Ep. 132 – The Consulting Advantage AI Can’t Copy: Relationships Backed by Real Expertise – with Dr. Karsten Ballüder

The next consulting advantage is not account-led or expert-led. It is a combination of the two.

Dr. Karsten Ballüder, Partner at Deloitte and leader of the firm’s European Application Modernization practice, joins David to discuss how consulting firms can stay differentiated when AI makes generic knowledge and polished output easier to produce.

Karsten argues that relationships still open doors, but they are no longer enough on their own. In complex, mission-critical work, clients need confidence that the people in the room have seen the problem before, know where it tends to break, and can bring expertise that is not simply available to everyone through AI. This conversation explores the tension between account-led growth and expert-led credibility, why internal incentives can block real collaboration, and what consulting leaders need to build if they want trust and expertise to reinforce each other.

You’ll learn:

1. Why generic consulting output is becoming harder to defend
2. How account leaders and experts create value together
3. Why lived delivery experience matters more in the AI era
4. How internal incentives can keep the right expertise out of the room
5. What experts must do to become commercially visible inside the firm

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Dr. Karsten Ballüder is open to connecting about consulting growth, expert leadership, AI-driven commoditization, and the relationship between trust and expertise.

If you would like to exchange perspectives, reach out on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karsten-ballueder/
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Karsten’s reading recommendation:
Getting Things Done | https://www.amazon.de/dp/0143126563  

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David is a Partner at entero and has extensive experience in Salesforce consulting, particularly in advising consulting firms on the optimization and digitalization of their processes. Over the past ten years, he has led teams, managed complex client relationships, and implemented digital solutions that improve operational efficiency. His passion lies in helping companies use technology to drive growth and transformation, ensuring they remain competitive in an increasingly digital world.

Simply write to David by email at david.anheier@entero.de

or connect with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danheier/

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For more perspectives on how leaders are navigating topics like this, follow the LEADERS IN CONSULTING Community on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/leadersinconsulting-en/  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

So, if if if you know the entire internet, um that still doesn't give you the experience of having done that specific type of project and knowing the early warning times of why it might fail. That is experience that depends on experience.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

Welcome to the Leaders in Consulting Podcast. I'm David, your host and co-founder of the community. This show is for consulting leaders to know the higher your client, the more valuable true peer exchange becomes. In each episode, you'll hear what's really working for Papas and NDs. Growth, leadership and client impact. And if you want to go beyond listening and join the conversation, check out leadersinconsulting.com for info on our monthly confidential forums in London, Munich, Frankfurt, Cologne and Düsseldorf. And now, let's get started with the show. Hello everyone. I'm happy to welcome Dr. Carsten Baluda, partner at Deloitte, in today's show. Carsten, welcome.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Thank you, David.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

Carsten, why don't you tell uh me and the audience a little bit about your company and what you were doing at Deloitte?

SPEAKER_00 1:10

So, who's Deloitte? Deloitte Deloitte is a small professional services firm with about half a million people globally by now. Um what am I doing? Um I'm I'm a partner in our cloud engineering group, and I lead our European application modernization practice. Um big words. Um what I do on a daily basis is I help our clients modernize existing IT applications. So I'm not implementing new systems, I'm not building new systems from scratch, I'm taking big core systems that have been around for decades in many cases, and I help them modernize it, make it ready for the future.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Um so tell us a little bit about your market. Do you focus on specific industries or specific geographies uh when modernizing your customers' IT?

SPEAKER_00 2:10

So it's easy to answer the question about the geography because that's Europe, Middle East, Asia, the classic EMIA region uh that I deal with, and it's it's because it's an expertise that within the EMEA region we only have in Germany. Um and I work very closely with a team over in the US that covers basically North America and the rest of the world. Um it's very specialized expertise, so we only have it out of these two hubs, and we're trying to build up little satellite hubs in other regions, but it's it's basically from there. The question about industries is interesting because I've spent, I would say, maybe close to 20 out of my 26 years in consulting, working exclusively on financial services. Um, the major banks' insurers, and my current role is fundamentally cross-industry. Um, if someone has an old sort of legacy system in place that can be in any industry that early on built big IT systems. So we have the classic banks and insurers, but we have big logistics firms, we've got government departments, we've got manufacturing clients. Any organizations that really early in kind of in the history of computing, you know, 1970s, 80s, had a need for large IT systems. That's my clients. So it's formally cross-industry, and I have some non-financial services clients, but 60-70% of it is still financial services.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Thank you. When we met, you talked a little bit about, or we talked a little bit about your career and how you became partner, and it brought us a little bit to today's topic, which is um discussing different ways how to grow a business inside a large consulting company and the aspect of um account growth versus um expert leadership or expert growth. Um, before we dive into your personal experience and story, maybe you can help me and the community to understand a little bit what we both identified as the two sides of, well, sides of the metal sounds too binary, but as the two aspects of growing a business in a in a large uh consultancy. So um there seems to be a little bit of conflict between an account-based growth and expert leadership, uh, which is which is I think your way. Um, how would you describe this conflict in large consultancies between these account ownerships and the thematic and uh expert responsibilities?

