exception. Image source: Foursquare

Back in November 2017, Professor Yu took center stage at the front of the large lecture hall to highlight that those who would participate in CAP China would have the opportunity to work with one of two possible clients: JD.com, the second largest online retailer in China, or Shenzhen Energy, one of the main power generation companies in the region. Each of these clients offered exciting strategic work for the participating students. On country alone, I was curious about the opportunity to work in China having never traveled to Asia before, but the intrigue of the projects confirmed my interest.

 

Across four teams, there are sixteen of us participating in CAP China. Three of the teams are working with JD.com, and the fourth with Shenzhen Energy. It has been interesting for us to see how the scope of work for the projects have each changed to varying degrees from the time that Professor Yu first introduced the projects six months ago. However, it was an important lesson to learn for future consulting projects, as it reflects the evolving nature of client priorities. While each of the projects differ, they actually all share a central theme: benchmarking best practices to take their organizations’ missions into the future.

 

 

Here’s what we have been working on over the course of this semester, and what we will focus on with our clients when we arrive in country:

  1. Benchmarking best practices and operational expertise for energy companies in the United States and market analysis of favorability to enter the United States (Shenzhen Energy).
  2. Identifying industry best practices from retailers on how to prepare its workforce for the implementation of automated technologies, particularly for innovation that is occurring within the supply chain (JD.com).
  3. Creating a strategy to motivate converting consumers from cash and credit card purchasing to using a local, Thai-branded e-wallet while capturing market share (JD Finance - JD.com).
  4. Analyzing the model and practices of industry competitors’ development of private label products and brand to recommend a viable strategy for the Chinese market (JD.com).
CAP China 2018 participants suited up with Professor Yu and our panel of coaches (Warren Dewhurst of Dewhurst Group, Bonnie Pierce of ndp|analytics, and Chris Min of Under Armour) in front of Duquès Hall after finishing preliminary client presentations on April 26th.
Image source: GWSB Office of Global & Experiential Education

So close to departure, the sixteen of us are eager to arrive in Beijing. It is very exciting that we will be able to finally meet the client contacts with whom we have been WeChatting for the last several months. Stay tuned for updates once we are in country!

Published on
Blog written by Sean Soni

 

Here it is, CAP South Africa! 120 hours left before I board my plane for Cape Town – this is the point of no return.

 

Project Overview & A Snapshot of Our Last Five Months Before Cape Town

Over the past five months, me and my 17 talented fellow-MBA candidates have been sprinkled with the most exciting, jaw-dropping pieces of information regarding our assigned CAP Assignment – Cape Town, South Africa. It is now the time for all of our preparation, research and collaboration to play out. To say that we are ‘excited’ is an extreme understatement.

 

Upon learning about our placement into this beloved country, we learned that Cape Town was going through a water crisis and a contentious election of a new president. I could tirelessly discuss the Cape Town drought and Jacob Zuma’s exit in great detail, but the ultimate moral of the story was that our CAP class held it together and remained even more committed to our respective consulting projects on our path to Cape Town.

 

I would first like to mention that the process of CAP has been excellently designed by the GWSB and the Global & Experiential Education team to create 1) excitement, 2) deliver real-world consulting experience, and 3) offer unparalleled graduate-level work from industries for which GWSB students genuinely have a passion for. Ultimately, this allowed for the natural matriculation of students into groups which showcased their talents in the right industries. This was tied together by our knowledge guide and mentor, Professor Abdullah Akyuz.

 

At first, we had two main industries to choose from within our CAP South Africa Cohort, these industries were: The Commercial Cleaning Industry and The Energy Industry within South Africa. It’s probably worth mentioning that both of these industries are booming in South Africa and both have their own significant contributions to the recent economic growth of South Africa, so naturally it was a very tough choice and put many of my classmates between a rock and a hard place. Refrigeration and Residential-Solar Expansion were on the table, pertaining to the Energy Industry project. On the other hand, Geographic Expansion along with Service Offering Expansion were the hot topics for the Commercial Cleaning Industry Project within South Africa.

 

Within these two industries, four various projects would draw on the strengths of our group to expand, optimize, or diversify the offerings of two companies – Sweep South and Energy Partners.

 

For some of us, consulting was second nature and we had been given adequate training to handle the unexpected situations that could arise while engaging in Pro-gratis consulting with a client. Throughout the lifespan of our project work beginning in January, none of us would be able to anticipate some of the obstacles, successes, and experiences that we would face.

 

Stay tuned for my next post on May 25th which will discuss what is happening while abroad in South Africa.

 

Thanks for following along on our journey! ‘Til next time.

 

Below I’ve included the team photos of your very own, CAP South Africa Consulting Group. Please note that they are consultants, not models!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Published on

Despite all the traveling, cultural visits, and other extracurricular activities, we never lost sight of our true goal in Argentina: serving our client.

On Friday, June 2nd, 2017 our team presented the final recommendations to our client. As an outsider it can feel almost irreverent to explain how to do things better to a co-founder of a company. Our client’s company was his and his partner’s brainchild. But, as all good leaders learn do, our client wasn’t afraid to ask for help when he saw parts of the organization lagging.

My talented and diverse team was able to conduct numerous interviews and observe the day-to-day workings of the organization throughout our time in Buenos Aires. We saw things that the firm’s leadership may have missed or been too busy to notice on a daily basis.

We were not burdened with the responsibilities of actually managing the firm and we were therefore perfectly positioned to objectively observe the good, the bad, the ugly, and the inspiring. Additionally, employees were able to speak candidly with our team and identify points of tension that they may have been reluctant to share with the firm’s leadership. The human element is an often overlooked part in an organization’s success or failure and I was surprised to discover the impact of some of the deep-rooted relationships within the firm. It is these relationships that are hard to understand a thousand miles away on a video teleconference.
Our recommendation was supported by our own experience, business theory we studied at GW, and the guidance of both our professor and graduate assistant. We crafted a process improvement and efficiency roadmap for the firm to enable stable long-term growth in an unpredictable developing market. It won’t be an easy path, but we are confident in the firm’s leadership to implement either our recommendation or a similar plan to achieve both sustained growth and personal satisfaction.
Our professor lauded our work as “billable” which is probably the highest praise we could expect. We were professional and our recommendation was technically and tactically sound. I learned first-hand both the joys and frustrations of consulting abroad. By the time the two weeks were over I felt I was a part of the organization and had real connections with the leadership and employees. I am thankful for the opportunity to travel to Argentina and serve such a welcoming and hospitable client. What I learned from my short stay will certainly aid me in my summer consulting internship and throughout my future career.

Written by Global MBA student: George Chewning

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