Management Consulting Project Behind The Scenes

Real-life case study of the performance improvement project in retail. I will show you all stages of the project.

Last updated 2022-01-10 | 4.5

- Conduct similar consulting project with a small team
- Optimize processes
- Improve results in retail

What you'll learn

Conduct similar consulting project with a small team
Optimize processes
Improve results in retail
Improve customer experience in retail
Manage your relations with your customers

* Requirements

* Basic knowledge of economics
* Some common sense and logic

Description

What is the aim of this course?

People by nature are extremely curious. We want to see what others are doing, how they are achieving planned goals, what makes them successful. If you want to work as a Business Analyst or Management Consultant you may wonder how consulting projects are done?  What is the secret sauce that they are using?   

I will give you the unique opportunity to look behind the scenes from a consulting project that I have done for one of my customers. You will see how I managed to outwit 2 of my competitors and how I delivered value to my customers. I will show you every step in detail and provide you with the tools and knowledge you would need to do such a project. You will also see how I managed to build part of my business, using to the full extent the results of the project.   

This course is based on real-life examples. Data are altered to some extent to hide the client’s identity.     

In this course, I will show you how to win and deliver consulting projects fast and efficiently.

This course is based on my 15 years of experience as a consultant in top consulting firms and as a Board Member responsible for strategy, performance improvement, and turn-arounds in the biggest firms from Retail, FMCG, SMG, B2B, and services sectors that I worked for. I have carried or supervised over 90 different performance improvement projects in different industries that generated in total 2 billion of additional EBITDA. On the basis of what you will find in this course, I have trained in person over 100 consultants, business analysts, and managers who now are Partners in PE and VC funds, Investment Directors and Business Analysts in PE and VC, Operational Directors, COO, CRO, CEO, Directors in Consulting Companies, Board Members, etc. On top of that my courses on Udemy were already taken by more than 110 000 students including people working in EY, Walmart, Booz Allen Hamilton, Adidas, Naspers, Alvarez & Marsal, PwC, Dell, Walgreens, Orange, and many others.

I teach through case studies, so you will have a lot of lectures showing examples of analyses, tools that we use. To every lecture, you will find attached (in additional resources) the Excels as well as additional presentations, materials shown in the lectures so as a part of this course you will also get a library of ready-made analyses that can, with certain modification, be applied by you or your team in your work.

I do not like to overcomplicate things so in every lecture I will be quite straightforward. Most lectures will have also a lot of additional resources: calculation in excels, procedures, list of tools. The idea is to give you everything you need to replicate such a project on your own in your company or for your customer (if you are a consultant). If you don’t find something that you need let me know - I will try to prepare something and I will add it to the course       

Why have I decided to create this course?   

For our teams, we have created courses that help us improve the consultant on-boarding and the teaching process. We have started to use them extensively also with customers that we work with and their teams. Since we made them available to a wider public we got many requests, especially on Quora to show how to win and conduct consulting projects. Finally, we gave in and decided to prepare such a course that would show all the important aspects of winning and conducting consulting projects.     

This course is based on our extensive experience in working and running consulting companies. The project I will be showing was done by my company with great success and you will learn a lot from this, especially how to optimize processes in retail.   

In what way will you benefit from this course?   

The course is a practical, step-by-step guide loaded with tones of, tricks, hints, examples that will significantly help you to conduct such a consulting project on your own or to improve your operations, using the same methods and hacks. There is little theory – mainly examples, data and facts from our project. Our intention is that thanks to the course you will know:   

  • How to win a consulting project?   

  • How to talk with the customer during negotiations?   

  • How to prepare for a consulting project?   

  • What could be your competitive advantage?   

  • How to make you the customer happy and get new projects from him?   

  • What can be done to boost your profits as a consultant?   

You can also ask me any question either through the discussion mode or by messaging me directly.   

How the course is organized?   

The course is divided currently into the following sections:   

  • Introduction. We begin with a little intro into the course  and consulting   

  • Getting the project. I show you how I got the consulting project. The project was around the performance improvement of processes in the store. It was done for DIY (home      improvement) retail chain in Easter Europe   

  • Preparation for the project. Preparation is of utmost importance in every consulting project. In the third section, I will show you how to prepare for such a project in advance and use your customer help to a large extent.   

  • Project Execution. The next section will show you in detail what I did with the team during the project and what were the results of the projects.     

  • Follow-up and End of the project. In the last section, you will see what the outcome of the project was, both for my customer as well as for me.   

    

You will be able also to download many additional resources   

  • Calculations in Excel,   

  • Files supporting the project in Word, PowerPoint   

  • Presentation of slides shown in the course   

  • Links to additional presentations and movies   

  • Links to books worth reading   

At the end of my course, students will be able to…   

  • Conduct similar consulting project with a small team

  • Optimize processes

  • Improve results in retail

  • Improve customer experience in retail

  • How to talk with your customer to sell a consulting project

   

Who should take this course? Who should not?   

  • Business Analysts

  • Management Consultants

  • Retailers

  • Entrepreneurs

    

What will students need to know or do before starting this course?   