SPEAKER_00 4:52

Yeah. And I think it came out of a conversation we had around how how consulting firms work and how how they sort of work with the clients and deliver the services. And I don't even know whether it is a conflict or something that's sort of mutually complementing each other. But if if if you're looking at what consulting does, it superficially it provides services to clients. So you could think of it providing extra capacity to to get stuff done. But I think it's more. It's it's a promise to deliver something that our clients can't deliver on their own. So it's it's not a question of just capacity, it's also a question of having the right expertise and providing the confidence that we know what we're doing and that we have the experience. It's not just expertise, because expertise can be smart young kids fresh out of college who know how to do it and they're consulting models that have worked on that model for a long time. But it it also means having done it before and knowing what to look out for and ultimately selling our clients the security they're seeking to be there and give them the comfort that this will work. Because it's you know, we we're not, at least as a Deloitte, we're not in the business of small little projects where we provide a couple of people to help out because there's a shortage of stuff. We're really going, you know, I talked about the kind of systems we're dealing with. Um we're we're going after the mission critical programs. If I change a core insurance system or core banking system, or a system tracking millions of containers around the world, then that's mission critical for our clients. So I'm not providing just capacity to get it done. I'm not just providing the expertise, knowing how to do it, but they expect to see someone with a lot of gray hair who's there telling them, I've done this five times before, don't worry, I know how to do this. And that means you need you need a number of different things. You need the expertise, but you also need the relationship. A lot of it is delivering projects that our clients are scared of. In my area, it's projects they do because they have to do them. No one wants to touch the system that's been running for 30 years, but they have to, so they do it, which means you sell trust and you you sell based on relationships as well. And that's why it gets super interesting, because then you need people who have a strong relationship to the decision makers in an account, the account teams or account leadership is a set. And you need people who have the deep content, because otherwise all the relationships will be worthless. And and you really need to bring both to the table if you want to be successful and actually get that get that worked.

SPEAKER_01 7:48

Talking about success, I mean, I speak to many consulting leaders and partners, and I definitely more often hear um their success being based on a great account growth story. And um seems to me, understanding a couple of consulting companies that account growth and and and uh accounts are usually rewarded more strongly or stronger than than in-depth exp uh expertise. Why do you think the system is like that?

SPEAKER_00 8:32

That's a good question. And I think from I I think you're right from a sort of career development perspective, because and histor historically a lot of I would say a lot of consulting business was sold relationship-based. And it's it's it's human nature. I like working with people that I've worked with before. Um so even if it's not always a perfect fit fit, I I like to take the same team along to the next project because I know they they deliver and they grow with it. Um, so it's normal that if I have delivered for one client before that client will come to me again and ask me for something similar, maybe even a totally different topic. Um selling through relationships to a certain degree works and it works well. And if if I look at consulting organizations, and you know, I've I've I've been around long enough that I've been in a number of different organizations over the years, um, it's it's always something where I would say an account-driven relationship, an account-based career is probably the quickest way to move forward because you have an ongoing sales pipeline with your client, you establish trust, and you keep selling into the same client that you know very well, and you need to know a client very well to sell into that client. And and it's it's it's not it it sounds worse than it is, it sounds like it's just about selling, but knowing a client really well means you know their needs, you know how you can help them, and you can simply offer better value. So that's that makes it almost easier to be successful on on an account basis. If on the other hand, you're having one specific topic that you're selling, then it gets difficult because then you're suddenly delivering something for one client, you're building relationships, and then you're moving on to another client and you're building the relationships from scratch again, and figure out a way to maintain the old relationships in case you can sell something else to that client. So it it it almost it almost makes it a little bit tougher to balance those two aspects of the job. Um, of course, if I'm in with a client and I'm completely renovating the ecosystems over a period of one and a half, two years, we're building very, very strong relationships. We're you know, with we've we're we're going through hell together, and in the end, we're happy that we made it. And uh yeah, you know how projects work, especially in the IT space. But then there's the next client on the horizon, totally different place, um, also asking for for me. And and and that means you've you've got to find a balance between the two aspects. And ideally, you want to work with colleagues who can focus on the same client long term. So it would be a shame if I build strong relationships at a client over the work I do, and then I disappear and they never see me again as relationships remain unused. So I need to build up a team as a client, or I need to work with an existing account team if it already exists to build on the success of that joint project delivery. And and and it works the other way around as well. If I have an account team in a client, first of all, I need then to identify whether a client has a need for the kind of services that I or someone else can provide. And I need to use their relationships because that new client doesn't know me yet. They don't trust me. They don't know whether my team and I can deliver this, but they might trust, I don't know, maybe an account partner that comes from an accounting background, but has their trust and says, look, I know these guys can deliver, and introduces us and brings us in there and remains part of that dialogue and relationship. So I think it's really something where account teams and subject matter experts really need to work together to ultimately be successful. No one's gonna believe, not anymore, I hope, no one's gonna believe the consulting partner that tells the clients that he can do everything. Um that that might have been the case 20 years ago. Um, but I think we are all a lot more professional today than we were back then. Um if if you sell your clients uh a finance transformation today and uh Salesforce tomorrow and a big cloud migration in six months' time, it's not gonna work. They will they will look at you and say, You you're the finance transformation guy. What what do you know about Salesforce? And so I think our success depends on bringing the right people and the right expertise to the client.

SPEAKER_01 13:38

Yeah, so it sounds like it's it's uh crucial that both at least on on the client success that both streams work together successfully. Um so coming to maybe a little bit to your career, um reflecting that at least on paper, it seems to be easier to only grow a large account to become a partner. Um why did you nevertheless decide to endure the um the other path in your career instead?

