When I started college, I knew immediately that I wanted a job that involved business, technology and lots of traveling. At the time, I thought that such a profession carrying those qualities were strictly reserved for some rare breed of savvy sales people or c-level executives. I hadn’t the slightest idea yet of what consulting was. But one evening in a Barnes & Noble, I came across a very interesting Fortune article titled “The strange existence of Ram Charan” that read almost like a myth, something retirees tell their sons/daughters going to business school. It told the tale of a management strategy consultant guru who had no wife, no car and no real home (he used his empty office address for his passport). He would travel multiple continents a week to answer the call of the CEOs of Fortune 100 companies and advise them on business and organizational strategy. A sad, pitiful lifestyle to some but I was totally captivated and intrigued by such a nomadic way of living. It was at that precise moment, after reading that article, that I knew consulting was the life for me; may not be as extreme as Charan’s “existence” but something like it.
However, I didn’t and still don’t quite want to do management consulting (yet). After all, what right do I have as a recent college graduate to advise companies how to run their business? During college, I joined a large semiconductor firm. Instead of giving me a regular desk, my superiors stuffed me into a large conference room full of consultants working on a year-long PeopleSoft ERP upgrade project. For an entire year, I worked with these people learning more about their occupation and the interesting experiences they had. At the time, I was so amazed how the majority of them were originally from some other state; they flew in Monday morning and left mysteriously Thursday evening. After this particular experience, I was able to narrow the scope of my career aspirations from some vague understanding of consulting to ERP/IT consulting (SAP or Oracle). To me, it perfectly blended all the three original qualities I was looking for in a profession. First, it involved implementing and working on large enterprise technology/systems. Second, it required individuals to have a strong understanding of business processes. And last, maybe the most important of them all, it involved tons of traveling.
Now a lot people say I’m way too idealistic about consulting…and I probably am. But I think at my age it’s definitely worth a try. Who knows, if it turns out to be as glamorous and awesome as I imagine it to be this could become a very long and illustrious career. And if I get burnt out and end up hating it, I can always settle back to my suburban hometown and find a cushy 9-5 desk job.
This summer, I’ll be joining a large IT consulting firm in New York City as an grunt slave analyst. My hope with this blog is to be able to share my journey through the industry, offer some advice to those interested in consulting (mainly IT) and leave the forum open for any advice/warnings from other seasoned professionals who been through itall. You’ll find a variety of posts on this blog: anything from aligning business with IT strategy to little SharePoint programming tricks I’ve discovered. Note that what I don’t want is some elitist from MBB (McKinsey, Bain, Booz) mouthing off about how awesome they are and how much better management consulting is. Though any constructive input is always welcome! Thanks for reading!
here’s a great clip of Ram Charan:
