Shaping IT with a Banking Mindset!
From the structured world of banking into the realm of information technology, Marcel represents the merging of analytical prowess with technological innovation. He brings invaluable insights from their banking experiences, which are crucial in understanding how financial systems can be enhanced through technology. This blend of skills allows them to bridge gaps between sectors, fostering advancements that can revolutionize both fields.
Marcel Koenig epitomizes this transformative journey. A Swiss native, he embarked on his professional career in banking after earning a degree in business economics. His innate ability to discern patterns in numerical data became a cornerstone of his success, enabling him to spot computational errors without relying solely on calculations.
This unique skill set led him to explore various industries, ultimately igniting his passion for IT and telecommunications two decades ago. Driven by a desire to align customer needs with innovative solutions, Marcel pursued further education, obtaining a Master of Science in IT while climbing the ranks from consulting lead at BT to strategy manager at Swisscom.
Despite enjoying his roles within large organizations, Marcel’s vision for fulfilling customer requirements often clashed with bureaucratic limitations. This realization prompted him to establish ANCOMA, his consultancy firm. The foundation of ANCOMA is rooted in his master’s thesis, which explored the evolving dynamics of costs and pricing in IT.
His groundbreaking theory demonstrated a remarkable accuracy rate in predicting outcomes, leading to the development of the Case Prediction Model (CPM). This framework has since become instrumental in various applications, including crisis management and project simulations, showcasing Marcel’s profound impact on both the IT and consulting landscapes.
Let’s know more about his journey:
From Banking to IT Consultancy
Being a Swiss native, Marcel started his professional career after his studies in business economics in the banking sector. One of his key strengths is understanding and playing with figures. He discovered that he could identify computing failures through visual patterns without checking the math. Maybe this was related to the fact that he memorized figures as visual patterns. Having worked for institutional clients in the banking sector, he then got insight into multiple industry sectors.
The most fascinating one was IT and telecommunications, and he joined the IT sector 20 years ago. He decided then to further his studies in IT and got his Master of Science in IT along with his professional career from being consulting lead at BT up to being strategy manager of telecom operator Swisscom. From a personality perspective, he is a humble person, but he always wants to shine with the results of his work. This is his main motivation and life motor.
He never planned to create his own company and enjoyed working in large organizations. But it turned out that his vision and ideas to fulfill customer requirements were continuously more difficult to propagate and to convince others of. He always had the customer’s requirements in mind, and it then happened that he followed these ideas. This was then his exit point to become an independent consultant and to build his own company, ANCOMA.
The Foundation of ANCOMA
The roots of ANCOMA can be found in the conclusion of Marcel’s master’s thesis in IT. In that thesis, he wanted to know how costs and prices in the IT sector are evolving through influence factors. The outcome was quite surprising, and the developed theory seemed to be robust. After having done multiple tests with real cases, the robustness of his theory was that in 93% of the cases, his theory projected the correct outcome with no more than +/- 5% deviation.
He tried to get it patented, but it would have been only possible in Switzerland. Since IT is a global topic, that idea he had to abandon. Instead, he decided to create a consulting product of this theory. It has the name “CPM,” which stands for Case Prediction Model. The principles of building a CPM framework can be applied in many different use cases, where cause and effect, critical path, system dynamics, and probability theory play a role. Besides scenario and cost simulations, it can also be applied in problem-solving concepts in crisis and project management.
Notable Achievements in IT Consulting
When Marcel was employed, his most significant achievements were managing M&A projects for BT and Swisscom through delivering better business synergies and higher employee retention ahead of the timelines. Also, the innovative development of new businesses in e-health, e-government, and energy metering was part of it.
After he became independent, his most significant achievements were large and complex IT rollouts for global companies, which included, as an example, the network migration of 110 retail branches of a Japanese company that was processed within 1 month without interruption. Other major achievements included the project management of R&D lab IT equipment from 500 different labs across 12 buildings to a new 32-floor R&D building with around 1,900 scientists during 6 months without interruption in R&D operations.
The Art of Strategic Programme Management
Strategic program management is about ensuring that multiple projects work together toward achieving the larger strategic goals of the organization. There’s always a certain degree of interdependencies and system dynamics, also known as cause-and-effect issues, involved. Program management requires a balance between rigorous planning, proactive risk management, and adaptive leadership to navigate the complexities of multiple interrelated projects.
Considering the system dynamics, Marcel’s key strategy is to touch the project and work streams multiple times. First by just scratching on the surface of a project, then slicing up the complexity into smaller pieces. Marcel calls it “slicing the elephant.” Furthermore, then deep diving into these smaller pieces to understand how they work. Then when he feels comfortable, he reassembles these pieces like a puzzle back to a holistic setup, which is then his program, working as precisely as a Swiss clockwork.
Balancing Stakeholder Needs in Supply Chain Management
Marcel understands each party’s priorities and aligns them with overall business objectives to balance stakeholder needs. From his experience, you can get the buy-in from each stakeholder as long as you can deliver them any kind of motivation triggers such as gain creation, pain relief, risk reduction, and uncertainty removal.
Furthermore, it’s very important to establish a common language across the different stakeholders’ areas of control. Using simple visualization showing commonalities, joint values, and goals is vital to success. Then it’s also important to always empathize with the sense of common growth, as a stakeholder alone might go faster, but working together and being aligned will bring them much further.
