The WARroom Warsaw Consulting Conference
During the last days of October I had a great chance to participate in The WARroom Warsaw Consulting Conference organized by CEMS CLUB Warsaw. Spanning over four days it’s been highly intensive event, integrating the academic and business parts. And although the first impression may be misleading, not all the participants, including myself, were CEMS MIM participants.
The event began with Sunday sightseeing tour of Warsaw city centre and a surprisingly pleasant weather as for that part of the year. That has been a great introduction, especially for those international students who have been to Poland for the first time. Next on the schedule was an evening welcome event at one of Warsaw’s shot bars.
Anyway on Monday morning everyone sharply showed up for a short opening ceremony at 8 a.m. That was just a foreplay to the day’s main events – case studies organized by corporate partners of the conference. The lineup included two 3 hours sessions during which everyone could choose from 3 options prepared by top international consulting firms. Myself, I decided to attend Roland Berger and McKinsey workshops. The first one covered a proposition to develop a new airport in the middle of Netherlands. It attempted to capture the approach applied to solving the real business situation. In the McKinsey workshop the focus shifted towards finding the right approach while working on a project. It included not only pricing a new innovative product but also approaching mock CEO and CFO interviews. Altogether both provided valuable insights into the industry.
During both sessions we were working in teams of 4, so each time there were 4 groups competing. Each of the tasks required some dose of teamwork to solve the problems efficiently as well as cooperation to deliver consistent presentations. The assignments were random, however I managed to be twice on the team with two same guys and… we won both challenges! So not too bad as for the first time working together 😉 The exhausting day was followed by networking dinner event during which there was yet more opportunities to talk to the consultants and firms’ representatives.
On Tuesday an Oxford Debates Tournament was planned. Again we have been randomly assigned to groups of three, with one best-performing member from a losing team joining the winners after the first round. Each of the groups have been assigned their own flag with logo of one of Warsaw’s famous sights. The range of topics was pretty wide, with contrasting propositions such as ‘Polish parliament needs gender equality’ and ‘Batman is better for the economy than Superman’. Altogether it has been a great experience, with self-evident progress in terms of group’s performance from stage to stage as we tried to incorporate feedback from jury members. Additionally it allowed us to capture opposing teams’ flags on our way to the final where we could not keep up with our rivals and had to give up ours. However perfect culmination of the day was evening CEMS Night event at one of Warsaw’s best-known clubs which for many lasted until early morning 😀
The last day was a bit less intensive yet probably even more interesting as we were invited by corporate partners to their offices. There we have been presented with their activities and recruitment process. In the end the conference concluded at the Warsaw Stock Exchange with a brief ceremony. To sum up it’s been exciting and productive four days and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in consulting.
This was just the first edition of the conference yet another one is to be held next year, at approximately the same time. If you are interested the details should be available by next May/June at either the conference’s website or the CEMS CLUB Warsaw facebook page.
Hopefully you will enjoy it just as much as I did!
Piotr Ciurus