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In this day and age, large business organizations are constantly in line to undertake strategic measures in order to improve processes and prevent organizational blunders. Consulting becomes the leeway for such firms to benefit from the advice granted and succeed in the long-run of events. So how does one get started on the consultancy journey and what were some challenges faced along the way? To address these queries, the Business Career Development Committee (BizCare) invited management consultant in PwC, Zi Jian, company associate consultant in Bain & Company, Keith Goek, and managing partner for Pufferfish Partners, Yann Le Moel, for the panel discussion of “the future of consulting” on 02 November 2022.
Yann Le Moel had 20 years of experience in international MNC groups as well as start-ups before residing in Singapore in 2015 to join Pufferfish Partners as a managing partner. On the other hand, Zi Jie and Keith have explored their interests in consultancy through related clubs and internship opportunities during their time in NUS. Both of them took a degree in BBA whereby Keith specialized in Finance and Zi Jie embarked on a double specialization route of Finance and Marketing. They had positively contributed and expanded their industry-relevant skill sets through their internships and took away valuable insights that could be applied to their future consultancy career prospects.
Yann Le Moel shared that even as an industry professional, there were still challenges faced everyday such as innovating new ideas to stay competitive and keeping up with the shifting demand of client’s needs. Zi Jie also shared that despite being unfamiliar with the client’s demand, knowing how to value add and making client’s investment worthwhile would be the predominant factor to one’s success in the consultancy industry. Keith shared that one has to be responsible for their work and big decisions as there was little to no room for error in this industry. Students often have a narrow understanding of what consultancy encompasses, especially the different categories such as strategy consulting, management consulting, operations consulting, financial consulting, IT consulting and human resources consulting.
A common consensus amongst the panels is that the upcoming consulting landscape demands tangible results and deliverables rather than advice. Decisions also need to be data backed to ensure a more reliable output of results for their clients. The entry level salary for fresh graduates in the Big 4 varies from 40K to 100K per annum whereby the average working hours mainly depends on the nature of the project. One should be keen in consultancy before stepping into the industry as the workloads are very diversified as you can gain experience across sectors, industries and even countries, as many consultancies also offer opportunities to travel.
Post-panel opinions from students
“The talk was very eye opening, where the speakers shared their own unique concerns they had when choosing to take on this industry and the various measures they took to bring them to consultancy. Also the Q&A session was very useful as I got to understand things that were not mentioned by them such as the working hours and salary.” ~ Lee Kar Men, Y1 Real Estate
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