IIM Lucknow Starts
Giving Consulting Services to Corporatestext
For a career like consulting, the
biggest learning comes through the experience of working on live assignments. So
to reduce that gap IIM Lucknow students led initiative "Aetius" have
strived for getting live projects for students to work on. Aetius is just
an effort to concretize the efforts, and target corporate for projects through a
more professional set-up. The initiative was kicked-off last week, with the
launch of its first project for its client Zenesys, which makes Aetius as
India's first ever student-run body, providing fee-based services to corporate
clients and positioned along the concept of Consulting Clubs at foreign
B-schools like Harvard. text
IIM-L students have always been
involved in live projects in fields ranging from banking, to logistics, from IT
services to educational services. They have done projects for some big names
like CitiFinancial to Cognizant, but at the same time, have done
exciting work for start-ups like i-Maritime, as well consulted domestic
industries like the leather and unorganized.text
Although the objective was
primarily the same, the approach was very different this time. It's a far
professional system with the group working almost like a virtual company within
the campus. Processes and guidelines for projects followed under this banner,
includes: -text
A rigorous selection process for
people who work on the projects. In most cases, the client would himself decide
on the people he wants to work on them. For example, Zenesys wanted people
certified by it's "Management Consulting Workshop" to work on it's projects. So
after a tough competition, 24 bright students were chosen by Zenesys who went
through the workshop and would get to work on it's projects.text
Compensation based on the amount
of effort put in by the student on the work.text
Most importantly, a thorough
evaluation process, where the client would rate the student based on the quality
of final output on a rating scale of 10.text
"Moreover, the quality of
projects that we hope to launch under this banner would be on the higher end of
the value chain, and not restricted to back end research or analytics," says a
member of Aetius team. text
For students it's a terrific
opportunity to do some real life consulting before they enter the corporate
world. They get to learn interacting with best of clients, and a good rating is
like an icing on the cake. Not to mention, the chance to earn a few bucks is an
added bonus, says another team member of Aetius. text
Aetius IIM-L students led
initiative are having talks with several clients for a sustainable relation in
terms of projects, apart from the one-off projects they get from some of the
other firms. The first project from SIDBI, one of the many in the series
of exciting projects in banking strategy, has also been launched. They are
almost sure of closing in a couple of more projects in food processing, and
alternate energy sector. Apart from that, they have 4-5 more projects in the
pipeline for the coming month. text
