Top-Tier Management Consultant (Ex BCG) with a Focus on Digitization and Strategy

Our global building materials practice area wanted to publish a Covid-19 construction market analysis study for certain countries to provide clients a market specific overview on the current situation.
The market model has gone already through several teams but never got finished. The goal was to analyse latest market development and forecasts, adjust parameters in the complex market model, derive reasonable key statements and coordinate the results with local practice area leaders to finalise the study.
Once current infection data was also updated, we published the market study on the website within 3 weeks and distributed the document among the practice area leadership team globally.

One of the worlds largest tire manufacturer wanted to analyse its cost management with the method of Zero-Based-Budgeting and asked us if we can support him with our BCG Gamma ZBB machine learning tool.
My team spread across Europe, was responsible for data collection, data analysis and data interpretation with our large ZBB benchmark database, while a large Gamma team has worked on data processing, data manipulation and data evaluation. After an initial high-level analysis of the first dataset, we started tagging large transaction bundles based on our ZBB cost category framework and with the help of a set of information in the data.
I first was responsible for the data collection and analysis of all subsidiaries. Later, due to extremely high time pressure and a time lag, the whole team had to prioritise key business units and tagged thousands of historical cost transaction bundles within two weeks to reach the project target. As result of an awesome teamwork, we where able to tag 97% of all transaction bundles manually and in several tagging rounds with increasing granularity, right before the clients’ summer break.

As result of the global Covid-19 pandemic, BCG published decentral and uncoordinated papers. Therefore, Rich Lesser (CEO BCG) decided to come up with a weekly series of publications, stating BCG’s integrated perspective on the impact of Covid-19 on different topics.
The teams were located all around the world to ensure a 24h working mode and the weekly publication period. Every publication topic had to be initiated and planned with the respective practice area two weeks in advance. After a first concept, the topic was iterated daily between the teams. This high-pacing environment required a high level of teamwork and coordination among the teams.
In total, I worked on five Covid-19 perspective topics (top-line, government, supply chain management, M&A and Sustainability & Environment) and was mainly responsible for an initial draft of the structure, preparation of the document for daily iteration meetings and research & update of all economic data coming from different global knowledge teams. The weekly publication was the most downloaded and read paper worldwide on the BCG website at that time.

A larger German state bank was faced with the challenges of the first lockdown in Germany due to the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic. Within days, thousands of employees had to be enabled to work remote especially in critical departments such as trading. The bank asked us to support them by making employees remote-working ready, create frequent reports to the EZB and setting up an unbureaucratic credit process to pay out state aid to the badly suffering companies with one of their subsidiaries as fast as possible.
My team was already very rehearsed as result of the previous overly critical project and therefor was able to take this momentum right into the new and dynamic situation. We were responsible for the subsidiary bank and helped them setting up the credit process in a very unconventional and pragmatic way within two weeks.
I was responsible for a structured remote working transition. In a first step, I ensured transparency by collecting the status of the very chaotic RSA token hand-out process and defined the employee baseline for the bank subsidiary. In a next step, I identified employees with a lack of remote capability and classified them according to their reasons. Several times a week, the current remote status was updated and reported to and discussed with the CEO of the subsidiary to initiate fast solutions (e.g., buy laptops, ensure internet access at home, reconfigure policies to access physical credit files).
As result, after three weeks, 97% of the banks employees had a remote access and the respective hardware. 3% had a job, which cannot be executed remote.

