Political Consulting

Little known Consulting firm McKinley was worried - Business was drying up, Clients were sinking, Employees were fleeing and their pirated MS Office just crashed. The Financial meltdown was taking its toll. So they decided to hire SmackD as a consultant to get them out of the mess (since he was the only one willing to work in exchange for food - all others wanted cash and to top that the first hour was FREE).

SmackD knew that he had to scan businesses and recommend one big ticket sector which had lots of untapped potential as well as was recession-proof. So thus began the research and he stumbled upon FMCG. Seemed decently recession-proof industry. Recession or no recession - people would still brush, shower, crap, drink and eat. So he decided to met some employees of a really big FMCG firm - Hagga UnLimited. He met two of their many stellar employees - Faffarsh and Gaydar Dede. It was an enlightening conversation. A small excerpt:

Faffarsh: We are mass-shitters i.e. we bullshit the masses. In fact we shit so much that every person joining our company gets diapers, so that we can keep shitting without worrying about the stains. As the economy moves forward and people have more disposable income, we see a clear trend of our CTC (Cost-to-Company) coming down. This is because people tend to downgrade as they get richer, so we'll have cheaper diapers with more shit-absorbents.

Gaydar Dede: The motto of my company is to "Dig a well by doing good". We try and make a difference to every Indian by helping them dispose whatever income they get. We make them pay Rs. 10 for something thats worth less than my teeny brain. In that way we drain their wealth, Do Well and ultimately force consumers to dig a well for themselves.

After the discussion SmackD knew that this industry was full of shit and unless McKinley wanted to go from the Frying pan to Shit-pot this was not a business they need to get their hands on.

Then like a true consultant he decide to break everything down to the last detail, use all the frameworks (even if he didnt understand a f*&k about it), look at the entire "value chain" and frame a 2x2 matrix. During this time a amazing insight hit him "Na biwi na bachha, na baap bada na bhaiyya .. the whole thing is that .... ke bhaiyya sabse bada Rupaiyya" (Money is bigger than anything)

One look at how money flows in different businesses and he quickly saw one common theme - Politicians. Pick any business, any scenario and you'll still see a 'cut' going to politicians. Now, thats a recession proof industry. So SmackD decided to recommend Political consulting to McKinley considering there were opportunities unbound in Politics to make tons of money (tax-free).

Some of the major opportunities he saw going forward are:

1. With demand for more and more states coming, McKinley can advise parties on how and when to enforce Bandhs, how many buses to vandalize to maximize impact, who should go on a fast and till when, plan demonstrations, decide on the exact price point to pay people to come and attend rallies with a view to maximize participation at minimum cost etc

2. With coalition politics only getting stronger, McKinley can advise people on which parties to align with, valuation of vote bank and possible synergies, which seats to share, how to position yourself strategically in a strong bargaining position, which parties to 'break' by offering attractive incentives to key leaders of the opposing party, how to keep your flock together when horse-trading rears its ugly head etc

3. McKinley can also advise parties on Capital raising strategies by enticing investments from Corporate India in Party funds and on how to maximize the same using value-based pricing, form a portfolio of companies which would be diversified in terms of risk of expose, form a BCG matrix to see which companies fell in which quadrant so as to make better policy decisions to attract more 'investments', how to structure deals, which companies to invest in (ranked on possibility of insider trading) etc

4. McKinley can also advise the ruling party on timing the market to announce next elections, make strategic announcements which will drive up stock prices in companies they have invested in, how to creatively report inflation and other macro-economic numbers, when to invoke Emergency / Article 365 / President's rule etc

5. Optimizing the election list by apportioning tickets subject to the constraints of castes, loyalty and money.

Similarly many more opportunities of this nature exists in politics which are very attractive. Currently no firms are present in this space and thus you can make a killing.