Georgetown MBA Internship Diary: Chris

Wrapping Up

Looking back on my Capgemini internship experience, I can honestly say I'm thrilled with the experience. I wanted to get a realistic idea of what working in the consulting industry, and at Capgemini specifically, would be like.  Through both my work in the home office in New York City and on a client project in Oklahoma City, I got a thorough flavor of the work and what differentiates Capgemini.

During the last week of the internship, the four Capgemini summer interns were requested to fly down to Atlanta to gather and make a short but formal presentation in Atlanta to a group of Cap managers and organizers of the intern program.  This was great since each of us had very different experiences on client projects and other types of work assignments, allowing us to contrast our experiences with those of our fellow interns.  Some interns were part of 'Phase I" projects where the strategy development had just started, so the pace and hours were extremely intense.  Others worked on new business proposals or recruiting efforts.  When management consultants say there is no such thing as a "typical" day or project in the industry, they are right.  Among other things you need as a consultant, you must be very flexible and able to adapt to the diverse and changing needs of your firm or your client, which can literally change from day to day or week to week.    

When I sat down to make a list of what I had learned and how I contributed, I realized just how far I had come.  It was fulfilling to be able to talk genuinely to Cap managers about my accomplishments and how grateful I was to have had this opportunity.  To all those considering an internship or career in consulting, I would recommend it.  But know what you're getting into.  Talk to veteran consultants, current and former interns, professors, alumni and anyone who can offer a bit of insight.  Consider the lifestyle that may be involved, potentially including weekly travel, long hours, intense workloads, clients who may be suspicious of consultants, the political environment within a client company, to name a few.  Of course, the upside can be the opportunity to work on incredibly exciting and challenging business problems with other motivated and intelligent people like you, gaining a breadth of experiences in different industries, the professional network you can develop among consultants and clients, and the healthy compensation you can earn. 

So now I return for my second year of the Georgetown McDonough School of Business MBA program, with the newfound perspective of having worked in the consulting industry.  It should be an awesome second year (in both Spain and Washington, DC) and I can't wait to get started and help others like me considering a career in consulting.  My Georgetown MBA experience has been great so far.  Now if our Hoyas basketball team can just kick some ass this year and take the title it'll be perfect.    

Georgetown-ESADE Exchange Program

I found out some incredible news recently!  I will be spending the fall semester in an MBA exchange program in Barcelona, Spain at a school known as ESADE.  The opportunity is perfectly suited for me as I have a strong desire to point my career toward the Hispanic world (in a consulting capacity) after Georgetown.  I am not yet fluent in Spanish, and the three months I spend in Spain should, with any luck, allow me to reach fluency (a major career goal of mine).  To be honest, I'm simply ecstatic.  The opportunities to learn from and network with fellow international MBA students from Spain and around the world will be fantastic and will build on my experiences at Georgetown.  I'm hoping to live with a host family in Barcelona during my time at ESADE which should improve my Spanish and help me to learn more about the local culture. 

The Georgetown-ESADE MBA exchange program is yet another example of the truly international nature of the Georgetown McDonough School of Business.  The one downside about participating in the exchange program is the timing - I won't be at Georgetown in the fall (modules 1 and 2) of my second year.  This means I won't be able to utilize the Georgetown MBA career resources easily in the fall (including on-campus interviewing), nor will I be able to rejoin my Georgetown classmates, including the new first-year class, in the fall.  These are the major drawbacks and why some students don't consider it.  It was a tough choice, but for my career, the opportunity was too good to pass up.  It will without a doubt be an integral part of a rich and fulfilling Georgetown MBA experience. 

Storyboarding - the consultant's essential tool

For the last several weeks one of my tasks at Capgemini has been to develop a market analysis report covering the hospitality industry.  The idea is to paint a picture of the industry using a PowerPoint presentation, the favorite tool for consultants.  The program is incredibly flexible and the possible ways to tell a story using PowerPoint are limitless.  If you want to work in consulting, good PowerPoint skills are a must.  But you need more than the technical proficiency to develop effective "decks."  You need to be able to understand how to present information that both draws in and holds the attention of your viewer and guides him or her along an easy-to-follow path to arrive at your conclusions.  It is not easy, but it is a powerful tool.