SPEAKER_00 14:22

Probably because I've always had a tendency to do what I enjoy the most. Um it's it's not the most strategic answer. I'm I'm totally aware of that. But we're we we're all we're all best at what we do when we enjoy what we're doing. And um I had reached a point in my career where I've that's eight, eight, nine years back, where I was very uncomfortable with where I was within our firm and within my career. And I was always doing, I would say, IT project management jobs in banking, something like that. Um, and I very much, especially on the on the last couple of projects, I very much had this relationship role. I I was I was the back then the director at Deloitte who was holding the CEO's hand, telling them, don't worry, my team knows what they're doing. I had the right team, and I didn't understand half of what we were doing myself, but I I provided that reassurance, that trust, I made sure we had the right team in place, and I guided the team to deliver successfully. But those were projects that were not with a heavy IT focus, which is where I come from. I'm I've got background in physics and software development. Um, I'm an IT guy, and I was stuck in the financial services practice doing vaguely IT-related jobs, but sometimes not so much. And I was given the opportunity to take on the role of our Center of Excellence for Application Modernization, the practice that deals with modernizing mainframe applications. And um that kind of became my track for my career. So it was kind of an internal move sideways, which allowed me to stay within the firms that I know so well, but have a good network and especially internationally, have I have a very, very strong network because I moved around internally quite a bit. And well, obviously I can I can create more value than I could if if I went somewhere else. So I was quite glad to have that opportunity to take that on and build that into a practice that operates across Europe. And um then really has exactly this this specialist role. Um it's it's something I enjoy. As a technologist at heart, I I like you know going into the nitty-gritty details sometimes. I know, but I know I shouldn't, and I can drive my project teams crazy with stupid questions because I try to understand things. Um I don't always, but uh, they know that. Um but it's it's something I enjoy doing, and I think is also something that clients realize. Um that they realize when you have a passion for something, and they realize when you're authentic. Um, I wouldn't go up, come back to the Salesforce example. I I wouldn't want to go out there and sell people a Salesforce project or a package implementation or something else that as someone who's done a lot of software development in their own past, I I wouldn't want, I wouldn't get excited about. I can't pretend to be excited about it, but I wouldn't want to. So doing something where over the years now I've I've picked up quite a lot of depths and and expertise around it because I I keep learning from my teams who are so much better at it than I would ever be. But I I pick up more expertise from it and I can transport it across to clients, and that gives me credibility, and that helps the clients feel comfortable with me, and ultimately relying on on my team and I to deliver for them and knowing that it will work, building that trust.

SPEAKER_01 18:13

During your path to your partnership, um, maybe looking a little bit or comparing yourself, at least from today's perspective, a little bit with your peers who maybe did something similar but following the account path. Could you remember or reflect any sort of ups and downs of your path compared to um the account focused ones? Or did you see any specific challenges, but also maybe some advantages of what you were doing that brought you um to where you are today?

SPEAKER_00 18:50

I haven't seen downs, but if if I think if you compare the two parts, I think if you get onto the right account and you have a strong account relationship as a partner in any consulting firm, manage to use that relationship to provide that client with more and more services, then that is probably a faster way to sell services and to to grow your career. Ultimately, that's what it's about then, uh, than if you have to keep convincing new clients and new account teams. Um so that and and and I think that's that's that's uh something I can see in our organization. If I look at at partners in leadership positions, very, very often there's a strong account uh story behind them. And it makes total sense. You're you're leading a large account, you're driving a lot of business, um, and of course you buy some through the ranks. So, you know, if if if if you're if you're a young manager in in consulting who's keen on having a rapid career, you ask me for advice, I'd say, you know, find find an account that you have fun with and you find interesting, and you know, get in there and and learn all about them and and run with it. And it and it will work. Um if you're someone who's deeply interested in a particular topic and into uh you know, make maybe maybe a more analytical person, someone who likes solving a specific type of of challenge, then I'd say do what you're most passionate about, and maybe it's gonna evolve a little bit slower. I've I've spent an unusually long time being a director before I made it to partner, partially because of being in a financial services and still for technology practice at the time. But it's it's something you you know, if you're passionate about something and if it adds value, your career will follow either way. Um, it might develop a little bit slower, maybe, um, but it's gonna be there. And there's so many other factors impacting individual careers. People move around between different firms to to, you know. Uh you you can have a great career, no matter whether you're someone who loves getting into an account and getting to know an account really, really well and getting all the best services out to them, or whether you're someone who's really passionate about specific topics that you want to sell to a client. So and I I think that's important to realize because we are we're in an age where I mean now now we comment come into that uh that overhyped AI topic, but um I I don't think you can overhype it. Um and you can certainly not skip it. No, no, but I I mean we are all massively impacted by it and consulting maybe more than than many other industries. But what does what does AI give you? It it gives you easy access to all the publicly available information that all the LLNs have been trained on the entire internet. And it gives you an incredible sort of performance productivity boost for whatever you do. Especially in software development. So you have huge amounts of knowledge that's publicly available and you have an unlimited workforce. And there have been a few articles out there talking about you know the two-person consulting firm of one or two experienced guys setting up a new firm and running it with the help of AI. It's it's not unrealistic in my view. But what that misses is the experience and and the trust aspect and and so we come back to that. And the LLMs they're trained on the publicly available information and any major professional services information there's a huge amount of of experience and knowledge that is not public that cannot be found on the internet. Not everything Deloitte knows is out there in form of white papers and and and articles. There's a lot of knowledge and experience in internal knowledge management systems in people's heads and so on.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

And I think I think just to add to that there's another aspect which will probably never be stored somewhere it's the ability to make decisions based on experience which which kind of only becomes better the more experience you have and is hardly hardly extractable from people and and pretty much will be one of the aspects in consulting that I at least for now do not see AI to commoditize. What do you think?

