1. Mail to:
simcon.simsree@gmail.com
C O N V E R G E N C E -
A N A T I O N A L L E V E L C A S E
S T U D Y C O M P E I T I O N
1
I N D U S T R Y A N A L Y S I S
R E A L E S T A T E
3
C O N S U L T I N G N E W S 4
S E P T Q U I Z 5
Sydenham Institute of Management Studies, Research and Entrepreneurship Education
Sept 2013
B E A C O N
:
BE-A-CONSULTANT
Issue: 11
INDEX
Sydenham Institute of Management Studies, Research and Entrepreneurship Education
organized Simerations’13- an Inter-college Annual Management cum Cultural festival. The 19th
edition of SIMERATIONS'13 was the ultimate platform for India's youth from the prominent
graduation colleges to showcase their acumen in a variety of management, Sports, Cultural and
Literary events. It was held for 3 days i.e. on 20th, 21st and 22nd September 2013.
During this festival, SIMCON - SIMSREE Con-
sulting Club in association with “Benchmark
Six Sigma” organized an event
CONvergence- an Inter B school case study
competition. Participants were expected to
see world through consultant’s eyes. The
search for the ultimate consulting minds
spanned across 3 challenging rounds.
Round 1 was an online quiz of 35 minutes
and 16 teams were shortlisted for Round 2.
In round 2, multiple case studies related to
different domain such as Marketing, Fi-
nance, HR and Operations were given to the
teams. Teams were supposed to submit
solution to these case studies online before
the deadline. Six teams were shortlisted for
the Final Round. For Final Round, finalist
teams were called for on-campus presenta-
tions of case studies on General Manage-
ment.
Finalist teams were given 4 days to analyse
and prepare solution for the case study. Participants had to encounter two online elimination
rounds, followed by one on campus round of ever-increasing difficulty.
Round 1 got around 300 entries from all top notch B schools across India like IIM A, IIM B, IIM
C, IIM K, XLRI, NMIMS, JBIMS, FMS etc.
Finalist teams were from NMIMS, SJMSOM, SIMS and SIMSREE.
A MONTHLY NEWSLETTER FROM SIMCON - SIMSREE CONSULTING CLUB
1. CONVERGENCE – A National level Case Study Competition
It begins: Team NMIMS (top) and Team SIMSREE
F E A T U R E D A R T I C L E O N
P A G E 3 A B O U T
REAL ESTATE

2. Page 2: BEACON
Promotion:
Convergence was promoted on several social sites like Facebook, Blogs, Linkedin. Also the updates of competition were
posted on dare2compete.com so that more and more B school students could know about competition.
On-Campus Event:
Initially, a video showcasing activities carried out by SIMCON through-
out the year was presented to the judges and audience, and the show
kicked off. A brief description of case study was shared before start-
ing with the presentations for the benefit of audience.
Judges:
The judges for the competition were senior professionals with vast
knowledge in the field of Consulting.
Ms. Chakravarthy is the proprietor of Chrysalis and also Advisory
Board Member, Thakur Institute of Management Studies and Re-
search. She is a former Director, Deloitte Consulting and a former
director in UST Global and has worked with KPMG and TCS in the
past. She has also been a visiting faculty in various management col-
leges. She specializes in relationship management and employee en-
gagement as well as IT strategy. Market insight
Mr. Pinkesh Choksey was Executive Director at Business Develop-
ment Bureau (India) Private Limited. His expertise lies in Market Re-
search and analysis. He is currently Head of the Business Develop-
ment in Market Insight Consultants .
Mr. Shuaib Fakih recently retired from BASF India Ltd from the role of
strategy development. He has earlier worked in functions of product
management, logistics and SAP implementation. He has also provided
management training to the employees of the Aditya Birla group of
companies, Raymonds and M&M. He is a visiting faculty at various
management institutes including SIMSREE in the areas of Financial
Accounting, Management Accounting, Financial Management, and
M&A.
We are thankful to them for providing their valuable time. The busi-
ness approach they used to evaluate participants gave a finer edge to
the competition.
Each team consisted of 2 members and 15 minutes were given to present
the case. Audience was quite excited about the event. After Q&A session by
the judges, audience was enthusiastic for asking questions to the partici-
pants. Before announcement of results, judges shared their thoughts about
the consulting industry and the competition.
Winners: Mr. Mahendra Kadam and Mr. Rahul Patil from SJMSOM won the
competition. Prizes of worth Rs 15000 were given by judges. And certificates
were given to the all finalists.
CONvergence was a huge success and "SIMCON - SIMSREE Consulting Club" is set to better this event in the years to come.
CONVERGENCE - A National Level Case Study Competition
Our judge :Ms. Anamika Chakravarthy
Our judge : Mr. Pinkesh Choksey
Our judge : Mr. Shuaib Fakih
Winning moments : Team SJSOM with judges

