Creating Your Own Path: Pro Bono Consulting Services For Businesses In Ottawa

My name is Ninam Rai, a third year student at Telfer School of Management and I am building towards becoming the best Management Consultant in Canada. The world of consulting is very vast and always innovative. With so many specialization within consulting, it has been one of the major career paths many business students strive to become. Business students work religiously to build a success path of get into major management consulting firms, such as Bain & Company, BCG and McKinsey. These firms not only get a large selection of applications, but the competitive nature of these firms forces students to go above and  beyond in order to compete s a viable applicant. This blog will go over my journey in the world of management consulting. 

Profession of Management Consulting

Profession of Management Consulting (PMCP) is a highly competitive two-year development program who students in Telfer who aspire to go into consulting. This program allows students to have real life consulting experience as students are provided an opportunity to work with multiple consulting firms in Ottawa such as KPMG, Deloitte, Accenture, EY, PwC, and many more. These experiences forces students to work in an intensive environment and challenges us to prepare real life cases. These solutions are then presented to Senior Managers and Partners from the following firms. Overall, PMCP has easily been the foundation to my consulting path. Being part of this program early in my life allowed me to learn to depth of management consulting. The network and raw knowledge I was able to absorb with this program has truly been one of the most valuable things in my life. As a Telfer student, I highly recommend any students in Telfer School of Management interested in going into consulting to be a part of this program. If interested, feel free to contact me about more detail. 

Supporting Small Businesses in Ottawa 

During the winter of 2022, after receiving a rejection from a high end management consulting firm, I had realized the lack of experience I had in order to compete in the world of consulting. I knew that I needed to gain as much experience I could get in the consulting industry in order to compete against other applicants in the near future. Hence, this rejection led to a new opportunity for myself as I created my own path and started a small consulting business in order to support local Ottawa businesses. I had reached over 50 small business owners I had already known though my other experiences and asked if they needed any consultant services for free. Originally, my goal was to get involved in as many projects as I could potentially get and try to gain multiple consulting experiences. I had watched an endless number of videos regarding the world of management consulting which would benefit me in any way. I also reached out to many professionals and consulting mentors which I was in contact with due to the PMCP program. These projects with different small businesses greatly helped me gain confidence and also allowed me to receive valuable consulting experience. the quote "if you really want something, no  one can stop really," really spoke to me at that moment. Now, I am regular working with about 3 businesses where I charge extremely low fees for the services in consulting.  I saw the group in the small business in which I was supporting which was the fuel to my motivation for the hardships within different projects. If there are any small Ottawa businesses looking for affordable consulting service, I would be delighted to offer my support. Please feel free to contact me regarding this subject as well.