SPEAKER_00 24:10

I don't know if I agree with that. Yes and no um at the moment not and but we're very very close to it I think we I mean we we are at a point where an AI can explain very well why it decides or recommends certain things based on certain inputs. So the the decision process as such AI that's that's that you're right. Yeah we we can do a lot of that it's mega transparent AI doesn't have it it only has the formalized input that you give it. So if if if you know the entire internet um that still doesn't give you the experience of having done that specific type of project and knowing the early warning signs of why it might fail. That is experience that is hands-on experience. And that again is old consultants with grey hair who've been doing that for 20 years. And you you you can tell I have a few of those people on my team because it's you you need the certain things you need to have done and experienced to know what you're talking about because it's not written down anywhere. And I think that kind of knowledge um is critical not just in consulting but especially in consulting. The other thing that the AI will never be able to do is to to build the relationships to you know look a client in the eye and tell him don't worry I've I've been there I've done this is like that situation back then where I and to to to to make these connections. And um I think if if we just focus on being super efficient with AI and if we started to to respond to RFPs with the with the help of AI and of course we use AI for everything we do but if we rely only on the AI to tell us what to do we become completely interchangeable. A Deloitte consultant using the same AI tool is going to be no better than an I don't know an Accenture consultant using the same AI tool. It's going to be completely interchangeable. The efficiencies we can raise in terms of how much more a software developer, an analyst a consultant can get done will be the same as well. It will be a constant race, but it will be no different from any other mechanical tool. But I think where it becomes really interesting is when you take this productivity boost that you get out of that and you combine it with the the the experts who bring the knowledge that's not publicly available. And you can even partially feed that in there and you can partially provide it in person and then then it becomes really interesting. Yeah that's a very that's that's a really good content and no one pays for that anymore. Our clients can do it themselves to be honest. I don't need to compare consulting firms I can compare study firms with clients.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

At the moment we're probably better at using AI than most of our clients but they're gonna catch up yeah you're right you're right than we can study if we don't have expertise that they don't have um you you mentioned relationship building and uh as as um one of the key aspects of success. What do you think about this image that comes to my mind when I listen to the two ways of building a career path um so when I have when I focus on building an account based career I probably have a very clearly scoped set of relationships which I need to improve on the long term so whether that's easy or tough I think you can argue about whether it's easier or tougher to to have a set of people or a given organization to build a relationship into where if I look on the other aspect the other approach or the other pathway it's continuously new relationships that I need to build because you will be faced with new accounts constantly um so on the on the on the downside obviously building new uh relationships is always challenging um and and gaining that trust from the next company the next big enterprise but coming back to the let's say one account focus it also obviously is a lot of risk if you set on you know if you set your if you set your career on the wrong account you might be screwed where if you have a bad experience or you know an unsuccessful account in the multi-account more expertise focused pathway um your risk is lower but your repetition or your frequency is high what do you think about this this image does that make sense or um because it might reflect back to what as an individual who wants to build your the career what sort of person you are would you rather have multiple new relationships or really go deep on one structure on one set of people that's what I think it comes down again to what kind of a person you are and and and how you take and you know personality type and all of that um I like the idea of getting to know new clients I I find it exciting to go in and experience a new organization and spend a few months there or maybe a year and a half and then go back out or seeing different organizations.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

I I really enjoy it's it's part of what makes consulting interesting for me. If I'm like that and I go into one single account I might have some variety about that and I've I've seen some global accounts that are extremely varied across that's all a question of size ultimately absolutely I uh I I had some fascinating experiences there. But it's it's it's a different way of working. If you enjoy getting to know one organization really really well and building a huge network of relationships in there and becoming almost indispensable and a proper trusted advisor to an entire organization then the account situation is is is great for you. And if if you like variety and that that then maybe the other way is is is more your way. I really wouldn't say one is better or worse. It really depends on on on how you tick um and and what you enjoy and what you're good at. So people who are extremely easy in you know building relationships and and and picking up whatever news is out there and and and and and and networking in an account and and and we've got some great account leaders some of some of the partners I respect the most are in account leadership roles. And then there are some incredibly impressive deep experts that have that have met. And remember we touched on the topic of of the tech fellow role which is basically an an expert at at partner level um it's it's an idea that I think IBM has had that for many many years as a very technology driven organization Deloitte introduced it a few years ago I think only in the US so far um and and those are people who would never fit into a classic sales account role but if you put them into the right client at the right moment in time their impact is incredible because there's you know there's someone who knows everything about a topic and we don't have many it's this I don't I don't even know whether it's more than 10 than we have globally or something but I've worked with one of them and um I've I've seen how he's received by clients and the the expertise and credibility he brings to the table as you know having done the same yeah having having done the same work for over 30 years he's near the end of his career and you just can't fool him. You ask him any question he has the right answer and you can tell it's the right answer. And those kind of people they're multipliers with you know they they sell that they don't deliver the work themselves they just go in there and and show our clients that we know what we're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

