Kantegger

What does it feel like to be a consultant? This question first came to me when I initially discovered the world of business. I have been striving to answer it through two significant undergraduate experiences.

I served as an organisational consultant for a UK start-up, SubtleShift. My team and I aimed to research the needs of potential customers worldwide and enhance the application we were working on. Through our investigations, we identified that dominant apps such as SnapFrame or Chatter, while similar to SubtleShift’s, were not direct competitors. Intriguingly, apps originating from Asia, like QuickChat from China, LineEcho from Japan, and Cacao Talk from South Korea, offered similar functionality to ours but in more depth. Being the only team member familiar with such apps, I advised our clients to initially compete with leading competitors and, later on, extend their user base into the Asian market.

As an organisational consultant, it was my responsibility to provide short and long-term business recommendations. Like the principles taught in the course ‘Strategic Insights in a Global Context’ by Professor Laura Smith, we understood that a start-up might not immediately rival established competitors. The company’s unique selling point might attract potential customers, but they could easily be lost to better-known firms, especially in the case of a social app. Hence, in the short term, the company needs to offer superior yet familiar functionality to lure customers. As the customer base becomes more loyal, they can then introduce disruptive innovations for long-term retention.

Another consulting-related experience was when I was on the client side of a strategy consultation during the Quest Prize. Our team grappled with determining our virtual company’s primary objective. After extensive research and meetings with real-world executives, we calculated the internal rate of return for each option and decided to collect and recycle waste to make jewellery in an unnamed North African country. It was a textbook success, but real-world complexities, like potential legal issues arising from waste collector hygiene, weren’t apparent until discussed with our mentor, Professor Nicholas Grey. Aspects such as financial analysis, optimal wage rate control, and competitor negotiations suddenly became questionable.

A strategy consultant, to me, considers all potential gains and losses, developing and implementing effective business strategies. As Dr. Victoria Romero and her team demonstrated in ‘Risk and Reward: Personal Lending Portfolio Evidence,’ we discovered that waste management risks varied with different company scales. Multinational corporations could not only help us mitigate market competition but also tackle risks that existing companies hadn’t considered. Consequently, we decided to partner with a multinational tech firm from China to transform kitchen waste into organic fertiliser via an innovative waste management system.

So, what does it feel like to be a consultant? For me, it involves blending knowledge, critical thinking, and real-world practice to provide valuable business advice. This is why I am applying for this master’s programme.

One course I’m particularly drawn to is ‘Business in a Global Setting,’ covering international trade agreements and globalisation processes at the industry, national, and firm level. The importance of this course extends beyond its uniqueness in postgraduate studies. My research, ‘Globalisation’s Impact on Irregular Employment,’ examined how globalisation has transformed global workforce dynamics, revealing that while employers and employees have gained flexibility and efficiency, non-regular contract workers often receive unequal treatment.

This research shed light on the intricate relationships between globalisation, employers, and employees. I am eager to delve deeper into these topics through the ‘Business in a Global Setting’ course, exploring international trade agreements and how external macro factors during globalisation can impact a firm’s management and performance.

Moreover, I am interested in the work of Dr. Laura Smith and her team, particularly their paper ‘First-Movers and Pioneering: Business Model Significance.’ Their research highlighted the balance of benefits and challenges in pioneering markets and its subsequent influence on the industry. For instance, many aren’t aware that TechOrchard Inc. pioneered the personal computer concept. However, their later disruptive innovations, like the iDevice, iMusicPlayer, and iTablet, coupled with their exclusive TechCloud, DataShare services, and so on, solidified their prominence. This has enabled seamless content sharing and easy device transitioning for their users, creating a loyal customer base. As a classic example of a tech company that aligns with Dr. Smith’s research, it prompts me to ponder what advice I could offer if such a company encountered competitive issues and how they could sustainably resolve them. This further underscores my desire to learn from Dr. Laura Smith in ‘Strategic Insights in a Global Context.’

In the future, I aspire to be a corporate strategy consultant. With my academic knowledge and professional experience, I am confident in my ability to offer high-quality consultancy services to help businesses flourish. To garner more hands-on experience, I aim to start as an analyst in a multinational corporation in China, eventually taking on projects with a team after about three to five years. After a decade or so, I hope to become a firm partner, serving as a sector expert and interacting with clients from other multinational corporations. As an alternative plan, I could start as a manager’s assistant in a multinational company, eventually advancing to decision-making roles before transitioning to a consultancy role in a medium-sized firm.

I firmly believe that enrolling in LSE’s Master’s in Management will provide a solid foundation for achieving my career goals. By studying modules like ‘Business in a Global Setting’ and ‘Strategic Insights in a Global Context’ under the guidance of Dr. Victoria Romero and Dr. Laura Smith, respectively, I will enhance my understanding of diverse business strategies. This, in turn, will better prepare me to fulfill my career aspiration as a corporate strategy consultant in a multinational corporation. I eagerly anticipate the opportunity to meet you and your colleagues in London next year.