“The reason why I chose to study MBA at Pforzheim was because of its strong program in consulting,” said Mr. Gregor Schmitter, MBA Alumnus Class of 2005

Management of Consulting courses are offered every year to prepare MBA students to be consultants in management, strategy, innovation, IT, and more. The courses are modeled to simulate situations similar to what consultants would experience in the industry. Various Senior Consultants and Partners taught the course to give students a diverse perspective of consulting, including case studies in International Business Development, Process Management, HR Reorganization, Innovation Management, and Business Restructuring.

Mr. Gregor Schmitter, Pforzheim MBA alumnus Class of 2005, works as a Project Manager IT at Deutsche Telekom. To give the MBA students a taste of the Agile project management methodologies, he organized a fun mini-project using Lego pieces. Students played roles as product owner and scrum master to practice sprints, completing tasks, and learning to use backlogs and a Kanban board. Mr. Schmitt also facilitated a case study on HR reorganization, which students presented their strategies at the end of the session.

In addition to Agile methodologies and HR downsizing strategy, students analyzed various case studies and presented their strategies after a day-long workshop with each guest speaker. Mr. Bijan Khashabian, MBA alumnus Class of 2003 and Partner at AVANTALION Consulting Group in the Berlin area, trained students through an international business development case study. Two consultants from Avantalion Consulting Group in Baden-Württemberg, Mr. Andreas Gehricke, Senior Consultant, and Mr. Patrick Steinmann, Junior Consultant, both trained students in process documentation and how to optimize business processes for clients. Mr. Torsten Schmidt, self-employed consultant, prepared students for business restructuring. Prof. Dr. Jürgen Janovsky guided the MBA students with consulting strategies for innovation management. To cap off the course, Professor Janovsky facilitated recruitment training to prepare students for interviews for consulting positions.

After a semester of consulting courses, Lei, a MBA student from Shanghai, feels ready to be a consultant. She said, “I learned to ask the right questions to the right people.” 

Text: Hellen Phan-Lesti, MBA class of 2019 / MBA Office
Photos: MBA