At Capgemini, we refer to this as "storyboarding."  It's a skill that takes a lot of practice.  Each slide needs to present new information (not just data), like turning the pages of a good book.  Your goal is to have the viewer arrive at your conclusion before it has actually been presented in a slide.  The entire deck therefore needs to tell a story, complete with background, characters, a compelling plot and an exciting finish.  Depending on how the deck will be used (i.e. whether it will be presented or simply read by the viewer), each individual slide may contain only a little information of it may be crammed with information.  Consultants sometimes have the reputation for burying clients in immense PowerPoint decks, known facetiously as "death by PowerPoint."  Yet PowerPoint remains the gold standard for the industry and can be an incredibly effective and persuasive means of communication.   

Taking Stock

I am a very "big picture" kind of guy.  Which is why six weeks into my Capgemini internship, an internship I am thrilled and fortunate to be participating in, between my first and second years of an engaging MBA program at the McDonough School of Business, I've paused to take stock of the experience.

As I become more involved in the client engagement in Oklahoma City and more settled into my role (meetings, deliverables, etc.), I can't help but think I've got only a few short weeks left.  It helps me realize that what this internship is most about is not one final deliverable but about getting a taste for this type of work and the industry.  In this regard, I couldn't be more satisfied.  Though it is hard to generalize about the management consulting industry based on only one project, my colleagues in Oklahoma have provided me with invaluable insight and perspective using their own experiences.  This has been the most interesting part so far - simply getting to know my project manager and others and speaking in very frank and open terms about the industry and how this particular project may or may not be representative of the type of work I could expect.  It's also been great working and hanging out with some really intellectually stimulating people.

As I look forward to the remainder of the internship and to my second year at Georgetown, I feel confident that I will be able to say that my internship experience was a success - that I got a full and realistic idea of what working in the industry is really like. 

A Competitor's Poor Choices

I flew in this morning as usual to Oklahoma City as I've done every Monday for the last four weeks.  Upon arriving, I noticed that the office was unusually quiet.  And somewhat empty.  Turns out that one of the other consulting firms (a competitor) working on this same client engagement is having a contract dispute with the client.  So they took the highly unusual step of pulling their people out entirely.  To me this sounded unbelievable and unprofessional given the damage it would most certainly do to their future relationship with the client.  It made me mad as well.  Our client is going through a major restructuring of their financial and accounting systems and they are depending on dozens of different vendors (consulting firms, software vendors, etc.), including Capgemini, to perform as promised.  We're dealing with all the usual problems that would accompany an IT reordering of this magnitude, including the difficulty in managing so many different (and sometimes competing) vendors.  The last thing they needed was for a key vendor to snub them like this. 

It does serve to illustrate one difference between the corporate world and the world of small business (which is my background).  Scale becomes a real factor in the corporate world.  There may be a very limited number of suppliers that have the scale to complete a corporate client's requirements, thus providing more bargaining power to the supplier (think Porter's Five Forces).  In the small business world, if a supplier doesn't meet client expectations, they are more likely to be thrown out and replaced with another vendor.  In the corporate world, sometimes the client has to just bear a certain amount of supplier ineptitude. 

The Collaborative Business Experience (TM)

Through discussions with my Capgemini manager and colleagues this week, I learned about some of the difficulties we've faced working in a highly political environment where a number of competing consulting companies are working shoulder-to-shoulder with one another.  While this multi-vendor project may be atypical, it's a great learning experience for me.  Generally speaking, management consulting can be a political field to work in.  When an outside consulting firm enters the political dynamic at a client, extra care must be taken to demonstrate humility and modesty within the new environment.  Consultants must be able to develop trust and respect with their clients at many levels within the organization in order to build momentum and successfully implement change.  An aggressive or heavy-handed consulting approach may therefore fail. 

Capgemini refers to our approach as the 'Collaborative Business Experience' (TM) and I've really begun to understand it these last couple weeks.  Again, generally speaking, a consulting company cannot hope to understand in a few months all the complexities of a client's business better than the client himself, who may have taken years or decades to acquire the knowledge.  However, what Capgemini brings to the table is a perspective that the client may not have:  the experience of working in many related industries with clients that have faced similar problems or dilemmas.  We can therefore draw on our broad experience to offer solutions.  Yet the parameters are different in each situation.  The only real way forward is by working synergistically with the client, to leverage their detailed knowledge (we depend on them) and our broad perspective (they depend on us).  This may sound idealistic, but I've begun to see the results of this approach at my project this week.  It is a powerful concept and the guiding principle behind Capgemini's consulting services practice.      