  • Basic knowledge of economics

  • Some common sense and logic

So enjoy the course and if you have any questions let me know

Who this course is for:

  • Management Consultants
  • Project Managers
  • Business Analysts
  • Retailers
  • Entrepreneurs
  • Operations Directors

Course content

6 sections • 40 lectures

Introduction Preview 01:40

In this section I will show you what the course wil be about and what can you learn thanks to the content I will provide in this course. In short you will learn how to optimize process using as  an example a retailer and processes in the store. On top of that you will see how I won and carried out a consulting project.

About me Preview 01:47

A few words about me and what I do

Performance improvement - introduction Preview 02:45

Before I go into details let's start with short introduction into  performance improvement

How to deal with Blurry image Preview 02:04

Here I will show you what to do if a blurry image appears

How to reach additional resources Preview 01:05

Here I will show you how to find additional resources attached to the course like Excel files, presentations, links, etc.

Request for Proposal (RFP) - Introduction Preview 01:45

In this lecture I will show you what RFP I got for this project. We will talk also briefly about different type of Request for Proposal (RFP) you can get.

RFP that I received - details Preview 02:15

In this lecture we will analyze in details the RFP I got from the customer and see what are the implication of it for the whole project, the offer and the real underlying problem

My first proposal - introduction Preview 00:42

Here I will show you the first proposal I have created for the project. I will explain you the logic behind it and why certain things are presented in such a way

My first proposal - details Preview 04:56

Here I will show you the first proposal I have created for the project. I will explain you the logic behind it and why certain things are presented in such a way

What happened during the negotiations? Preview 04:22

The meeting totally changed the approach to the project and I learned a lot. I will show you what I have learned during the meeting, how it influenced the whole project. I will show you also the result of the negotiations

Second offer - how I redesigned the project Preview 01:52

During the negotiations I learned enough information to adjust the offer for the customer. The aim was to creating more appealing (for both sides) offer that would reflect what we have agreed on during the negotiations

Workshop - Introduction Preview 02:03

Workshop was very important as I was getting a team that I did not know and that did not trust me. On top of that they did not know how to optimize processes. I will show you in this sections what were the goals of the workshop

Workshop – the scope of the project Preview 02:55

In this section you will see what kind of goals were presented to the project team

Workshop – Tools overview Preview 01:58

The team had no previous experience in process optimization. In this section I will show you the techniques  that we were using to optimize the processes

Lean manufacturing - introduction Preview 04:39

Here you will find a short introduction to Lean manufacturing. 

Theory of constraints - introduction Preview 03:07

Here you will find a short introduction to theory of constraints

Queuing problem - introduction Preview 03:21

Here you will find a short introduction to Queuing problem

OEE - introduction Preview 03:01

Here you will find a short introduction to OEE

Workshop – defining metrics and cost drivers Preview 02:04

Here I will show you how in groups for chosen process the team has chosen the KPIs and cost drivers

Workshop – optimizing 1 process Preview 02:27

In this lecture I will show you an example of 1 process that was optimized with the team. I used this to show them the proper way of defining the KPIs, cost drivers and optimizing the process using this data

Workshop – optimizing 1 process - Excel file Preview 02:09

In this lecture I will show you an example of 1 process that was optimized with the team. I used this to show them the proper way of defining the KPIs, cost drivers and optimizing the process using this data

Workshop – timeline of the project Preview 01:18

Finally, during the workshop I show them the timeline of the project to get confirm that the project is doable within this ambitions timeline

Introduction to process optimization phase of the project Preview 02:48

In this lecture I will tell you briefly about the execution of the project and what was different from what we have planned

The store and the processes Preview 01:19

In this lecture I will show you some information on what we achieved during the process optimization and how the test store looked like

Price Change Preview 02:56

Here I will show you how we optimized the process of changing prices in the store and what savings we managed to generate

Price Change - calculation in Excel Preview 02:15

Here I will show you how we optimized the process of changing prices in the store and what savings we managed to generate

Shelf replenishment Preview 02:41

Here I will show you how we optimized the process of shelf replenishment in the store and what savings we managed to generate

Shelf replenishment - calculation in Excel Preview 02:12

Here I will show you how we optimized the process of shelf replenishment in the store and what savings we managed to generate

Advising customers - Introduction Preview 02:40

Here I will show you how we optimized the process of advising customers in the store and what savings we managed to generate

Advising customers - General solution Preview 03:05

Here I will show you how we optimized the process of advising customers in the store and what savings we managed to generate

Advising customers - Details and results Preview 03:23

Here I will show you how we optimized the process of advising customers in the store and what savings we managed to generate

Advising customers - calculation in Excel Preview 01:47

Here I will show you how we optimized the process of advising customers in the store and what savings we managed to generate

Cash till and info point Preview 01:43

Here I will show you how we optimized the process at cash till and info point in the store and what savings we managed to generate

Other potential improvements Preview 02:14

Here I will show you what other potential improvements we suggested in order to sell new projects

Process cost estimation by groups Preview 01:59

In this lecture I will show the estimation of cost

Summary of all costs and savings Preview 02:40

In this lecture I will show the estimation of costs and savings achieved during the project

Scaling the project in the whole organization Preview 01:59

I will show you how my customer managed to scale the project in the whole organization

Presentation to the whole management Preview 01:22

In this lecture I will show you what we have presented to the Board of Directors to convince them that the project is great for the company

Aftermath of the project Preview 01:30

I finish by showing you what I got thanks for the project.