And expertise if you even ever need that depth of expertise usually you need a sales cycle and then it you know whenever a problem a project maybe gets a bit difficult but um it it we need to have that expertise available to sell and to deliver when delivery gets tough and to keep developing uh whatever we're developing and you know in my areas there's a lot of uh uh uh tooling based uh uh consulting work um obviously in in in terms of product development tooling development as those people are extremely valuable too so I would like to close the chapter of looking at career development under the light of these um these aspects but um I would like to come back to one one thing that we we touched upon uh a little bit already which was um whether this or the other approach to your career is the right one for someone who wants to build up a career in consulting depends on how they how they approach networking and and and and um building relationships but um you know young upcoming leaders in consulting is the would you have any any other advice um or anything else they should know when making that decision what they should uh you know take into consideration um or um yeah what they should should make themselves clear when deciding for one or the other path in into leadership and um I've never consciously made haven't made the decision consciously I've I've consciously decided that I wanted to do more technology work again that was definitely the the case in point eight years ago around 2018 when when I realized after after the long career doing financial services consulting I needed more technology I was fed up not doing enough technology work so that that for me was a moment um I though I never had that conscious decision earlier on in my career I've you know you you you you rise through the ranks um you're at an age where other things matter as well uh family kids um so a lot you know a lot of managers uh young senior managers are around the age where they're you know just starting a family or just started a family so that's where the big career decisions happen but maybe the priority isn't even on them um but I mean my advice would be ask yourself what goes back to what we said before ask yourself what you're passionate about what what makes you tick and what it what gets you excited I'm best at doing my work when I do something that I enjoy um I lack I I produce significantly worse quality and productivity when I do something I don't really care about so I I need to do something I enjoy doing to be good at it and I think most people are probably like that and if if you're not enjoying what you're doing and if you're not passionate about it maybe you you don't even want to be in consulting you just that's that's the other question.

SPEAKER_00 36:13

If you're not sure try it out. And and the interesting thing is a lot of moving on in the classic transition at in consulting from like a typical senior consultant to manager level. As a senior consultant I've I've told that many young colleagues um you're kind of at the height of your sort of competence. You've you've you've been doing that job long enough to be really good at what you're doing. You're experienced enough it it's it's usually the best selling model of consultant because it's not the juniors that that we send to the clients it's it's it's the people who've been doing it a few times who who really know what they're doing who are good at what they're doing. And then they're transitioning into manager of roles and they suddenly have to get that shift done between being an expert to being someone who manages the team and passes on their experience. And that that's the first struggle and I think when when they do that transition that's that's the moment where they should listen to themselves and figure out am I comfortable? Initially maybe not but am I comfortable taking it in that direction? Will I be fine turning into more of a manager that has a certain background in a topic and maybe go more in an account development sales representing a firm building relationships role or am I really is it really tough letting go of of the expertise do I really want maybe do I maybe want to become more of a of a content leader developing the team in terms of expertise and and getting better and coaching them in in in their development and um I I think somewhere around that transition where you where you sort of start growing into management roles and and leadership roles that's where where where they should ask themselves the question am I you know more more of an expert type or more of a a relationship and in a in a countdown.

SPEAKER_01 38:24

Yeah I would agree I think that's that's a really good um advice or really good um yeah thought thought on when when to start listening to yourself um in in our company I try to work out with seniors who be transition into managers a very simplified question which kind of simplifies what you have just explained it's like okay you will be a manager but what do you want to manage? Not what are you managing today because you are managing whatever however you got here today you are managing something a project an account or both or people but what is it if you take one step back from what you're doing in your daily business what you have to do what would you really like to manage what would you really like to grow in the division in the department and be and and and be responsible for as you know if we should put your name onto something would it be an account would it be a team would it be a topic um because if we put your name onto this you are responsible for it and you need to grow it um so I think um I think we share the same sort of um idea on at what point in time a consultant can find out what what path is probably the right one for them.

SPEAKER_00 39:44

And I um I I asked them a similar question uh in some of our promotions discussions that I'd I like to ask them if we promote you tomorrow what is going to change for you what is you know what's what's the difference between you being a senior consultant and you being a manager? What's going to change? And you get you get all kinds of interesting answers out of that um that give you good insight into have they understood that transition have they understood how it changes how they're perceived in the marketplace, how they're perceived by colleagues and how their role changes and um that's I think there's the same you you just described.

SPEAKER_01 40:25

Yeah true true so I would like to um look at the next next aspect of our topic which is um I would like to get some some insights from from your business today or from how you work today um in the uh meetings we had prior to today's uh episode you talk a lot about how the collaboration needs to work between the account team and the experts and my first question would be talking about collaboration what distinguishes real good collaboration from just just the formal oh let's get the experts in they need to sign something off they need to hold a presentation or whatever what do you think are the the the real successful ways of collaborating between the two teams when it comes to let's say a new a new opportunity or a new deal?

SPEAKER_00 41:19

Oh I wish I I wish I knew the answer to that mutually aligned objectives if it's if it's good for everyone to be successful then you collaborate easily. And that's that's why it gets really interesting and that's that's where it's it's you know I said I work across Europe and you know some people know Deloitte is organized primarily as a network of in-country individual firms and so I work a lot with account teams outside Germany and that's I would say it's it's easy because the account relationship is with the partner in the local country. So if my Danish colleague has a great relationship he can take me there he he I'm not I'm not competing with him for the client's attention. I'm I'm I'm the gimmick he takes he's yeah really really cool guy he really knows what he's doing he can help make it happen and and and the process is very natural because the account relationship is owned in that country and that you know in in our firm that is a fundamental role I cannot sell work outside Germany. I always have to go through the local organizations.