3. Page 3: BEACON
I N D U S T R Y A N A LY S I S – R E A L E S TA T E
Introduction
The real estate sector in India has come a long way by becoming one of the fastest growing markets in the world. Growing at a
rate of about 20% per annum, the real estate sector is expected to become a US$ 180 billion market by 2020. The foreign
direct investment (FDI) is expected to increase to US$ 25 billion in the next 10 years from the present US$ 4 billion. It is the
second-largest sector after agriculture in terms of employment generation. It also invigorates the demand in over 250 ancillary
industries such as cement, steel, paint, brick, building materials, consumer durables and so on.
The real estate sector comprises of four sub-sectors: housing,
retail, hospitality, and commercial. While housing alone contrib-
utes to 5-6% of India’s GDP, the remaining three sub-sectors are
also growing at a rapid pace, meeting the increasing infrastructure
needs.
MARKET SHARE OF LEADING PLAYERS IN 2012
The Indian real estate sector has traditionally been an unorganised
sector but is slowly evolving into a more organised one. The sector
is however fragmented with a few large domestic players like DLF,
Unitech, Hiranandani Constructions, Tata Housing, Godrej Proper-
ties, Omaxe, Parsvanath, Raheja Developers, Ansal Properties and
Infrastructure and Mahindra Developers Ltd. to name a few.
PEST Analysis
Political: Issues related to clearance of projects wherein trade-off is required between environmental safety and development
Economic: Rising middle class with increasing disposable income along with better financing options has caused the boom in
real estate sector
Social: Need to ensure proper compensation to people losing their land and availability of low cost houses for those who can’t
afford the same
Technological: Use of cement blowing pumps, mould assembly techniques for construction these days
Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013
The Land Acquisition Bill, passed by Parliament during the Monsoon Session to replace a 119-year-old legislation, became a
law with President Pranab Mukherjee giving assent to it on 27th September 2013. The bill addresses two very vital and
contentious issues related to land acquisition: Concerns of farmers and those families whose livelihood is dependent on the
land acquired and facilitate land acquisition for industries, infrastructure and urbanization.
Real Estate Regulation and Development Bill, 2013
This provision is likely to provide another level of protection to buyers that have often resulted from information-asymmetry
while also preventing concerns regarding money laundering by the non-organised broker community. However, some of the
clauses under the bill are also viewed as hurdles by the industry’s stakeholders, particularly developers. One such clause is the
mandatory procurement of all construction approvals prior to project marketing / sales.
Other initiatives by the Government
Allowance of 100% FDI in real estate sector through automatic route in townships, housing, built-up infrastructure and
construction development projects to increase investment, generate economic activity, create new employment opportunities
and add to the available housing stock and built-up infrastructure
Easing of External commercial borrowing (ECB) limits for the builders by RBI low-cost affordable housing projects. Now,
developers and builders with three years of experience in undertaking residential projects are eligible to raise funds through
the ECB route
Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM)- projects worth Rs 41,723 crore (US$ 6.19 billion) for building of
1,569,000 houses/dwelling units for economically weaker/lower income group. The Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty
Alleviation has planned to introduce a single-window system for clearance of all real estate projects across the country. The
system could bring down the average approval time from the current 196 days to 45-60 days.
Sources: [1] Grant Thornton India LLP: http://www1.grantthornton.in/html/gt_insight/real-estate/investment-scenario/, [2] FICCI: http://
www.ficci.com/sector/59/Project_docs/real-eastate-profile.pdf, [3] Ministry of Rural Development: http://rural.nic.in/sites/downloads/
general/RTTFC_in_LARR_2013.pdf, [4] CCI: www.cci.in - A Brief Report on Real Estate Sector in India (August 2013), [5] Press Information
Bureau: http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=96440, [6] Mondaq: http://www.mondaq.com,[7] Edelweiss: Real Estate – Q4FY13
Result Review,[8] Indian Brand Equity Foundation: www.ibef.org - Real Estate 2013
MARKET SHARE OF LEADING PLAYERS IN 2012 (INR CR)