Week 3: Learning the Project

It's great becoming involved in a client engagement and it only makes me want to learn more.  I flew down on an early flight to Oklahoma City Tuesday morning and by Tuesday afternoon was learning the intricacies of a hugely complex IT transformation project involving dozens of consultants and software experts working on one particular aspect or another of the project.  Our client is a multi-billion dollar company with locations throughout the country and the world, seeking to consolidate and update their accounting and financial systems in order to save costs and streamline their operations.  I quickly realized the scope and significance of the project.  My team is involved in the overall management of the project, to ensure timely and cost-effective progress.  I had a chance this week to develop a process flow chart for one of the work streams and to refine the "deck" (i.e. PowerPoint) for a weekly steering committee meeting (which helped me gain further perspective on the overall project). 

My colleagues down in Oklahoma City are great and we've already made plans to catch a minor league baseball game next week - next week being Monday to Thursday, the typical travel schedule for a consultant.  Fridays are typically spent back at the home office, which for me is New York City.   I should be heading to Oklahoma City for the remaining weeks of my internship.  Here's a tip for the consulting industry:  sign up for all the 'frequent flyer' programs you can because the miles add up fast!   

Oklahoma!

My internship took a new turn this past week as I was assigned to an active project in Oklahoma City.  For most of the week I had been working with a consultant of ours based in Boston writing a white paper on strategic cost management during recessionary times.  A white paper, as I have learned, is essentially a thought-leadership type of research paper on a selected business issue that the writer can offer real insight into.  It's expected that consultants will use the time in between project assignments (known as being "on the beach") to work on these types of projects.  White papers are sometimes published in trade magazines, can be turned into hard copy promotional pamphlets, and/or can also be used as PowerPoints when pitching new business to prospective clients.  It's been great for me to learn and be part of this process.  The Georgetown library resources have been invaluable in this regard as, being a Georgetown MBA student, I have free access to a ton of online databases and financial research tools. 

So, now I get ready to fly to Oklahoma City (think barbecue and steak...) this week.  It will be interesting because there is only a small team of Capgemini folks but we will be working with and around consultants from one of our archrivals, Accenture.  Our client is going through a major restructuring of their accounting and financial functions and consolidating their service support.  It's exciting to be involved in such a significant project and to learn what management consulting is all about (including the travel - both my flights are at 6 am!).  I can't wait to dive in and make an impact!

New Names, New Faces and a New Industry

Being the first week of my summer internship at Capgemini, I've been introduced to numerous people in the company during the past several days, from the president of the North America Consulting Services (CS) business unit to vice presidents, senior managers, senior consultants and more.  I've been assigned a "buddy" who I do not directly work with but is available to answer any questions at all I might have about transitioning into my role.  It's a real skill to remember names and very useful (some would say crucial) in business.  Regrettably, I don't have a natural talent for this, but it's a skill I intend to improve.  My answer during this first week?  Simple.  As soon as possible, jot down new names on paper.  This way I'm not trying to remember ten people's names in my head at once and getting them all muddled. 

Despite my name dilemma, I really enjoy meeting new people from all different backgrounds.  Everyone at Cap has been very friendly and helpful.  My intern class (there are four of us) had two+ days of orientation where we learned about the company (it's big - over 80,000 employees worldwide, but the North America CS practice is only 200) and the recent reorganization, the nature of consulting work, various methodologies that Cap uses and expectations for our internship.  While I await assignment to a specific client project, I began gathering data for my project manager on a "whitepaper" he's writing on cost management during economic downturns.  This type of work is usually taken on in between client projects. All consultants are expected to contribute to Capgemini's body of knowledge by taking on these thought-leadership papers, ultimately to help the company remain at the forefront of business transformation.  It's a great opportunity to be involved in this aspect of consulting work. 

Brazil-Bound

I found out recently that I will be traveling to Sao Paulo, Brazil for my global integrative experience next spring.  The Global Integrative is another example of Georgetown’s international focus and curriculum and was another factor in my decision to come here.  During module three of the second year, Georgetown MBA students work in small teams on a live consulting project for an overseas client.  At the end of the module, all the students take a one-week trip to meet with their respective international clients and present their findings and recommendations.  Many students then choose to stay on in the country for spring break to soak up the culture and take advantage of the travel opportunity.  The global integrative is particularly suited for me given my interest in management consulting and international business.  As much as I’m looking forward to getting started at Capgemini, I’m also looking forward to the second year of the MBA program at Georgetown.  I just need to work on my Brazilian samba dance.