SPEAKER_01 42:42

That's our the the the rules of the game and it's probably very simple from a cast from an client perspective as well that he knows who his relationship manager is and and and then he would understand the role that an expert would play.

SPEAKER_00 42:55

Yeah and a Danish client doesn't want to do a German contract um or a yeah or an English contract under German law they want to contract the local companies that they know so that's that's fine and we we we take care of that and collaboration is very easy. Now within the same country it gets more interesting because suddenly you have a KPI system and you have partner KPIs and you have all these systems are designed to incentivize us to perform and work really hard and be waters for working really hard but they also somehow incentivize us to compete um and have not seen a system anywhere um that doesn't somehow solve that that conflict. So if I if I have a really strong client relationship and the client is asking me something that I think I can competently deliver, do I really want to involve someone who could deliver that even better and share the relevant KPIs with him, which will be better for the firm and for the client. Or do I want to deliver it myself because I can do it and it will be okay. And that conflict is always there. Always in in in any consulting firm, in any country where I've I've worked, I've I've seen that conflict. And um it's it's probably a bit bigger, uh, you know, a bit worse in bigger organizations where it's all more formal and more KPI driven and you know statistics and and and and and and all based on on numbers. And it's probably less uh in in in smaller boutiques where everyone just knows everyone and and the success is very much dependent on everyone working together. The only way I see that problem being addressed is with strong account leaders. And I say that as a as someone who's not an account leader but someone who's an expert because and I said some of the people I respect the most in our firm are in account leadership positions. Because on the really big, extremely well managed accounts, I've seen account leaders who ensure that the right people are being put on the right topics. There should be formal processes for that and there are formal processes but we all know formal processes are formal processes and the reality is different and everyone gains the system. But if you have a strong account leader who's got the authority to ensure that the right people are dealing with the right topic for their account and that the right people with right relationships are also involved, then it suddenly works. And you can get incredible account growth by by doing that, incredible growth of your whole business by doing that. But you need that leadership to to incentivize people to play together irrespective of whatever the formal KPIs are. And um and yeah I don't I I don't think you can achieve it just with formal KPIs not not in a large firm. There'll always be people kind of dividing stuff up helping each other and whatever there's always an there's always an a latent competition between partners in large consulting firm. We're all called partners but we are also a little bit competing with each other. Yeah especially it's good it keeps us all on our toes and and trying really hard but for the sake of our joint interest we need to have people in leadership positions who enforce driving that collaboration even outside the KPI system. And then everyone's KPIs are going to go up and our clients are going to be happy and the firm grows and everything is good.

SPEAKER_01 46:59

But it's it's not easy not always let me guide you away from that happy path of the the win-win situation. I mean typically you know you are in IT consulting uh so am I typically there well occasionally there there are projects where the sales team or the account team thinks that a technical solution or a an expertise will win them the deal where if you sit yourself into the expert shoes you can see that from a quality or from a from an expertise perspective that deal wouldn't make sense or that project content wise wouldn't make sense or let me even drive it further it might actually harm your reputation if you sell that to this you know if you sell if you make this deal you could potentially harm your reputation because the solution wouldn't fit the client where the client manager obviously has an interest of selling a solution um yes I get I guess you have been there how do how would you usually handle it especially if you are in you know such a powerhouse of a company and uh you're not talking about a win-win it's uh someone is going to lose either the the client team is gonna lose the the deal or you potentially gonna get damage to your expertise or your reputation on the market that's interesting because uh a couple of years back um I had an experience like that where we I got involved early on to to shape an basically an IT implementation project uh somehow modernization related as well I was involved um and I I I started setting it up in a certain way and then very early on kind of got overruled by the accounting no we want to do it in a different way because that's a setup that we use on that account and that's how we do that.

SPEAKER_00 49:06

Without telling too much. A few months later the project was in serious difficulty because the setup did not work. I was one of two partners formerly responsible for it and uh at the same time didn't have the authority to change the setup because both the account team as well as our firm leadership said that's a setup. We've got to hold people responsible and do it that way and we have um and we went on with that until the client changed the setup for us. Um and then when the project was finally delivered much too much too late to be honest. Um it costs us a lot of money and um so yes situations like that exist um for me that's really one key lesson out of it. Um my my personal key lesson was I'm not going to go along with the setup that I don't believe in. Because that in in that situation our relationship with the client was was impacted. It it's okay now and it's it it it's it all turned out well in the end but it cost us a lot of money and um there were some really tough discussions along the way. If I I'd rather stay away from a project that I believe is set up the wrong way or where I'm not given the authority to steer it than to go along for the right because it helps my KPIs because that basically was the situation. If I'm responsible for the delivery of a project and I want to make a change and either the account team or the firm's leadership says no we don't want you to do that change. You're responsible for the project but we tell you how to run it then I don't want to be responsible for the project. So that that for me would be the key lesson learned not not to not to play nice or yeah not not to be responsible for something you cannot control. I think that's that's that's key and probably true for anything in life but in that moment it became very very clear to me. I had I had a similar discussion with one of our account leaders just recently where he basically tried to convince me to offer a certain project at a certain price based on some very optimistic assumptions making it a fixed price. That's a great idea in to get it sold but there's no way I would ever go along with that. Not based on what I know today and all of that. So are there ways to to to resource that of course but it's it's it's the same thinking you you need to buy in you need to be convinced that what you're doing is the right thing and only then does it make sense to be responsible for it. And that sometimes has exactly this conflict because there's there's an there might be an account team that wants to do something in a certain way because that's a setup or because you know this way it's easier to sell it's going to be cheaper and fixed price is so much more convenient for the client. That's wonderful do you realize how much risk that is for us um so you need you need to balance those things out. I I want to win the project as much as as they want to win the project but I also have to deliver it afterwards. So you know and um that is that is a small conflict of interest of course there are some people that are uh only incentivized for sales and there are some people that don't just have sales responsibility but also delivery and um something to keep in mind.