4. Financial services and the Big Four
The Big Four firms’ consulting practices have always been closely intertwined with the fortunes of the financial ser-
vices industry, writes Fiona Czerniawska, co-founder of Source.
Most recently, they have been able to take advantage of successive waves of regulatory change and the growing
importance of risk management on many fronts. Strong relationships with national regulators have helped create
barriers to entry, containing the threat from smaller, more specialized competitors. Audit-based brands play well in
the compliance and governance space. Above all else, above average growth in demand for consulting services in
the financial services sector has been mirrored by above average growth in the Big Four firms’ consulting practices,
allowing them to diversify and invest at a time when many other firms have had to cut back. Global procurement
managers increase use of risk-reward on consulting projects by 50%.
Consultancies get a boost from need for good advice
Good advice has always been at a premium. Now the business of giving advice appears to have struck a chord in
India Inc, emerging as a rare sector which boasts of being downturn-proof. So top consultancies and tax firms –
which advise companies with restructuring, mergers and amalgamations, regulatory and taxation issues - have
witnessed comfortable double-digit growth while other sectors continue to suffer on account of demand slowdown.
What has kept demand robust for consultancies are the increasing complexities in doing business, enhanced lev-
els of compliance and the rapid pace of changes within the policy and regulatory space. Corporate India realizes
that the price paid for expert advice is much lower than the fines it would have to cough up for non-compliance.
This is even as most CEOs agree that regulation is something which would continue to grow as would the disruptive
pace of change.
Legal market sees highest growth rate in five years in UK
Over 10% increase in fee income for FY14 Q1 - Double digit growth has not been achieved since April 2008.
The UK’s top 100 law firms have achieved double digit growth for the first time in five years, according to the latest
quarterly legal sector survey from Deloitte. The survey showed a 10.5% increase in fee income generated in Q1
(quarter ended 31 July 2013), compared with the same period last year (quarter ended 31 July 2012). The growth
was boosted by mergers within the sector, which accounted for approximately half of the fee income increase with
the balance due to an increase in general market activity.
Growth in the ’26-50’ and ’51-100’ size categories where most law firm transaction activity occurred reached
14.6% and 13.4% respectively. However, growth by fees per fee earner was more modest (3.5% for the ’26-50’
category and 2.3% for the ’51-100’ category), whilst chargeable hours per fee earner remained relatively flat in
comparison with last year (0.3% for the ’26-50’ category and 1.2% for the ’51-100’ category).
LOC Consulting appoints Tony Weston to lead new LOC Associates business
LOC Consulting, a management consultancy that specializes in the delivery of business change and IT programs
and projects, has announced the appointment of Tony Weston to lead its new LOC Associates business.
With the launch of LOC Associates, LOC is extending its pool of specialist and valued Associates, proactively deploy-
ing them, and expanding its channels to market.
Tony is an SAP & ERP Business Development specialist with a career spanning 25 years. He has extensive experi-
ence in business development strategy and a proven track record in delivering profitable growth for consulting
firms in leading companies including Danone, SABMiller, and Shell. As the lead for LOC Associates, Tony’s remit
includes business development, securing new clients for the firm through the placement of Associates, and
growing the LOC team through proactive networking and referrals.
Consulting World News
Page 4: BEACON
Sources:
http://www.consultant-news.com/
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Consultancies-get-a-boost-from-need-for-good-advice/articleshow/22425614.cms
http://www.consultant-news.com/

5. Mail Answers To:
simcon.simsree@gmail.com with
Subject= simcon_quiz_sept_2013
First Received All Correct Answers will
be published in next month’s Edition.
B E L O W A R E A N S W E R S T O
I S S U E - 1 0 . A U G U S T _ 2 0 1 3
Q.1. Which consulting firm acquired the data analytics company Hypercube?
Q.2. This consultant has been named as one of the top 25 consultants in the world
and has also been awarded with “Excellence in Energy” award by The Consulting
magazine. Name him and the company to which he belongs.
Q.3. Which company won the title of 2012 Global Partner of the Year for Cloud Plat-
form at the Google Enterprise Global Partner Summit?
Q.4. In 1984 a bookseller requested his bicycle manufacturers to provide spares for
the repair of the same, via a letter in Czech, to which he was asked to reply in their
native language (German) to avail their services. Miffed, he along with his partner
went on to start a bicycle repair shop, which eventually transformed into a major
company. Name the firm, the bookseller and his partner.
Q.5. Identify the person linked with the adjacent images.
QUIZZ TIME !!
QUIZZ OF SEPT 2013
1. Microsoft (SkyDrive due to a trademark
infringement case raised by BSkyB)
2. Arthur D Little
3. Edwin G Booz, Booz and Company
4. Place: Sabarimala, Kerala; Brand: Sabari
Jalam
Page 5: BEACON
Winner of Quiz SEPT 2013 -> Hrishikesh Rahatal (MMS 2013-15)

6. SIMCON JUNIOR TEAM
Page 6: BEACON
Standing (L-R): Marmik Thakore, Puneet Mhatre, Ravindra Bharati, Vidit Mahajan, Arvind Sandikar,
Sitting (L-R): Ashish Deshpande, Priyanka Pawar, Atit Shah, Chirag Joglekar
Contributions invited: To make this feature a successful effort, we seek continued
involvement and contribution from our readers, that is YOU. We invite articles and trivia on
themes related to consulting. Be it industry news, consulting trends, a joke, a cartoon or
feedback, we are eager to hear from you. So go ahead, do your research, pen down your
thoughts and mail your entries to simcon.simsree@gmail.com.
Best Regards,
SIMCON –SIMSREE CONSULTING CLUB
SIMSREE, B-ROAD CHURCHGATE 400 020, INDIA.
Mail To: simcon.simsree@gmail.com