A larger German state bank got under profitability pressure due to ongoing low interest rates and historical grown complexity. They asked us to define a new and leaner target operating model and find additional value levers to reduce cost baseline within the next 4-6 years. The project took several years and was the largest organisational transformation of this bank for 25 years.
I started in the second phase of the project, where the project team already has defined the FTE baseline and the target operating model. The organisation has shrunk from 30 departments down to only 17. I worked in the module “staff duties”, responsible for all staff FTEs and activities. We developed together with the Head of group financial controlling value initiatives to reduce the number of FTE by 15-20%.
I was responsible for the preparation of jour-fix documents and the documentation of discussed cost saving initiatives.
In the next project phase, the project set-up changed significantly, and I jumped on the new workstream “Go-Live of the new organisation”. My small team of two consultants and one project leader worked in an agile working mode and under extreme time pressure with highest attention from senior leadership for 6 months towards the Go-Live weekend, where the new organisational structure gets officially implemented.
I was responsible for all technical aspects of the Go-Live and the time schedule and coordination of the Go-Live weekend. In the first step, I independently made an extensive affectedness analysis of all IT systems of the bank. Through several elaborative iterations with technical and professional application supervisors and a complex risk-reduction oriented adjustment process, I was able to reduce the number of urgently affected IT systems from over 100 down to three.
Together with an external IT consultant and all relevant responsible IT manager, I managed the testing process of all affected systems in a noticeably short time window. Further, I created and coordinated the Go-Live weekend with the roll-out, roll-back, and fall-back but also the deployment plan with the nervous change managers, IT managers and external service providers on my own.
Through several iterations and a complex roll-out and deployment plan, I was able to shorten the needed time from two and a half days down to one day. I also made sure, that all testers got one of the rare special permits in case a roll-back was needed, from the ministry of labour and social affairs to work on Sundays in less than one week (usually it takes 6 weeks and rarely get accepted).
On the Go-Live weekend, the weekend before the first Covid-19 occurs in Germany, together with my project leader, I managed over 200 tester and over 60 project members successfully and with an incredibly positive client feedback. The hyper-care phase was exceptionally smooth, and all participated employees worked closely together.

A swiss media start-up got in financial difficulties and asked us to come up with a detailed business plan to open new markets and boost sales with low product adjustment effort.
We made a detailed market and competitor analysis of the swiss media market, evaluated marketing and sales activities but also the financial situation.
As co-project leader, I was responsible for market & competitor analysis but also marketing and sales. As result, we handed over an extensive business plan within 3 months including a concrete implementation plan.

A large casting corporation from Taiwan (project volume: CHF 50’000 – one of the largest project volumes in history) asked us to make a market study for the European market to identify new attractive areas for their future expansion plans. In a next step, they also requested a marketing strategy, how to approach the identified opportunities.
In our market study, we had a look on the key market trends and evaluated 6 sectors with 22 industries according to their potential size, growth, market development and product fit. We identified 5 highly attractive industries and made a more in-depth analysis with market segments, key players, growth forecast and industry specifications.
As a project leader, I was responsible for managing my team of three consultants and drive the project outcome proactively.

A traditional family company for speciality coating equipment got into financial difficulties due to a very project-related cashflow and asked us for support by creating a detailed business plan, requested by the banks, and finding cost saving measures.
Before I started on the project, my team created already a detailed business plan with a cost saving initiatives and an implementation roadmap. Together with my senior manager, I was responsible for the implementation of the cost saving initiatives on an operative basis.
I independently made in-depth purchasing data analysis to optimizing the purchasing/negotiation strategy on the upcoming very first supplier days. I also made some further complex analysis of their logistics data to increase container utilization and reduce cost for interim storage. For their HR department, I build up a fully automated dashboard, consolidating data from different datasets to better manage their FTE baselines in the upcoming months.
As result, the company was able to transform its organisation successfully with a business model showing more frequent and stable cashflows and a much better cost management.

An international flooring company wanted to set-up a new marketing strategy and asked us to help them by better understand the status quo and then derive new strategic initiatives.
My team created an extensive questionnaire to capture all aspects of the status-quo. I then was responsible to conduct interviews across Europe with distributors, experts, and craftsman to collect qualitative and quantitative data. After preparing the data, we made in-depth analysis and derived key strategic initiatives, which we presented to the client.

A well-known German confectionary manufacturer planned to expand its business by growing inorganic (mainly in the USA). They asked us to help them by identifying potential candidates with an innovative and healthy granola bar product and carry out a commercial due diligence on the final target company.
My team first created a long and short list and finally agreed together with the client on a target company. We performed the whole commercial due diligence process, from a deep market evaluation to red flag analysis.
I was responsible for the extensive market research, conducting mystery calls to better understand the market mechanisms and creating the due diligence document. The granola bar company was sold for a single-digit million amount.