SPEAKER_01 53:16

Yeah yeah good good good point um I would like to move on to uh one aspect which is more probably um well more internal rather than client focused you talked uh to me about when when we worked out the topic you talked to me about the the importance of building out um an internal pipeline and why that is um why why that is uh well complicated or a challenge um and that yeah for for you as an expert man expertise topic manager or partner sorry that that is that is something you need to take into consideration as well do you maybe want to share a little bit on what your what your work there is and and how that is important for you to grow your business it's I mean if I'm an account lead I can anticipate what my client needs and I can prepare for that and I can help them develop uh their thoughts on on what they want to do.

SPEAKER_00 54:34

If I'm responsible for a specific service like I am then I basically have two options. I can I can sit there and wait till someone brings me an RFP. And you know talking about mainframe modernization you might sit there for two years before the next RFP comes. It's more frequent now but a few years ago that that was exactly the situation there were very large RFPs on on that topic. Or you do the same as an account lead you try to anticipate the need of clients for that service and you try to get into the conversation long before the client writes the RFP which increases you know in any consulting business greatly increases your chances of winning the work anyway because by the time clients have written an RFP they often have already an idea of how they want to do it and who will and so on. So it's an uphill battle the earlier you get in the process the the more you can influence it and and steer it in the right direction. So if I want to do that being kind of one step removed from my potential future clients I need to work with the account teams again. I need to market my service to the account teams um and and and that can work two ways. That can be me making the account teams aware of what we can do make sure you know I'm recognized as part of the service portfolio of a Deloitte and every Deloid partner out there, whether he's a finance transformation partner, a cloud partner or an auditor um if they talk to the clients and they hear them complain about some old cohole system, they realize hey I need I need to talk to Kasten about it and and and then we can develop that that's that's one thing. So you know build up my early warning system by making sure the account teams know what keywords to pick up on on in client conversations and realizing we have a service to help the client with it. The other thing I can do is I can do my own homework. I can go out there and and find out what potential clients are there that have these kind of services systems in place that that they can help with what clients potentially have this problem I can help solve and then approach the account teams that way myself. And the last one kind of adding on to that is I can leverage partnerships with our our hyperscalers for example I can I you know our hype our hyperscalers the hyperscalers are out there working with the IT organizations of many of our clients sometimes they're a bit closer to the IT than than the Deloitte because you know traditionally we come from a less tech focused uh business even if that has dramatically changed in the last 10 years um but they are very good at picking up these things as well they have the same interests because they want clients to move away from these old platforms and move onto their their cloud platforms. So perfect alignment and I can check with them I can check where are clients that have these kind of systems in place. I get the hyperscalers involved I get our account teams involved and at the end of the day I end up treating our account teams like my clients at least from a from a marketing perspective. I need to make sure they're aware of what we can deliver they know the service portfolio they know how we can help they understand the value we generate and um you know I can do that internally I can also do it at an at an EMIA level and ultimately I can I I can do it externally through through conferences through like like LinkedIn and the likes yeah sounds like sounds like the expertise career also requires some solid marketing and sales skills even though you you probably have a different main motivation right yeah yeah um that's there's that expression in German to to do good things and talk about it. And I I think that that's probably how it is in sort of an expert role um yeah you're you're not marketing for marketing sake but you nevertheless you have to market your expertise you have to make sure people are aware of it and you have to create visibility so it I think that's you yeah otherwise you're invisible. If you're invisible yeah uh you won't get involved you'll you'll you'll be ignored and then there's no careers there's no there's nothing talking about visibility you you quickly mentioned the tech fellow model which did I get it right it's it's originating from from i from IBM's philosophy and it has been adopted by Deloitte in the USA as well that is that is my understanding we don't have it in Germany yet so um we know we have it in the US because I was involved in in one of the promotion processes providing feedback and so on and I know that IBM has had that so a a tech fellow is a very senior experienced person who doesn't fit into a classic consulting partner role. So they are I would assume they have slightly different uh KPIs more focused on eminence and visibility and and and probably more on on sales on on delivery and and and they are the heavy weights we bring out for the really difficult in-depth discussions you know why do you do it this way and not that way and um we've we we've got a similar differentiation at lower levels where we have like a classic consulting pass we have a pass that's more uh an expert pass and uh it's it's it's similar the the the expert pass it has more of a focus on sales and in that case actually delivery as well but not for example on managing um while a normal consulting manager has a KPI that's based on how much project revenues they manage any consulting firm in the world. An expert manager is rewarded on sales and his own utilization because he's expected to support projects in an expert role and to support sales in an expert role but he's not ex keep saying he, but it could be she he's not expected to um deliver and manage a project. So it's it's it's it's different roles. And then there are expectations like you know we want them to be on conferences, uh publish papers, um be visible. Not always easy to live that path and and and you know um but it's it's an attempt to recognize these these different contributions to the overall success.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:51

