First-year MBA students at HBS looking for an interactive learning experience that demonstrates what it takes to be a management consultant can enter The Global Prize, a business case contest sponsored by global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney and the HBS Management Consulting Club.
The Global Prize is a team competition in two stages. In the first stage, five teams at eight of the top business schools, including HBS, compete locally for the chance to represent their school at the national competition. Winning teams at the local level walk away with valuable business case experience – and shared cash prizes. During the second stage, the winning teams enter the national competition held in New York on November 16, 2002 to compete for the Global Prize, another shared cash award and the satisfaction of besting the best.
The competition takes the form of a simulated client engagement. This year, the challenge is to make a strategy recommendation for the Latin American division of a large global bank. For the campus competitions, up to 15 teams of three to five members are selected at each of the participating schools. They will receive a case study requiring both development of a strategy and an implementation plan. A.T. Kearney consultants then act as the “client” and answer questions about the company for the student “consultants.” The result is a true-to-life “consulting experience” that provides participants real exposure to the process as well as one-on-one feedback from the A.T. Kearney consultants. The Global Prize contest kicks off at HBS on October 17 with the case distribution to the competing teams. Interviews will take place on October 25.
This is the first time that HBS has been participating in the Global Prize since the competition was successfully tested at Columbia in 1997. Bringing the competition to HBS is the result of a joint effort by A.T. Kearney and the Management Consulting Club.
“We strive to make the case as realistic as possible,” said Olivier Aries (HBS’99) from A.T. Kearney. “We give the teams a chance to use interviewing skills and challenge them to think on their feet. Team members can solve the case only if they ask the right questions so they can get the answers needed to develop strategies that can be implemented effectively.”
“We’re in the sixth year of our Global Prize and the participants have given us very positive feedback about the effectiveness of the simulated consulting engagement and the lessons they’ve learned that will be useful in their careers. They’ve told us the contest has supplemented their analytical, communications, team management and client relationship skills while giving them insight into consulting and how to solve strategic management issues,” said and Max Cuellar.
Other participating schools are Columbia School of Business at Columbia University, Richard Ivey School of Management, Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, Sloan School of Business at MIT, University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, University of Michigan Business School and The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
If you are a first-year MBA student and wish to participate in this event, you can register online at www.private.atkearney.com/events/gp2002. Both team and individual applications are accepted – individuals will be grouped together. More details will be announced in campus-wide emails next week. Questions should be addressed to Jan Petzel, who is managing the event for the Consulting Club.
For more information contact:
Jan Petzel
jpetzel@mba2003.hbs.edu
617 945 1329
Burak Dalgin
bdalgin@mba2004.hbs.edu
617 267 7814
