By Sanghita Dey, Staff Writer
On 30th October 2015, Thunderbird Management Consulting Association (TMCA) organized the 11th iteration of Clash of Consultants. Clash of Consultants is one of the most prestigious Thunderbird events, where one can develop one’s analytical and presentation skills. Participants from W.P. Carey School of Business increased the diversity of the event. In total seven teams applied for the competition and TMCA members selected four of them based on diversity of professional experience, industry, country of origin, as well as the application layout and content. The selected teams were Swoveland Consulting (Thunderbird), Global Gurus (Thunderbird), Consulting Ninjas (W.P Carey) and Thundercon (Thunderbird).
Feedback Session
The case was “Resolute Marine Energy: Power in Waves (MIT Sloan Management)” and the questions were released to the teams 24 hrs before the competition. Prof. Tom Hunsaker, Prof. Mary Sully de Luque, Mr. Brandon Klippel (a partner at Edward Jones) and Mr. Charles Reeves were the notable judges. Every team had 15 minutes to present followed by a question answer round. The competition began at 11 AM with team Swoveland Consulting followed by Consulting Ninjas, Thundercon and Global Gurus respectively.
After going through all the presentation the event broke up for 15 min to allow judges to make their final decision. It was a cut throat competition. To know other’s view, I spoke to Shivan Pierra (MBA ’16, US), a TMCA member, and Savijeet Singh (MBA ’15, India), TMCA president, and Swati Ranjan (MGM ’16, India) during the break and everyone had a different team name for the winner title in mind. Even the judges took more time than usual to finalise the results. Prof. Hunsaker said “It was a tough call”. Before announcing the winner, judges gave detailed feedback to every team. Nicole Meacham (MGM ’16, US), a member of Team Thundercon said “the feedback were the best part of the event. It will be a lifetime asset for me”. Isabel Swoveland (MGM ’16, US), a member of Team Swoveland mentioned it “is the best event to learn and improve your consulting skills”.
Team Thundercon (Winner)
Finally, after the feedback from the panel, Prof. Hunsaker announced Team Consulting Ninjas as a runner’s up and Team Thundercon as the winner. Just being a viewer, I learned four major key points on presentation and consulting skills.
- While recommending a solution, provide enough evidence to support your recommendation and reasons for not choosing other available options.
- Avoid continuous body movement while presenting
- Whatever information is said during the presentation, should be present in the slides too.
- Be prepared to handle all kinds of questions.
Clash of Consultants is definitely a great experience in the T-bird life.
Runner’s up Winner
Team Consulting Ninjas (W.P Carey) Team Thundercon (Thunderbird)
Rajkumar Chatterjee (India) Nicole Meacham (US)
Xlaohui Zeng (China) Kevin Roos (US)
Yan Li (China) Luca Lin (China)
Vishal Kumar (India) Harry Ar-toe- Gkornean (Liberia)
Nikhil Chug (India)