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The trials and tribulations of Consulting

This blog was written by Victoria Snell. Victoria is a current member of the CDC graduate scheme.

I joined the CDC in September 2010 and after completing my 2 week induction went straight onto a client role at a government department.  Unusually this, my first role, lasted nearly 7 months and whilst it was a great insight into the world of digital transformation and stakeholder management, I barely stepped foot in the shiny new Capgemini Holborn office. So when I was told I was rolling off this project I was actually looking forward to what many people at Capgemini fear, some time on “the bench”!

“The bench” is essentially a term to describe the time when you are not working on a billable client project.  Clearly doing billable work is important as it generates income for the company and counts towards your utilisation target; however internal work is valuable as it can help Capgemini to bring in more work or improve its internal and external tools and services. It can also help you to develop your skills and get yourself known in the company, essentially making yourself indispensible to project managers!

So my first major task on “the bench” was to work on a bid for a major UK airport operator.  There were two phases to work on, the first phase was to support in preparing the written tender, the second was to support in the preparation of a presentation should we make it past the first round.

In the first phase, my role was to provide insight and background research into the specific work we would be undertaking at the airport.  I was also asked to collate as many credentials and expertise examples as possible utilising the full global Capgemini network.  I was therefore having phone calls with senior members of the business in France and Spain with relevant experience, collating their CVs and credentials and presenting back to our bid team on who and which were best. I knew Capgemini was an international company, but it was great to discover that Capgemini really does function as a global unit and to personally get to interact with these people was fantastic!

Not only did it strike me what a fantastic global team of people Capgemini possess at their fingertips but also the external contacts Capgemini have.  Relationships with some very experienced people in the global airport industry meant that we were able to fly in a very experienced expert all the way from Australia to work with us on the bid delivery and I was personally able to work closely with him.  The opportunity to meet such impressive individuals and to form relationships with them is a great feature of working at Capgemini.

The evening before the bid was submitted we worked through the night to ensure timely delivery (sorry to say this is true although a very rare occurrence)!! All the hard work was worth it however as we made it through to the presentation phase along with 3 others so that we could pitch to win the work.

The second presentation phase began almost immediately after we had submitted the bid.  I worked on producing a hand out pack to accompany a highly visual poster called a “horseblanket” that would be used as a more effective PowerPoint pack.  The respect that even junior consultants get is brilliant as all my ideas and designs were listened to and I was able to plug any gaps that I noticed taking the load off the shoulders of the more senior consultants who needed to focus on designing their messages for the presentation. 

I also attended the rehearsals whereby we invited very senior members of Capgemini Consulting including our COO in to listen to the messages and to critique the presentation and throw potential questions at the bid team. It was fascinating to see how the very senior consultants who have not been working on the bid can attend a rehearsal and immediately get a view of how the structure should be and the key messages to push.  Having 3 very clear messages was reiterated as very important to winning.  Bid work is a fantastic opportunity to see the very best consultants in action and you can take a lot away from it.

Throughout the bid and pitching processes I learnt a great deal about airport operations and processes, stakeholder mobilisation and engagement and modelling techniques such as surface access modelling as well as the importance of the X factor.  To demonstrate how confident we were at winning the work we designed a differentiating commercial offering that shared the Airport’s risk.  We were therefore prepared to lose money if we did not deliver to expectation however if we delivered above expectation we asked for monetary recognition of that.  A successful project was number 1 priority for an Airport operator with high global visibility (more important than cost) and this offering took account of that.

Ten days after the pitch we found out that sadly we lost the work by a whisker!  It was so close it was a difficult decision for the airport operator to make.  Obviously after all the hard work we had put in, it was a very gutting result, but we had done our best and sometimes it comes down to the fact we don’t have the specific credential another firm possess.  If I could change the fact we lost, I would, but we couldn’t have done more and it really was an enjoyable and great learning experience.  Capgemini have intelligent, inspirational and motivational employees who are always happy to assist you in your learning and development, and it was this that made it all worth it. Losing work is a learning curve and merely part of the trials and tribulations of our business.