Welcome to Consulting

Skills
2022-2023

Conducting a consulting Project

Lecturer: Prof. Thierry MOUELLE

Managing Director IM CONSULTING Paris
International Business Strategist
 Session #1

Today’s Agenda
● Expectations & Deliverables
● Course Schedule: Our Journey!
● Today’s goal: Defining the scope of your project
Context
YOU work for Accor
Group as a consultant
in its Disruption &
Growth Department!
Your mission is to help
your employer
anticipate needs and
expand its business...
Context
Hospitality Platform
and beyond
(for travelers and non-travelers)

(BM)

Hotel Brand
(The C°)
 Context

Expectations & Deliverables

Coaching Sessions --> No Lecturing, no Teaching
During and in between sessions =
You are in charge of your own project
Weighting (%)
Assignment

Group Project 80

Individual paper 20

Total 100
Key Questions!
1. What disruptions in the hospitality industry?
2. What should be Accor’s competitive strategy?
3. What new business model(s) should be considered?
What new platform?
4. If you focus on Corporate Social Responsibility, Accor’s
three main priorities are:
a. “Smart Building”
b. “Techforgood”
c. “Foodtech”
 Final Group Deliverable
5-6 slides
● Scope of your Project: “What is your story?” (1 to 2 slides)
○ What is the Strategic Challenge/Business Opportunity?
● Main Idea(s), Value Proposition and Strategy/Business Model (1 to 2
slides)
○ Use visuals/mapping/canvas/representations
● Structures of revenues (cash inflow) and costs (cash outflow) - KPIs,
P&L/Budget (1 slide)
● Conclusion (1 slide)

→ See Syllabus for Details + Grading Rubric

 Expectations & Deliverables

Assignment Weighting (%)

Group Project 80

Individual paper 20

Total 100
 Individual Deliverable
Format: 1.5-spaced, no more than 1,500 words, and 12-size font.(no later than the first
day of the exam session)

Option 1: Execution Phase of your Consulting Project

In the context of Accor and given your group’s final recommendations, how would
you ensure the successful execution of your project?

Option 2: Self-reflection paper

Describe a specific issue you experienced during this consulting project (e.g.,
conflicts/tensions, leadership, communication, decision-making…)! Explain how
the issue got resolved! If the issue was not resolved, why? Articulate the one or
two main lesson(s) learned from this consulting project. What will you do
differently moving forward?
 Today’s Agenda

● Expectations & Deliverables

● Course Schedule: Our Journey!
● Today’s goal: Defining the scope of your
project
 Organization of each coaching session

● Broken down in two 80-minute parts with a

10-minute break in between
● During sessions:
○ Discuss and start writing/building your slides
○ Research, collect and analyze data
○ Never too early to work on
visuals/prototypes
 • Organization of each coaching session

● Faculty is walking around to listen to

you/each
group and advise you
● Prepare questions!
● Use faculty as a sounding board
● Need some help ---> Raise your hand...
 • Organization of each coaching session

● From Session #2 onwards...

● You will make short presentations at the
end of the class.
● A progress report will be available to
you….
so do not hesitate to ask for feedback!
 Project Management

● Set milestones and deadlines within your own

group

● CRITICAL: Clarify and set expectations and

deadlines for everyone/each team
member
 Today’s Agenda

● Expectations & Deliverables

● Course Schedule: Our Journey!
● Today’s Goal: Defining the scope of your
project
Pipelines, platforms, and the new rules
of strategy
 Pipelines Vs Platforms

Pipeline businesses create

value by controlling a
linear series of activities—
the classic value-chain
model. Inputs at one end of
the chain (say, materials
from suppliers) undergo a
series of steps that transform
them into an output that’s
worth more: the finished
product.
Apple’s handset business is
essentially a pipeline. But
combine it with the App
Store, the marketplace that
connects app developers
and iPhone owners, and
you’ve got a platform.
 The move from pipeline to platform
involves three key shifts:
1. From resource control to resource orchestration.

