Porsche Consulting – Be a consultant for two days
Written by Chaitanya Naik, PGPB Candidate 2018
Winner of the Porsche Case Study Competition 2017-18 organised for the students of Bocconi University
It started on the first day. My professor for management consulting – Prof. Ferdinando Pennarola announced that we have partnered up with Porsche Consulting. We all were excited about this news. We were told that Porsche Consulting would launch the Porsche Case Study competition 2017-18 for all the students where a case study will be presented, and the group with the best solution will win an opportunity to be assessed by Porsche Consulting. After the assessment, the three students will be selected to work with Porsche Consultants on a real-life project for two days.
The case study was presented orally by our professor, in a classic case interview format where the entire class was interviewing the professor. This session went on for nearly ninety minutes. Post this we were given a deadline to submit our proposal in seven days. In the end, we presented our proposal. After two days, we received our results to know that our group had won the first round. Soon we received emails from Porsche Consulting congratulating us and inviting us for the second round – a thorough assessment at Porsche Consulting office at Via Giorgio Stephenson 53 – Milan, Italy. 
Our group of eight people underwent a rigorous assessment lasting for nearly four and a half hours. We had group discussions, presentations, logical assessments, individual assessments, and interviews. In the end, we all were just happy with the fact that the grueling evaluation was over.
The next class, our professor, called Porsche Consulting on a speakerphone to announce the names of the winners. I was pleasantly surprised to hear my name in the three winners. Soon enough we were assigned our clients and asked to prepare accordingly. The first day I was driving in a Porsche Cayman from my university to the client location. I was in action from the first minute. I was working as an analyst to my mentor – a senior consultant, who was conducting the workshop for our clients. This is where discussion of problems, solutions, and hypothesis takes place. The best thing for me was the entire session took place in Italian, and I was asked to make observations and present my recommendations at the end. Post this, my mentor asked me to assess the financial statements of the company and asked me to analyze the financial health of the subsidiary company and conduct their restatements. After the analysis, we made the suitable changes and updated the final presentation. I had realized that we were working for nearly thirteen hours.
The second day was somewhat similar, this time we were working at Porsche Consulting office, where I 
continued to work with my work as instructed by my mentor. I was especially impressed by the open and friendly culture. I was surprised when the CEO – Josef Nierling walked in and congratulated us, the mere fact he knew and took cognizance of our presence humbled me. According to the Porsche culture, they have monthly meetings usually held in German or Italian, but as I am a non-native Italian speaker, the CEO announced that the meeting would be held in English. We all exchanged information on the projects we were working on and their progress stages. It was like a startup where everyone worked as a close-knit family.
“At the end of the experience, I was thrilled with this experience of a lifetime but also sad that it was over. These two days had been some of the best of my life. I was inspired as I could see myself work like them and had the fantastic opportunity to represent MISB Bocconi at such a competitive stage”.
Chaitanya Naik PGPB Candidate 2018
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