COMMUNICATION IN CONSULTING & PERSONAL BRANDING

18.08.2020. 09:00 hrs.

The Business Communication class was going to be different today. Prof T.Prasad had arranged a special session with one of Alums of NITIE, Mr. Nikhil Kulkarni. 

Mr. Nikhil, after graduating from NITIE, worked as a Consultant for KPMG. Post this, he ventured into the world of entrepreneurship. He went onto start his own company, Darwin Travel Tech. 

Darwin Travel Tech is a one stop solution for travel agents for planning, searching, pricing and booking customized holiday packages for their clients. 

Coming to the session, Mr. Nikhil discussed about Business Communication in Consulting, Structuring your content using the Pyramid principle and Creating a personal brand. 

He started with talking about business consulting. He provided an interesting break up of importance of various factors in the world of consulting at the start of your career. According to him, 80% of consulting is about communication, 15% relationship management and 5% research. As one rises up the hierarchy, the importance of relationship increases. Anything and everything, from Proposals, executive briefings to reports, is prepared using Excel, PowerPoint or Word. So, make them your best buddies.

Then he explained about the Pyramid principle. Using it, one can structure his/her content in a coherent way. There are 4 questions you need to answer while developing a content: 

1. What is the objective of my document? 

2. Who is the audience?

3. What is the context in which the content will be consumed? 

4. Have I listed all aspects of the problem?

 While answering the 4^th question, it is crucial to verify all the aspects of the problem are Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhaustive (MECE). To deliver the message of any content in an eloquent way, it is always advisable to use hierarchical structure of flow of information- Idea/Data/Fact/Logic (IDFL). He also talked about how including a video or image can make any content immersive. This is the Picture Superiority effect. 

He then discussed about Why and How to create a Personal Brand. He started this part with the image shown below.

The image pretty much answered the Why part. He further discussed how to use various platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Blogs to create a brand out of yourself with inspirational examples. 

A special thanks to Professor T. Prasad for organizing such an insightful session helping us realize the importance of communication and personal branding in today’s world. 

Links for your reference:

http://www.techdarwin.com/ 

http://nikhilkulkarni.in/ 

https://www.youtube.com/user/nitieprasad1