BPS 6360.

501– Management and Organizational

Consulting
Spring 2008

Padmakumar Nair, Ph.D., Dr.Eng., MBA

Day and Time: Wednesday; 7.00 to 9.45 PM
Place: SOM 2.103
Instructor: Padmakumar Nair, SOM 4.208
Guest Professors: Pankaj Asundi, Jerry Hoag and Jeff Hicks
Telephone: 972-883-6264
Email: padmakumar.nair@utdallas.edu

Office hours: 4.30 to 5.30 PM on Tuesdays and Thursdays or by appointment

Recommended Readings:
1. The Halo Effect by Phil Rosenzweig, Free Press (2007)
2. True Professionalism by David H. Maister, Free Press (2000)
Cases and Readings: Readings can be downloaded from the library website (go to eJournals:
http://www.utdallas.edu/library/resources/journals.htm )

COURSE OVERVIEW
This course will provide required theoretical background in the content and process areas
of Management Consulting to help you become a scholarly practitioner in the area of
Organizational and Strategy consulting. In addition, this course will help you develop skills to apply
well-developed theories in the areas of Strategy, Organizational Behavior and Learning &
Knowledge Creation to real world situations. Special attention will be given to bridge the theory
versus practice gap in the practice of management consulting.

More than 90% of the class time will be devoted to in-class activities, role-plays or
company visits. There will also be several in-depth discussions around interesting readings. I will
try to find experienced consultants to talk with students and answer questions related to practical
aspects of management consulting. There will be two assigned books for this course. Other
readings could be obtained from our Library eJournals database.

Prerequisite: OB 6301 and BPS 6310 or consent of the instructor

COURSE OBJECTIVES
The course has multiple objectives that include the following:
1. To develop a context centered mindset for helping clients.
2. To understand the importance of balancing between the “expert-centered” and “context-centered”
approaches.
 3. To develop skills in using your ability to co-create knowledge to come-up with practical and
innovative solutions, together with your clients, to actual problems those are being experienced by
today’s organizations.
4. To understand the challenges of knowledge transfer / co-creation in client-consultant interactions.

Connect Engage Serve

Exploration Identification
&
Initiation

Joint problem Co -construction of

definition knowledge

Achieving the Objectives

You will be required to complete several activities in order to achieve the identified objectives:

1. Contribute to in-class discussions of cases and readings by exhibiting (a) an

understanding and articulate analysis of the information presented and (b) skills in the
prerequisite course areas required for registration.
2. There will be readings and role-plays to practice the concepts and ideas discussed in the
class.
3. Attendance is required at all class sessions to fully make use of and participate in all class
discussions. That being said, I recognize that, at times, professional and personal
emergencies may arise which may prevent one from attending class.

Overview of the Assignments

In the first day of the class seven (7) groups with 3 to 4 members in each will be formed for the
group assignments. Please “self-select” into your groups. Please do not rely too much on the
Internet for your research. Spend some time in the library—there are greater opportunities for
insightful reflection and reading!

Assignment-1a Real Life Consulting with ACCOR / Ericsson / Tenet

The purpose of this assignment is to develop Consulting skills (both process and content skills),
which are essential part of general management.

Project 1: ACCOR
9 Human Resources Management

Project 2: ACCOR (Laurie Collins)

9 Performance Management / Performance Evaluation and Review System
collins_laurie@accor-na.com
Phone. 972-677-4506
lcollins@accor-na.com
Project 3: Tenet Healthcare Corporation
9 Employee Retention and Motivation
paul.slavin@tenethealth.com
Phone. 469-893-2327

Project 4: Ericsson (Susan Abar)

9 Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Ms. Susan Abar
susan.abar@ericsson.com

Project 5: Ericsson (Jamie Hayes)

Outsourcing Effectively in a Global Technology Company: Application Development

and Support for Managed Hosting. Ericsson Inc.Studying how performance management
techniques can be applied to remote application development and support centers and
how to best use these centers based on competency match.

OR

Media & Convergent Telecoms Delivery Ways of Working: Turner New Media &
Ericsson Inc. Studying how a global media business generates demands on technology
suppliers and what strategic alignments and innovations can be formed based on shared
aims, risks and rewards.

OR

Return on Invested Capital (ROIC) and Improving Capacity Management for Voice
Traffic in a Telecoms Network : AT&T & Ericsson Inc. Studying long-term traffic
management policies to reduce cost of ownership.

OR

Performance Management of Technical Professionals: Ericsson Inc. Studying the

workforce and management organizational techniques in a technical delivery organization
for management techniques on how to generate and maintain high performance.

