Article by Valentine Kravets (Q17)

Upon arriving at the Ronald Reagan Building in D.C. on September 16th, seniors of QUEST’s Cohort 17 did not know what to expect of the annual Accenture retreat. Students shuffled into the Ronald Reagan building, bleary-eyed and dressed in their business professional attire as the Accenture team gathered in the lecture room for their presentation. The meeting between Accenture employees and QUEST students turned into quite an unforgettable experience.

As soon as the Accenture lecture began, students were hastily thrown into a consulting scenario during which they had to work in teams of five to solve the problem of the mock beverage company that Accenture employees represented. This challenging scenario consisted of unifying the beverage company’s various isolated marketing departments while expanding the company’s media outreach to new social outlets, and proved a daunting task for the QUEST students.

Many teams struggled in communicating with their “difficult” clients; some of the more extreme client behavior ranged from unexpectedly rude denial of nearly all proposed ideas, to disengaged meetings as clients played Angry Birds or checked their emails on their smart phones. Midway through the meetings and planning sessions, just as teams were getting settled with their project scopes, the clients imposed new challenges that expanded the requirements of the project and demanded a restructuring of solutions. Some teams were challenged with an e-mail from a client stating that they would be unavailable for the remainder of the consulting period due to vacation. Other teams had to deal with expanding their solution to other departments of the beverage company outside of the initial scope of the project.

Despite these challenges, Cohort 17 students worked collaboratively and effectively to produce innovative solutions. Recommendations ranged from expanding marketing to various social networks (Facebook and Twitter) to unifying the independent departments with a single appealing direction that promoted the diversity and history of the company through commercials, slogans, and logos. The retreat was a very eye-opening experience for students, providing them with essential consulting experience that will certainly be used during the remainder of the 490H class experience. It is evident that the Cohort 17 students will continue to work hard in their teams to produce great solutions for their real-world clients as they prepare for the culmination of the QUEST undergraduate experience during the much-anticipated, annual QUEST Senior Conference in December.