“All work and no play make Jack a dull boy!”

Consultants are experts in their fields and play a pivoting role in helping the client organizations thrust its numbers. In a way, consultants are magicians who bring out the most optimum results with the same resources and awes the audience. As a part of iFaber, in this edition, we had a chat with another star Faber Abhijit Wakodikar, who speaks up about his experiences and shares his exciting journey as a consultant.

Why Consulting?

Hailing from the beautiful city of Nagpur in Maharashtra, Abhijit has a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Technology and Masters in Operations and Supply Chain Management. When asked about why he chose being a consultant as a profession and not anything else, Abhijit had an intriguing yet interesting answer. “I like the profile of a consultant. I like to deal with different challenges, day in and day out. Hence, I started my career as a consultant immediately after I finished my higher education”, said Abhijit as a reply.

Life as a consultant

Abhijit is part of industry neutral consulting team, who has an understanding of various industries and sectors. He has delivered results across more than 30 clients spread across over a dozen industries, ranging from textiles and plastics to chemicals and FIBC sector. He believes that life of a consultant is defined by the rise in his learning curve. According to him, a consultant is never off duty and never reaches the saturation level in terms of improvements and development. “Learning is the foremost important aspect of being a consultant and it is the most interesting part that motivates one to do more,” says Abhijit proudly.

“We re-introduced a proven problem solving methodology named 8-D with a customized approach at one of our client sites in Zambia. It was an extremely successful initiative in the industry and delivered tremendous results. Although, we work hard at all client locations and are able to deliver exceptional results to all our clients, this one was close to my heart and it was a great learning experience.”

When asked about challenges, according to Abhijit, being versatile in various sectors and having knowledge about every other thing in the respective domain is the most challenging part of being a consultant. Moreover, aligning the management and value adders together on the same platform is another challenging aspect.

Another important and interesting aspect of the consulting career of Abhijit is his strong belief in the philosophy – “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. Abhijit believes that integrating simulation activities along with rigorous classroom session is beneficial since the simulations are the only things that will stay in the minds of the people for a longer time frame. Abhijit also implements this within his team as well and motivates his associates by rolling out similar initiatives.

Personal life?

Being a focused and devoted person towards work, Abhijit makes best of every opportunity to spend time with his parents. Apart from this, he loves going on treks and involves himself in adventure sports.. He is a very avid rider and goes on rides whenever he manages to get some time off his schedule. He also sketches in his free time to relax his mind.

It is a very lesser known quality about Abhijit that he is a writer at heart. He is working on his book for the past 6 months which he plans to complete and publish in the coming year.

Amidst all the challenges, Abhijit has always pushed himself hard and has emerged as a winner against all odds. Abhijit was the first star of the year at Faber Infinite when we started the awards. He believes in learning and innovation and having spent a good time in management consulting domain, Abhijit has inculcated various quintessential qualities in himself which makes him stand apart from the crowd.

Written & Compiled By Faber Kishlay & Faber Mayuri