BCG - The Boston Consulting Group

Terrilyn Consultant Chicago

Henning Consultant Munich

Dana Associate Washington, D.C.

We finally did it. Our first project with a worldwide consumer-goods company was a 100 percent success. During 12 weeks of hard but very interesting work with this new BCG client, we developed the design for a new European organization. The head of Europe and the entire board are very satisfied with our work. We have established a good relationship and demonstrated that consultants can create value. The client has asked us to carry out three further projects.

The principal we worked with on the project thanked us by taking us on a two-day skiing trip to the Austrian Alps, which was great. Even our two partner participated. It is nice to spend some time with these people outside the office. We had a lot of fun.

The three new projects are a clear vote of confidence. The client has asked us to support the implementation phase of the new organizational structure, to redesign the European logistics, and to develop a new global strategy for one of its most important divisions. It's great that I will be on the strategy project. Let's see what we can do.

The starting point was clear. Turnover and benefits were declining in the most important regions and the company was losing market share. We had a six-week diagnostic phase to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of one of our client's most important divisions, accounting for nearly 50 percent of its business. Then we spent another eight weeks developing a road map for improving its business outlook.

The diagnostic phase of a project like this is always exciting. Interviews with key players all over the world—three of us took a one-week trip around the globe—helped us gain insight into the client's specific situation. Combining this insight with in-depth data analysis and our industry experience, we were able to generate initial hypotheses to address the problems quickly. Because the United States plays a major role for our client, we had an American project leader on the team. It was very interesting to work with an international team.

Since the client asked BCG to run this follow-up project with the same team, we continued our work immediately after the first project. But even in this context, it was possible to take two weeks of vacation—a nice touch on the part of the partners on the project. Otherwise, I would not have had any vacation for seven months.

The diagnostic phase was crucial to the success of this project and the future of our client's business. Not only did we discover the real source of the client's current problems, we also helped the company view the business from a new angle. It is amazing that even global companies, such as our client, often base important strategic decisions on only a very small amount of data.

Using our insights, analysis, and industry know-how, we developed a list of ten strategic initiatives to enable a breakthrough for our client in this division. In a steering committee meeting with the board members, our proposed initiatives met with great approval from the CEO. This was a huge success for our team.

Now we have to detail our strategy: new positioning for the division, a corresponding business model, redesigned core processes, and a new organizational structure. This will mean a lot of work for our team.

Because the new positioning and the redesigned core processes affect the whole organization, we had to deal with very different, and sometimes opposing, opinions about the best solution. This meant numerous lengthy discussions with our client team and all other concerned parties within the client's organization during the day and late at night. Fortunately, we got the support of two new team members.

This month we presented our final plan to the client, and the board loved it. They decided to start the implementation immediately after their summer break.

In the days after the presentation, we completed the handover materials-a short version for the top management and a very long version that included all of our analysis and results. This long version will serve as a guide for the next phase. The board member in charge of the project has already asked the principals on our team to support the implementation phase. This is a good chance to ensure that our strategy will be translated into reality.

For me the work with this client is over. Although I loved working in this industry and with my teammates, at BCG it is an unwritten policy that after 1,000 hours on a project, associates and consultants should move on to another assignment in order to discover new challenges. So I am going to take a two-week vacation and am very excited to see what project I will be staffed on when I return.

When I came back from my vacation, our staffing department told me there were opportunities for me on three projects: cost cutting for a media company, strategic partnership for a European industrial-goods company, or an internal project concerning BCG's pricing strategy. All would start at the end of the month, and I had to choose one. My preferred project was the media assignment because I had never worked in that industry. I'm waiting for the final call from the project leader.

In the meantime I'm working on a BCG initiative called business@school. This is a great project. In more then 50 schools throughout Germany, BCG consultants are helping to develop a more practice-driven approach to education. I am the BCG contact for a school in Munich and have two teams of students from 16 to 18 years old. This will be great fun for the next nine months.

A private equity investor has asked for our support in the strategic due diligence of a professional-journal publishing house.

On the one hand, due diligence projects are very interesting because you learn a lot about a specific industry, its main levers, and future developments; on the other hand, they are extremely stressful. One project leader, one associate, and I had to assess the German market for medical professional-journal ads (PJAD) and evaluate new sustainable business opportunities. We had only two weeks to achieve all of this and to provide the investor with a recommendation as to whether he should invest in the target or not.

Our market assessment for medical PJAD—which are sponsored by pharmaceutical companies and constitute a major source of income for medical professional journals—followed a three-step approach. First we assessed the German pharmaceutical market, including historical analysis and forecasts of pharmaceutical revenue. In order to examine the significance of the German PJAD market, we then conducted an analysis of the correlation between pharmaceutical revenues and PJAD volume. Finally, we used our revenue forecasts and the results of the correlation analysis to forecast the German PJAD market through 2007.

Wow, the start of my latest project was very exiting. One day before the kickoff meeting, Stephan, the principal on the project, told me I would be running the project. He had only half a day per week to supervise it and I should do my own planning for the next four months. At the beginning of the meeting I was introduced as the project leader and a totally new challenge started for me.

Our aim was to recommend actions to optimize asset productivity in nearly 20 subsidiaries of our client all over Germany. I chose a four-step approach:

• Create transparency by analyzing each subsidiary's current asset productivity.
• Standardize key figures by adjusting them to reflect different business environments.
• Identify best-practice trends within the group and across the industry.
• Define specific recommendations to improve the relevant commercial processes for each subsidiary.

What a moment-after three and a half years with BCG Munich I was promoted to project leader. It was a great feeling to be congratulated by the German partners, even though I'd already been playing the project leader role for two months.

The project is running well. We finished developing our questionnaire and conducted nearly 80 introductory interviews in 11 days. Since we didn't want to base our recommendation solely on a numerical benchmark, we included a lot of questions on the underlying processes to help us interpret the numbers in the right way.

Now our journey through Germany is over, and we are preparing the data analysis. We have to do the number crunching to establish the link between the qualitative and quantitative information. Let's see if the information comes back the way we expect it to.