Jamie Hayes

Director Architect & Network Planning,

jamie.hayes@ericsson.com

Phone: 972-583-4650

Project 6: Ericsson (Johan Westerberg)

Challenge:
There are a number of new entrants in the fixed and wireless broadband services market.
There are newly started companies focusing on bringing wireless broadband to rural and
 remote suburban areas ( e g Open Range), to Schools, and other unitities such as power
utilities are building broadband networks for their existing unitity customers (e g Dukenet).
Objective:
Analyze these new market segments for size, which suppliers are active in this space,
what are some of the common requirements these new operators have towards their
vendors (technical, financial, "government" type procurement requirements, etc.
Propose to Ericsson which of these segments, if any, should be pursued, and with what
solutions (Wireless Broadband, Fiber, etc).

Johan R. Westerberg
Vice President - National Accounts
Ericsson Inc.
6300 Legacy Drive
Plano TX 75024
USA
johan.westerberg@ericsson.com
214 228 3683 mobile
972 583 8141 assistant (Kay)

Project 7: Ericsson (Ulf Andersson)

Business Development with Internet Companies
Ulf Andersson
VP Sales New Business
ulf.andersson@ericsson.com
Tel. 972 5837537

Assignment-1b: Consulting final presentation

At the end of the semester all the groups will make a presentation based on key recommendations
to your clients.
Assignment 2: Individual Reflection Paper (about 1500 words)
You should write about the project. The following questions should be discussed in your reflection
paper:
1. What did I learn?
i. Consulting process
ii. Content
2. How did the project go?
3. Would I approach this differently if I am given one more opportunity to do a similar
project?
4. Overall feeling about the success of the project
GRADING
The grades in the activities in which you will be participating will be combined to determine your
final course grade. Please note that items 1 and 2 below will be multiplied with a peer evaluation
multiplier* to get your effective grade. The relative weights are as follows:
1. Class Participation 20%
2. Consulting assignment and Final presentation 60%
3. Individual Reflection on the Consulting Project 20%
Total 100%
 Week/Day Course Content
Week 1 COURSE OVERVIEW / EXPECTATIONS / OBJECTIVES
August 27 2008
Week 2 Introduction to consulting Projects
Sept. 03 2008
Week 3 Challenges facing the current model of MC
Sept. 10 2008 Consulting from a Change and Project Management Perspective
Murata case
Week 4 Consulting Project
Sept. 17 2008
Week 5 Technology / Solutions Consulting Part I
Sept. 24 2008 Guest Speaker: Mr. Pankaj Asundi, VP Ericsson
Week 6 Consulting Project
Oct. 01 2008
Week 7 Exploration of consulting opportunities
Oct. 08 2008 Guest Speaker: Mr. Jerry Hoag, Director, The Leadership Center
Week 8 Consulting Project
Oct. 15 2008
Week 9 Consulting Experience of An Entrepreneur
Oct. 22 2008 Guest Professor: Professor Lakshman Tamil
Week 10 Consulting Project
Oct. 29 2008
Week 11 Strategy / HR / OB / OD Consulting
Nov. 05 2008
Week 12 Consulting Project
Nov. 12 2008
Week 13 Strategy / HR / OB / OD Consulting
Nov. 19 2008 Revisiting Murata case
Week 14 Strategy / HR / OB / OD Consulting
Nov. 26 2008 Revisiting Murata case
Week 15 Last day of class
Dec. 03 2008 FINAL PRESENTATIONS [in-class or in-company]

* Peer Evaluations (to be completed at the end of the final class meeting)

All group members are expected to do their fair share of work on the assignments. Fortunately, in about 85 to 90 percent of the
groups this is not the case. Unfortunately, that leaves (historically) approximately 10-15 percent of the groups in which inequities
occur. Since I do not know which groups have such a problem, I will use peer evaluations for all groups. For such a system to work,
everyone must be honest and fair. First, if a group member(s) is making only a nominal contribution and/or is overly difficult to work
with, the other group member(s) may expel them/her/him from the group and this individual must complete the assignment
individually within two weeks after the due date. Second, all groups members should assign a certain points to themselves and to
other group members based on the following three dimensions:

1. Contribution (this includes data collection and time spend on constructive discussions)
2. Command over the subject matter
3. Team work

A final grade-multiplier will calculated based on the total points every individual gets from self and other group members.
EXAMPLE: You should start with a total point of 100 x (number of members in the group). If your group has 8 members, start with
800 points. Distribute 800 points to your group based on the above three dimensions. If a person gets 100 each from every other
member including herself, then her grade-multiplier will be 1 (800/800 = 1). If another person gets a total of 780, then his grade-
multiplier will be 0.975 (780/800 = 0.975). If your total point is 900, then your grade-multiplier will be 1.125 (900/800 = 1.125).