By employing strategic communication, process optimization, and leveraging technology, you can enhance logistics and operations while satisfying stakeholder expectations. Adaptability, risk management, and a focus on continuous improvement are essential to maintaining this balance over the long term.
Crafting a Corporate Strategy
Defining a corporate strategy requires a deep understanding of the organization’s vision, market landscape, internal capabilities, and stakeholder expectations. To ensure alignment with business goals, it’s essential to engage leadership, cascade the strategy throughout the organization, monitor progress regularly, and remain adaptable to changes. This approach ensures that the corporate strategy drives the organization toward sustainable success.
In the end, Marcel emphasizes that a successful corporate strategy is how an organization can foster its capabilities in coping with changing environmental and economic influence factors. This is best described by the proverb, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” So, it’s always all about moving forward, being guided and pushed by corporate values, and staying confident. Respect, trust, and adaptability are key factors for long-term success in any area of our lives.
Demands of Interim Management
Interim management offers a unique and demanding experience, where the ability to quickly assess, decide, and act is essential. In performing interim mandates, there’s no time for doubting, and Marcel asserts, “I’m grateful that I was born with a fast-decision-making ability that to me feels like a lion hunting his next target.”
Steering strategy execution as an interim manager involves overcoming resistance to change, working within tight timelines, and managing the dual demands of achieving short-term goals while laying the groundwork for long-term success. Success in this role requires strong leadership, excellent communication, and the ability to adapt to and manage diverse challenges effectively.
The Role of Intuition in Investment Evaluation
Marcel emphasizes that identifying and evaluating potential investment projects typically involves a structured process that includes strategic alignment, financial evaluation, risk assessment, and market potential.
But in the end, it’s his gut feeling about an investment opportunity, and normally that gut feeling is triggered by the first impression.
Essentials of Strategic Partnerships
Fostering successful strategic partnerships requires a foundation of trust, clear communication, and aligned goals. By focusing on mutual value creation, strong governance, and adaptability, partnerships can be effective and enduring because both parties will see the value of the power of working together.
The way Marcel measures the effectiveness of these partnerships is through a combination of financial, operational, relational, and strategic metrics to ensure that the collaboration continues to deliver value and meets the intended objectives. He loves doing the measurements, as it is the best way to see the effects of working together and give this push to keep that direction.
Challenges of Post-Merger Integration
Post-merger integration is a challenging but rewarding process that requires careful planning, strong leadership, and a focus on both operational and cultural aspects. Marcel was once appointed to lead an M&A project in the telecommunications sector. There was a very tough timeline given.
Between the consent about the company purchase, due diligence, post-merger integration target state definition, and transaction closing, he had only 9 months available. For him, it was clear that the critical success factors were to avoid cultural clashes early enough between both organizations, which could have hindered the process.
Furthermore, the system integration strategy had to be outlined in its principles before the transaction closing. And during the entire pre-closing process, employee uncertainty had to be avoided. So, he did something quite unusual by communicating the M&A closing very early and involving, per workstream, some recognized key employees in the post-merger integration planning strategy. He has established weekly information updates on the progress. The result was fantastic: he achieved almost 100% employee retention and was able to finish three weeks ahead of schedule.
Understanding Corporate and Business Strategies
Marcel explains that corporate and business strategies serve distinct but interconnected purposes within an organization. Corporate strategy focuses on the overall direction and portfolio management of the company, while business strategy focuses on competitive positioning within individual markets.
In his case, tailoring the approach to each involves focusing on long-term growth and risk management at the corporate level and on market competition, customer needs, and operational efficiency at the business level. He can assure you that aligning these strategies ensures that the entire organization works cohesively towards shared goals.
The Importance of Innovation Management in Consulting
Prioritizing innovation management in consulting is Marcel’s key skill to stand out in the fierce market. Whatever he does in consulting needs to have inherent innovative characteristics. Innovation management involves aligning innovation efforts with the client’s strategic goals, fostering an innovation-friendly culture, and integrating innovation into daily operations.
He uses tools like the Business Model Canvas, Design Thinking, Lean Startup, Agile, and Open Innovation to provide structured methodologies to drive innovation. By setting clear goals, using the right frameworks, and measuring success, consultants can help clients develop a sustainable innovation capability that drives growth and competitive advantage.
The Path to Success
Pursuing a career in consulting and interim management can be both exciting and challenging. Marcel’s key criteria are that you need to like people and need to assume good faith in the person and clients you’re dealing with. There are multiple important factors to be considered.
First, gaining deep knowledge and skills in a specific area or industry and staying informed of industry trends, best practices, and new technologies. Secondly, enhancing the skills in problem-solving, communication, and interpersonal matters. For orchestrating all activities, you must develop strong project management skills to effectively handle multiple projects in parallel, meet deadlines, and manage resources.
The most important thing is to focus on results and delivery value: your reputation will be built on the results you deliver. Focus on providing actionable, measurable solutions that address your clients’ needs. Then it’s important to be consistent and persistent in the track record in building a strong portfolio of successful projects and outcomes.
Document your achievements to showcase your capabilities to future clients. Being now 20 years in the consulting business, his key learning is to properly manage stakeholder expectations and a bit underselling the expected outcome and then to positively surprise the client with overachievement; he would like to call it “the Limoncello effect.”.
