Guest Lecture by Mr. Apurva Mehta, Associate Director, KPMG
August 25, 2007

The Consulting Committee of SPJIMR organized a guest lecture by Mr. Apurva Mehta, Associate Director, KPMG Advisory Services Pvt. Ltd, India. The topic for the lecture was ‘Consulting World: Practitioner's Analysis & Perspective.’ Mr. Mehta is an MBA from JBIMS, Mumbai University and holds a Masters in International Finance from Thunderbird, The Gavin School of Management, Arizona, USA. He has over 12 years of experience in the Investment Banking and Financial Services Industry and has also worked with TCS in the capacity of a consultant in Europe for two years.

The lecture lasted for just over an hour, with a presentation for around 45 minutes, followed by a Q&A session for 5-20 minutes. Mr. Mehta started the lecture by sharing his insights on how there is a divide between traditional developing economies and modern developed economies in their perception of 'Consulting'. He threw light on the changing trends in this field, especially in BRIC countries, where 'strategy' was moving from the boardroom to field execution.

Mr. Mehta talked about the science of Consulting as an iterative process of planning, developing insights about the customer, designing, implementation and control. Repeated refinement of the whole process is required to establish a robust strategy. He then spoke of the current trends in the Indian market and the cascading effect of Consulting and Consulting Services on most sectors ranging from financial services to the consumer market, and the government to infrastructure. He remarked that leading players in the Consulting industry were beefing up their services to emerge as full service providers and a one-stop shop for clients.

Mr. Mehta concluded his lecture by elaborating on the general industry life cycle of a consultant starting from a Business Analyst to a Director. He also stated that some of the key skills of a successful consultant are client management, business development and personal development.

The event came to a close with a thought provoking discussion on the sustainability of the consulting domain, key challenges & opportunities in a consulting engagement, and a consultant's work across horizontals or a vertical.