The resource-based view of competition With platforms, the

holds that firms gain advantage by assets that are hard to
controlling scarce and valuable—ideally, copy are the
inimitable—assets. In a pipeline world, community and the
those include tangible assets such as resources its members
mines and real estate and intangible own and contribute, be
assets like intellectual property. they rooms or cars or
ideas and information.
 2. From internal optimization to external
interaction.
Pipeline firms organize their
Platforms create
internal labor and resources
value by facilitating
to create value by
interactions between
optimizing an entire chain of
external producers
product activities, from
and consumers.
materials sourcing to sales
and service.

Because of this external orientation, they often shed even variable

costs of production. The emphasis shifts from dictating processes to
persuading participants, and ecosystem governance becomes an
essential skill.
3. From a focus on customer value to a
focus on ecosystem value.
Pipeline firms seek to
maximize the lifetime value of
individual customers of
products and services, who,
in effect, sit at the end of a
linear process.
By contrast, platforms seek
to maximize the total value
of an expanding
ecosystem in a circular,
iterative, feedback-driven
process.
Sometimes that requires
subsidizing one type of
consumer in order to
attract another type.
 Competition is more complicated and
dynamic in a platform world.

The competitive forces described by

Michael Porter still apply. But on platforms
these forces behave differently, and new
factors come into play.
 To manage them, executives must pay close attention to the interactions
on the platform, participants’ access, and new performance metrics.

The competitive forces described by

Michael Porter still apply. But on platforms
these forces behave differently, and new
factors come into play.
What do they have in common?
So, let’S get Started !
The Scope of your Project
● What disruptions do you foresee in the hospitality
industry?
● What is the strategic/competitive challenge?
● What is the business/societal opportunities?
● What is the scope of your project? What do you want to
achieve/fix?
● Why is it important?
→ This is the most crucial step in a strategy consulting
project
Remember: Your project should be data driven!
 SWOT, So What?
Helpful
(To achieving the objective)
(Attributes of the organization)
Harmful
(To achieving the objective)
Who is he ?
How can he make money
inside this game? Leaning on
which type of levers while
selling our products and
services? Until when?

S W
Internal origin

O T
(Attributes of the
External Origin

environment)
Sweet spot

Source: HBR
 The Scope of your Project

● Collect data
● Analyze the data
● Draw intermediary conclusions
● Reiterate the earlier process
● Refine the scope of your project based on data and
analysis
Remember: Your project should be data driven!
The Scope of your Project

Tips:
● Think about three to five sub-questions? Exhaustive and
mutually exclusive
● What data do you need for each question?
● Cite your sources
Remember: Your project should be data driven!
Business Models (BMs): Definition

“The logic of the firm, the way it operates and how it creates
Values for its stakeholders.”
Casadesus-Masaneli & Ricart (2009)
Consulting Skills
Conducting a Consulting Project
Session #2
Give them what they want, anticipate their need
Think out of the box, KYC, KYI, Change !
Razorblade BM

The printer is cheaper, but the ink cartridges

being incompatible with any other model
of printers make you dependent upon the
model you own. You’ll buy cartridges again
and again!
Strategic disruptions, Vertical integrations, Bankruptcies
 Key stages of Business Capability Maturity Model

Maturity Level 1
Business Case
Nature of Capability = No Capability Maturity Level 2
Tactics = Gap assessment Capability Based Governance
Nature of Capability = Isolated Capability
Tactics = Develop governance protocols
Maturity Level 5
Influence Over Business Model
Nature of Capability = Differentiating Capability
Tactics = Product & Service integration Maturity Level 3
Integration with operations
Nature of Capability = Servicing Capability
Tactics = Develop service delivery catalogue;
Maturity Level 4 Eliminate systemic risks
Integration with Strategy
Nature of Capability = Strategic Capability
Tactics = Customer analytics; Eliminate / Align
capability with strategy
Arrivals of New Business Model
This showed Apple anchoring in the new
business models (the platforms)
 VP = How your services make the cut and
intersect with the customer’s needs and desires.
Finalizing the Scope
Class Activities
● Collect data about the market and future needs and draw intermediary
conclusions!
● What are the current tangible and intangible internal resources (Human,
Technological, Financial, Physical, Corporate Culture...) and competences of
Group Accor that could be leveraged?
● Refine and finalize the scope of your project: What is the strategic
challenge and/or the business opportunity!

● Deliverables
3 minutes Team Presentations (iterations#1): Progress Report #1

Remember: Your project should be data driven!