Introduction to Consulting
What you'll learn
- You will understand what consulting is, how consulting firms make money, how you are evaluated at a consulting firm, how to write powerful proposals, how to properly budget consulting engagements, and how to run highly effective consulting meetings
Requirements
- All you need is an interest in business and helping other businesses succeed
Description
This course is based on Dr. Firth's personal experience teaching new consultants for KPMG's national consulting practice for over six years, in addition to over ten years teaching the University of Montana's College of Business undergraduates and graduate students all about consulting. Hundreds of Dr Firth's consulting class students have found very well paid positions with consulting firms locally and nationally. Dr. Firth is recognized nationally by several very well known consulting firms for his role in preparing students for great careers in consulting.
The course is primarily aimed at those wanting to join a consulting firm, rather than start their own consulting firm. This can be college undergraduates, college graduates, or experienced practitioners out in the workforce. That said, all the topics are 100% practically applicable and would help tremendously those starting their own firms.
The course covers critical, practical issues including:
First impressions, and how to make them better both during the hiring process, and as a consultant
How a consulting firm makes money. Knowing this helps you play your role and be more valued as a result if you work for a firm, or are wanting to work for a consulting firm
Why chargeability is the #1 metric for a consultant, how it gets calculated, and how you can change it
Why realization is the #1 metric for a consulting firm, how it gets calculated, and your role in it
The immutable consulting triangle of scope-cost-schedule
All aspects of a real consulting proposal. We work through a detailed example and explain all the parts
A real budget for a consulting project. We work through every piece of a real budget for a consulting project, explaining why each part is there and how the parts interact
All aspects of a consulting meeting from planning, to where to sit in the meeting room, to how to take notes and ask great questions
What to avoid when running a consulting meeting, including poor types of questions and issues such as avoiding social desirability
Who this course is for:
- Anyone who as an interest in helping companies and organizations succeed
- This course is more focused on joining an existing consulting company rather than setting up your own consulting company, but most of the principals covered can be applied if your are starting your own consulting business
Instructor
- 4.2 Instructor Rating
- 135 Reviews
- 493 Students
- 2 Courses
Dr. David Firth is a professor of Management Information Systems at the College of Business at the University of Montana.
David's main contribution to the College of Business is his nationally recognized Introduction to Consulting class. This class has launched hundreds of students in to careers in consulting. The vast majority of these students make well above the average salaries for graduates of the business school.
David is recognized as The Godfather of ATG Missoula. ATG Missoula is an international consulting firm based in Missoula, Montana. As The Godfather, David worked with the Tom Stergios, who was at the time living in Missoula but working for ATG out of Kansas. David convinced Tom that if he opened up an office in Missoula he would be able to hire students from David's Introduction to Consulting class that would be some of the best hires he had ever seen. Tom started with two students, who were so good he came back quickly for more. Now Tom is close to his 100th hire in less than six years.
KPMG Advisory has recognized the talent coming out of David's Consulting classes. as well. The University of Montana is a Top-30 school for KPMG Advisory to hire from, out of over 2,500 4-year U.S. universities, and alongside universities like Penn State, Notre Dame, UC Berkeley and UCLA.
David has a Ph.D. in Information Systems from the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA where he graduated with a 4.0 GPA.
Before his Ph.D. David was a Managing Director in the San Francisco office of KPMG's Information Technology consulting practice. He was the lead consultant on some of the firm's largest and most important clients, including the worldwide VISA engagements and Wells Fargo. He also served a large number of small startup technology firms. He brings this vast real-world experience in to the Udemy lectures to show students what it consulting is really all about.
Before working with KPMG, David was an audit manager in Dallas, TX and before that London with the international accounting and consulting firm E&Y.
David has an undergraduate (Honours) and master's degrees in Physics from Oxford University in England.