MBS graduate one day: Consulting giant the next
 Julian Belotti
Alumni
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"Being able to apply various MBA frameworks, solidifies quality outcomes and helps clarify customer requirements so they have an understanding of the approach and benefits."
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While doing his MBA part-time, and working full-time as a KPMG consultant in 2000, a Melbourne Business School student has established a company that aims to be one of the largest SAP consulting firms in Australia over the next five years.
Doing an MBA part-time is a daunting undertaking-adding 30 hours a week of study to an already demanding 40 hour plus a week full-time job. For most people it would be enough of a challenge.
Meet Julian Belotti, (46 y/o) and part-owner of Clarity Consulting Group Australia Pty Ltd, which is both a SAP Services and Channel partner.
Julian established Clarity with a business partner and five other consultants during the second year of his part-time MBA, in 1999. Since then the company has consistently achieved double digit growth and now employs 35 consultants.
The way forward wasn't always so clear cut. Julian's first job was in the hospitality industry. After completing a "sandwich year" at The Hyatt in Sydney, as part of his hotel management studies at Victoria University, he decided hospitality wasn't for him and returned to university to get a degree in Accounting.
Armed with his Accounting degree Julian joined the Metropolitan Tramways Authority (MTA) where he was involved in implementing a new finance system. This sparked an interest in IT and he again returned to university, this time to study IT part-time.
After five years at MTA, part of which was spent in the IT department, Julian joined ICI (now Orica) as a senior systems analyst for 18 months, then Esso Australia for three years, where he was exposed to a new application called SAP. In 1995 he joined KPMG as an SAP consultant.
The early-career diversity and resulting exposure to a wide network of contacts was to stand him in good stead when it came time to establishing his own business.
By now Julian wanted some additional challenges. "I was becoming interested in starting my own company and I felt the degree of learning on the job was inadequate, so I applied to do an MBA part-time at Melbourne Business School."
"I remember our orientation day when a lecturer stood up at the whiteboard and outlined the number of direct contact hours required at the campus, and the number of study hours required - I then added the hours required to actually work in my full-time job," he says. "And it hit home that there wouldn't be much of a social life during that time."
Half way through doing his MBA, Julian became keen to advance his career and salary.
"There is no one particular part of the MBA that I use regularly. It's more the overall frameworks and tools that I can apply given that there is lots of ambiguity in consulting. Being able to apply various frameworks, solidifies quality outcomes and helps clarify customer requirements so they have an understanding of the approach and benefits," he says.
"For example, I did Entrepreneurship as a subject, which involves evaluating--or doing due-diligence--on various business cases or proposals by say doubling costs and halving revenues, or by going through some scenario to validate what's being proposed.
That particular subject has had more pay-off than most, he says.
"Clarity gets regularly approached by large organisations seeking to acquire us. Part of the due diligence process recognises that our company has a certain monetary value using certain benchmarks. Typically potential vendors value service-companies based on their commitments or contracts, as well as earnings-before-tax. Then they look at the earnings ratio to evaluate the benefit of acquiring a company like ourselves. As a result of my MBA and practical experience, I've been able to focus our organisation to make it more attractive going forward."
