Skip to main content

Tips from Top: Corporate roles and career in consulting - a key perspective, Mr Himanshu Verma (Lead HR, IT Consulting Services, KPMG)

“How to become a ‘leader- across all levels’? How to generate confidence for providing solutions to a myriad of problems? And not only that, how does one proactively simulate problems, solving them even before they occur, and step ahead in the learning curve?” These are some of the intriguing questions that were raised and were very efficiently answered today, by a very young and dynamic persona; Mr. Himanshu Verma (Lead HR, IT Consulting Services, KPMG) when he delivered an enlightening seminar on ‘Corporate roles and career in consulting, a key perspective’ while addressing an audience of MBA students at IIT Kanpur.

Mr. Verma began by defining the two terms: ‘consulting’ and ‘consultant’. He stated that consulting can be understood as a process of not only giving solutions but also creating (simulating) problems proactively, in order to get efficient solutions beforehand. According to sir, a ‘consultant’ is not just a job role; it’s a breed of people with relevant domain knowledge, with a mindset to analyse thoughts and with a capability to arrive at useful conclusions. In that sense we are surrounded with consultants, including our parents, doctors, lawyers and people from all walks of life. The key for success here being, the ability to perform the role, perpetually and progressively; learning and innovating at every stage.

Sir candidly listed and lucidly explained few key traits that budding managers can inculcate in order to achieve unprecedented success in not only the field of consulting, but across various fields. First and foremost being the ‘Theory of Questioning’, the zeal towards asking relevant ‘self-questions’ and finding the answers via introspection. Sir emphasized the importance of this by giving an example of children below the age of 6 years, who ask more than hundred questions per day and as a result their learning graph is very high as compared to the elders. According to sir, the power of questioning can help in increasing one’s experience and knowledge base. When performed on a daily basis, this has the potential to provide all answers in life!      

Moving forward, Sir talked about the golden concept of 'polymorphism'. In the context of consulting, it can be understood as the ability to provide what is actually good for clients, but in a manner that also looks good to them. This according to sir can be achieved by developing a flexible mindset and ability to connect the dots, which in turn are attained by asking relevant self questions and categorizing the thoughts sequentially. Sir advised students to improvise and evolve continuously because nobody is perfect and it’s always a pursuit to perfection!

Last but certainly not the least, Sir talked about the significance of effective time management.  According to him, and rightly so, this is the soul of all concepts for managers. Sir suggested that performing SWOT analysis on an individual level and allocating a good part of time daily for self-development can help in structuring the valuable resource of 24 hours productively. This when followed with an ardor to think different, can provide a vital edge and can indeed lead one to become a ‘leader all across’!  The breed that doesn’t follow trends but sets them!  

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Consilium'08: The Consulting Conclave

MBA batch under the aegis of Department of IME is going to organize the annual consulting conclave of IIT Kanpur, Consilium’08. The objective of this event is to create a platform where confluence of leading professionals from consultancy and vast student community can take place. As consultancy has become one of the most preferred career choice for IITians , Consilium'08 will provide them the opportunity to learn about the nunaces of consultancy in various domains. From a humble start, it has been envisaged that Consilium will become the platform in coming years where representatives from across the spectrum of consultancy will share their knowledge, experience and insight with students. The event has generated enthusiasm among all sections of IITK students and students from other major B-Schools who are also expected to participate. Case solving competition is one of the attraction of Consilium '08 in which winners shall get certificates and attractive cash prizes. Apart...

THE HIGH OCTANE RIDE: FRESHERS NIGHT ‘12

“Dance like nobody's watching, Love like you've never been hurt, Sing like nobody's listening, Live like it's heaven on earth”  -Mark Twain An apt quote to describe the sumptuous freshers' party for the MBA batch of 2012-14, organised by the seniors on 17 th August, 2012. As with all freshers' parties, the gist of this night was to make every Y’14 MBA student feel like being an integral part of the IIT-K family, younger and ever new to take the challenge of the years ahead, ever fresh through the year and carrying the legacy ahead. The proceedings started as early as 7pm, as all the students geared up for an evening of fun, enjoyment and relaxation. After ambiguity, predicament and lots of discussions over what to wear for the occasion, almost everyone reached the venue for the night, old SAC ground, by 7.15pm where the party finally began at around 7.45pm. The event, compered by Sagar and Kanwardeep, kicked off with the Y’14 students being called on ...

A Talk on Project Management and Strategic Planning

A guest lecture was delivered by Mr. Aditya Kumar, Solution Transformation Leader, Schneider Electric on 11th Jan, 2013. He has specialized in Project Planning, Contract & Risk Management, Turnkey Projects, Business Processes, Energy Management, Building Project organization and thus his talk was focused on these aspects. He discussed that how the strategy and project management go hand in hand. Just as strategies and ideas lead to new projects, similarly, project results drive changes and give rise to new strategies and innovations. He explained that a project is a venture undertaken to produce a product or service. Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, procuring and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of project by the application of skills, knowledge, tools and techniques and meet the need and expectations of all the parties who are directly or indirectly interested in the project. The main challenge with project management is to...