by: Jessica Macias Bochatay, Shadow Chair CMC at TMCA
Do you have a passion for consulting and the determination to succeed? Do you need knowledge, skills and experiences to make a significant impact as a consultant? Are you trying to be an effective catalyst of consultancy at Thunderbird? These were some of the questions which TMCA’s marquee event “Clash of Consultants 2011” helped answer for the highly-competent students who participated in the event and the audience who came to cheer them.
The Clash of Consultants (CoC) is TMCA’s premier consulting case competition for Thunderbird students. Over the course of the competition, participating students worked in teams, analyzed the case of Sompack, a Turkish manufacturer of cosmetics packaging that has traded off quality for cost, in order to compete with low-cost products from China, competed in a Preliminary Round, attended a presentation skills workshop by Professor Baer and attended the finals on November 4th 2011. Pitching to a panel of judges made up of some of Thunderbird’s foremost professors the final six teams pitched for the coveted title and exciting prizes.
On September 25th 2011, TMCA members were invited to participate in the CoC and asked to create and develop their own teams. Within a few days, 14 teams were created by 60 applicants, 60% of which were 1st trimester students. Due to the overwhelming response to the event a preliminary round was held on October 21st and each and every team was given an opportunity to present their preliminary assessment of the case to a panel of judges comprised of Prof. Elizabeth MacDonald, Michelle Toto (TMCA President) and Anuj Mathur (TMCA Vice-President). The quality of the preliminary presentations was excellent and the judges selected the top six teams who had the opportunity to move on to the finals.
On November 4th – the day of the finals, each team pitched to a panel of judges which included Prof. Michael Finney, Prof. Rick Baer, Prof. Gabriel Gonzalez and Thunderbird student Porter Searcy. The finals was held in AT&T and was attended by a number of students – many of them came to learn, others came to support their fellow colleagues go through this challenging yet enriching experience. Although the caliber of every presentation was impressive, only two outstanding teams had the joy of winning the competition. The team made up of Darshan Shah, Munish Jhaveri, Karan Singh, and Vinod Jayavelu won the first prize and walked away with the honors and a $300 gift card. The Runner Up team made up of Sandeep Das, Navjyot Ukarde, Anisha Vinny and Jaseem Pookandy received $200 Gift card. The awards and recognitions were certainly not cut short, Nick Ford and Navjot Ukarde received special awards for the ‘best presenters’ and the audience also had the opportunity to play a raffle in which one fortunate person received an iPod.
Finally, everyone was invited to a reception in which finalists received further team and personal feedback on their presentations by the judges and students in the audience. The event was highly appreciated by everyone present for its detailed planning and flawless execution which would not have been possible without the tireless efforts of a team of TMCA volunteers comprised of Amit Ganeti, Joy Ma and Benny Axt.
Please access the winning presentations by visiting Thunderbird Management and Consulting Association