And does this model kind of wrap up what you think needs to be established in big consultancies in order to make the uh expert leadership more successful or let's say wider spread what more widest widely successful or is there anything else that you think you know you being one of the exp expert leaders in your company but understanding that you're probably a smaller group and what do you think needs to change so that the ex expert leadership really really can can can can grow and and become a more common model in large consultancies.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:04

And um I think that is developing um someone who's a bit of an expert on a topic of course you know my instinctive answer is recognize those people more we all want recognition for what we're doing of course I want people uh like like me recognized um but I I think part of that will some of that will come naturally with with the pressure we're facing from AI because any kind of generic content anything that anyone can produce easily is being devalued. There's an inflation of perfectly available knowledge. And and that that's where our our entire models in the industry are getting getting challenged because having a bunch of smart kids doing some internet research to produce something for a client that's gone. That does that cannot be sold anymore because anyone could do that themselves. So a lot of the generic easy work research writing up stuff documenting stuff um anything that does not require deep expertise that is going away and that is going very very rapidly and just getting better at using the tools that replace it will not be enough because then we're back to everyone is good at using the tools and everyone does the same thing and everyone's uh content is the same. If you want to differentiate yourself you need to have additional know-how that is not in the LLNs and you need to have expertise of having done something before and and being able to credibly present that and you need to have the relationships that actually get you in front of the client that the client trusts because that account leader has brought in the right people before who've delivered for him before and that's why he trusts him that the new guy's going to deliver as well. So it I think we're we're shifting we're being forced to shift to a model where expertise will get higher value. It will never replace account leadership and relationships. That's human nature but I truly think one cannot do it without the other nowhere. The experts alone will never get through to the clients and account leaders without a delivery capability behind them there actually no what what they're doing won't be successful either.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:04

Well, that was some famous last words, I think, for this topic. Cannot get any more precise. So Carsten, um, if you are okay, we can close the with this chapter. And um the end of our episode, I would just like to ask some five rapid questions that we do with all of our guests. Uh if you still feel uh good enough for that.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:32

Let's let's let's see if I manage to answer them all or not.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:35

So um number one is what do you do to keep body and mind uh fit and in shape?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:44

Lots of sports and lots of music. I I try to prioritize exercise. I'm tall enough and old enough that I need to and um I try to find to build in periods of where I can relax and I I do a lot of that just with music. Good. Any specific type of music that that relaxes you the most oh my god um I've got two very very different flavors of music I listen to a lot and some people will find that funny one is really cool not cool one is jazz particularly West Coast jazz art pepper uh is is is a great one to listen to um the other one is country music which is really weird over here and really uncommon um but can be a lot of fun and it's an incredibly broad genre not all of it is great but there's some some nuggets in there. Nice. Do you have uh second question Do you have a favorite business book? I I do and it's it's been my favorite business book for 22 23 years um getting things done by Tim Allen recommended it to so many people um keep going back to it I've been practicing the methods in there for years um very very cool book.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:08

Yeah I would agree I like that one as well it's so old well it never changed being important um do you have uh if um a a business leader famous person that you follow would you want to share here that's a funny thing I don't I've I think I have I don't know when but I've stopped following business leaders um there's a lot of good people around that you can learn a lot of things from even you know working within my own company with with with clients and so on but I've read I've read biographies of of business leaders over the years and some more impressive some less impressive um some very critical ones um there's no one where I'd say wow and uh quite some where I was not so impressed with um very small very often you've got a very very strong strengths in one area and some real character flaws and weaknesses in others so no okay yeah well maybe after this podcast you will be a followed business leader let's see oh yeah um who should be our next podcast guest and why based on the discussion we just had break bring a really really good account leader and have the same conversation with with with that person I think that's a really good idea. I think it would be really interesting. Let's follow up maybe you know one other otherwise we will we will find one in our community um very good idea very smart people yeah um so wrapping up um is there anything talking to the community of leaders in consulting is there is there anything that any sort of exchange or topic discussion you would particularly be interested in in getting in touch with members of the community well I mean if I if I look at our local meetups the confidential forums we already have so many good discussions there um it's it's really impressive um and I think we've touched on this topic and that's there's not there's not one topic where I would say you know bring it to me and let's talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:47

But I find it really interesting that that there is a community out there where people like like us connect and and and talk about what's going on in the in their work life outside their own little bubble. You know I've I've spent 26 years working in primarily Deloitte in different locations around the globe and predecessor organizations of what's Deloitte now Anderson Texan. But 90% of the professional consulting people I meet are from my own organization. So being out there and and and talking to people having similar experiences in different firms um that alone is is is is is worth uh sort of discussing that. Yeah keep my it's a it's a self-help group for consultants.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:42

Yeah very well said and I couldn't agree more and um yeah uh I think whoever listens to this podcast and is interested in uh having a personal exchange with you I hope we will see you soon again in our frank you you're attending the Frankfurt meetups uh confidential forums um so that's a great place to meet you Karsten thank you so much for being guests in our episode today it was very insightful and um yeah it was great having you thanks for listening to the Leaders in Consulting podcast give these insights at home visit leadersinconsulting.com for info on our monthly confidential forum see you soon