Tom Spencer

The Roadmap Into Consulting is easy to read, and contains 60-pages of exclusive content.  Download it now!
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Here is a good template, with illustrative inputs, of a well-structured workplan to help you organize and plan the analysis and data required to validate your hypotheses as part of the hypothesis-based problem solving approach. 

Here is a template that you can use to gather relevant information in order to develop a robust problem statement. 
A problem statement is a statement that describes the goals of the client project clearly and concisely. A clear problem statement makes it easier to establish clear boundaries for the project in order to prevent scope creep, ensures that you focus resources and efforts in the right direction, and makes it easier to regularly check back to make sure you are fully addressing the agreed problem. Most often clients come to consultants with problems that aren’t well defined. As a consultant, you must make sure that you translate a general problem into a client problem statement.

In this guidebook, we'll dive into the intricacies of the consulting industry. We’ll look at how to prepare for a consulting career, including the recruitment process, how to prepare for consulting interviews, and the frameworks you'll need to master to succeed as a consultant. We'll cover critical topics for navigating the industry, such as onboarding, maintaining work-life balance, and pursuing a successful career path.  We’ll also uncover how to excel in this field, including developing business acumen, managing clients, leading project teams, building a professional network, and driving organisational change. 

The PEST Analysis Template can be used to examine the macro environment and uncover hidden opportunities and threats that could impact a business unit, product or project.  Insights gained from the analysis can be used to develop a strategic plan of action.
For more information, read the article on PEST Analysis. 
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You can use this template to help you examine the business situation, an important task in the context of assessing a company’s strategic position or evaluating key strategic decisions such as new product development, entering a new market, M&A, or launching a new business.
For more information, read the article on Surveying the Business Landscape.
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This article explains how to craft an effective business email. Enjoy!
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The Little Blue Book is designed for student consultants, and aims to provide key concepts and frameworks that can be used to evaluate situations and business problems more quickly and easily than would otherwise be possible.
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Are you thinking about becoming an entrepreneur?
This concise ebook provides 10 tips that every startup founder needs to know. Read it before you get started.
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Produced by Aneta Kosinska, this document provides you with the basics on knowledge management including:
Expert views,  The definition, Key challenges, and  Ways to encourage knowledge sharing. To stay in the loop, please following us on LinkedIn here.

Are you a busy professional?  Do you want to stay in peak physical fitness?
Here are two fitness plans, one for men and one for women.  
They are high quality as they were both designed for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) in the 1950s.  Each plan is perfect for busy professionals as they can be carried out at home, and require just a 15 minute time commitment per day. Sound too good to be true?  The catch is you need to be consistent, which is harder than it sounds! 
5BX (Five Basic Exercises) is the physical fitness program for men  XBX (Ten Basic Exercises) is the physical fitness program for women Note that these pdfs are freely available from many locations on the Internet and (according to the acknowledgement section in each pdf) appear to have been made freely available to the general public. Attempts to contact the original author for clarification about copyright restrictions failed.
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This is a brief guide to artificial intelligence.  It aims to answer a few basic questions including: 
What is artificial intelligence? Is it possible to test a machine to see if it possesses intelligence? What are the main areas of artificial intelligence research? What are the key historical milestones that have led us towards developing human-level artificial intelligence? To stay in the loop, please following us on LinkedIn here.

This Brief Guide to Asset Management was designed to help students and young professionals better understand asset management. It contains four sections:
Industry overview Valuation of asset management firms Client segmentation Recent trends The guide was prepared by Jason Oh, a management consultant at Novantas with expertise in scaling profitability for retail banks (consumer / commercial finance) and diversified financial service firms (credit card / asset management / direct bank).
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This Brief Guide to Statistics was designed to help busy young professionals understand basic statistical concepts and be able to apply them to business scenarios. It contains four main sections:
Statistical inference Hypothesis testing Covariance and correlation Regression modelling The guide was prepared by Jason Oh, a management consultant at Novantas with expertise in scaling profitability for retail banks (consumer / commercial finance) and diversified financial service firms (credit card / asset management / direct bank).
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Many mainstream economists argue that while individuals can save, an economy taken as a whole cannot because one person's spending is another person's income.
This line of reasoning seems to defy logic and begs two questions: 
Can economies accumulate savings? Can total spending in an economy exceed total income? This PowerPoint deck shows the traditional model which suggests that an economy cannot accumulate savings and total spending will equal total income. It then proposes a simple revised model which suggests that (a) an economy can accumulate savings and (b) total spending can exceed total income.
If you have studied economics, the slides will take 5 minutes to read through. Although you may have to brush up on how the banking system creates credit since this topic is typically absent from economics courses. Please take a look, and send your constructive criticism to tom [at] spencertom [dot] com
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This brief guide to customer segmentation by Jason Oh contains information about:
The definition of customer segmentation Why customer segmentation is important The four common types of customer segmentation Three analytical methods for performing customer segmentation Tools you can use To stay in the loop, please following us on LinkedIn here.

Marketing Mix Modelling can be used to help businesses measure the effect of advertising, packaging, distribution channels, media expenditures, social media, and sales organizational structure on brand share or sales.
This brief guide answers a four key questions: 
Why use scientific methods in marketing? What is marketing mix modelling?  Who should do the modelling work?  What is essential for successful marketing mix modelling? The guide was prepared by Jason Oh, a Senior Consultant, Strategy & Customer at EY with project experiences in commercial due diligence and corporate strategy planning. Previously, he was a Management Consultant at Novantas with a focus on the financial services sector, where he advised on pricing, marketing, channel distribution, digital transformation and due diligence.
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This guidebook explores the nature, value, and potential risks of digital currency.
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This is an excel file which contains a basic budget planner developed by The Australian Securities & Investments Commission. 
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This document was produced by Victor Cheng, founder of CaseInterview.com.
It provides a copy of the overhead slides that he produced to accompany his case interview marathon workshop.
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This document was produced by Victor Cheng, founder of CaseInterview.com.
It provides an excellent quick guide to the key frameworks that you will need for your case interview.
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This power point presentation, prepared by Deloitte in 2007, provides an overview of the case interview, the interviewer's perspective, and the candidate's perspective.
The presentation contains the following information:
1. Case Interview Overview
2. The Interviewer's Perspective:
Attributes we look for, Phases of a case interview, including tips & timelines for each phase, Mock case interview, Evaluating a candidate's performance. 3. The Candidate's Perspective:
Follow a structured approach, Understand, clarify, confirm, Identify the key issues, Develop a hypothesis, Test your hypothesis, Provide a recommendation, and Things NOT to do in a Case Interview. To stay in the loop, please following us on LinkedIn here.

Produced by A. T. Kearney, this summary is designed for people who are preparing for the case interview.
The document contains the following information:
1. Why the case format?
2. What to expect
3. How to succeed during your case interview
4. Case Types
5. Final Thoughts
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Produced by Accenture in 2006, this case interview workbook contains the following information:
 
1. What is the Case Interview?
2. The Case Interview Process
3. "Soft" Evaluation Criteria
4. Types of Case Interviews
5. Sample Frameworks and Applications
6. Practice Cases
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A copy of McKinsey's practice problem solving tests and coaching guide. McKinsey uses the Problem Solving Test as part of its selection process.
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