Guest Lecture by Nikhil Kulkarni

 

Nikhil Kulkarni worked in the consulting firm KPMG for more than a decade before he started his company  tech darwin (www.techdarwin.com) which acts as a tool for Holiday Itinerary  planning and budgeting software.

He took a lecture about Business Communication in Consulting and Business branding.

Key points discussed about business communication in Consulting:

• In entry level, consultant will be given the task of making proposals
• Lot of in-person communication occurs between client and consultant
• Report is an outcome of your work - which answers 
• What we have done?
• How we have done?
• What are the conclusions arrived?  
• This report will be mailed to the client
• Executive briefing is the next step where consultant will present the report to the client. Many consultants make the mistake of using the Report mailed. In Executive briefing only the summary of the report must be presented.
• PowerPoint, Excel and Word are the three most important tools in consulting. And Excel is an important tools for people who work in Supply Chain

Key points on structuring content:

The pyramid principle must be remembered for structuring a presentation of report:

• Introduction must give overview of the report.
• The summary must provide various views and the details.
• The conclusion depends upon the audience. If the presentation is for a proposal, conclusion must describe how we can help the firm. If it is a report, possible solutions must be given.

Adding content:

• The content must be Mutually Exclusive Collectively Exhaustive- Details given must not be repetitive and it must cover all the details required by the target audience.
• Summary must contain main message and key sub messages.
• Key sub-messages must be supported by bulleted points and diagrams.
• Organise content based on IDFL - Idea,Data,Facts, Logic

The Pyramid Principle

Books to read for writing proposals: How to write Reports and Proposals - by Patrik Forsyth