Technology Integration Manager - Matt Agar

Consulting makes for a brilliant business boot camp and will be attractive to anyone who wants to get under the skin of lots of different companies and how they work. Many of the people we spoke to loved the exposure they were able to get early on in the role, being in meetings with the senior management of Client businesses almost from the start.

Many consultants will specialise into a particular area of consulting like restructuring, integration, technology or logistics. There is also a broad distinction between strategy consultants and those that actually implement a strategy. The routes into consultancy are almost as varied as the job. You can join with no experience or as many do, move into consultancy having gained some specific knowledge within a business. We also found that quite a few consultants were also chartered accountants as they had seen great benefit in really understanding how company financials work before embarking on a career in consultancy.

The huge variety offered by consultancy brings with it a great deal of travel and this may or may not be a positive thing depending on your preferences. It’s very common to be sent away to work on projects at a Client site for many weeks at a time and very often it will be too far away for you to travel to from home. So spending long periods away is part and parcel of many a consultants life. The work itself is likely to peak and trough quite a lot. When a project is on you’re likely to be very busy, regularly putting in late nights and weekend work. When projects finish and before the next one begins you could find yourself quite happily leaving the office at 5.30.

Salaries in consultancy are good and often include bonuses. Those starting out at the big firms should expect 30K+, rising to about 50K with three years experience. By 7 years you’ll be looking at upwards of 100K.

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Matt Agar I am a consultant for Deloitte, I work in the technology practice within consulting.

What is Consultancy?

Consulting is where we help clients solve their business problems or help them meet their business objectives by bringing something to them which they may not have which could be unique experience or doing something similar elsewhere or some specialist skills, or in Deloitte's case, bringing a range of professional skills across all services.

What attracted you to this career?

I finished university about seven years ago and in my last year at university I was doing research about different job opportunities out there and I knew I was interesting in IT.  Originally I thought I wanted to work for an IT department in a bank for example and started to do more research on how IT impacts business and can cause all sorts of business change, for example the Amazon website at the time was well studied and I decided that I wanted to have more impact on different ranges of companies by getting involved in IT projects for that kind of thing.

What does your job involve?

Well I am a manager within recruitment consulting so I am typically project managing IT projects.  So we will get called in for some problem that will involve IT and that change could be a lower cost or a new functionality enabling some kind of change for the business.  I will be leading a team of people from different parts of our company, usually technology focused but also commercially focused and then leading them and the clients team to deliver a project so my typical projects involve setting up IT outsourcing deals. So I work with a company's IT department or telecom department to work out what it is they are trying to buy and then engaging with suppliers to define exactly what a solution might look like and then setting up a contract for delivering those new services to the company.

So some of the typical things I would be managing as part of a procurement process, right up front working out a project plan and working out what people and skills I need at different time and planning out the process so there is no overlap of resources and can all be achieved in the time scale.  Another thing I would be doing is managing my team to produce a set of requirements we are going to set out and buy.  So they will be running a series of workshops to meet with all the different people in the business to define exactly what it is they need and then writing that down. So as a manager I want to make sure that process is going well that the stuff they are coming back with is of the right quality. Then skipping on through the process to the negotiation perhaps so when suppliers come back with their solution we will meet with them every day over a series of weeks and really understand what it is that their solution is able to do and then what they are prepared to commit to for the customer and using logic and emotion all comes into the negotiation techniques to get the best deal for the customer. Then more commercially focused to getting a business plan together for the company to approve so actually working out what the benefit of financial and non financial terms is for the project and deal we are trying to create.  So writing it down on paper and also going around to the different project boards and finance boards and even the executive of the company to communicate what it is and the benefits we are trying to do and get approval for it.

What do you do on a typical day?

I would typically be at a client’s site, at the client’s office, currently that is central London but my last project was in Columbia so it could be anywhere, but mostly it is London based for my type of work and typical day in the office for around 8.30 and working on the computer and phone for most of the day, typically project manager type role, talking to my team, making sure they know what they are supposed to be doing, looking at the work they are creating, making sure it is the right quality, making sure it is helping to achieve our objectives.  So talking to the client and the people who benefit from the project and making sure they understand what progress we are making and keeping them on side with the project effectively.

The project I am on at the moment, I could be there for six to nine months potentially and that is long but not unusual, a lot of my projects have been short – three to four months – and that may be if I am just there for one part of the procurement process to just to set up a contract or to run the supplier negotiations for example.  Other projects have been longer so I might be there right from the strategy point through to very long complicated negotiation process and then contract preparation and then potentially even through to setting up the contracts with the chose supplier, so that could take anything up to 18 months for example especially if it is a very complicated IT requirement where you need to spend a long time working out what the requirements are and actually communicating them to the suppliers and understanding their solutions and making sure they are fit for purpose as well.

Interviewer: But you will only work on one project at a time?

I tend to work on one project at a time but sometimes I get pulled in to help for a few hours or a few days because of my recent experience on other projects so something Deloitte is very good at, when people are working on a project and you haven't got exactly the right experience and there is someone who should be able to help them just a phone call away and be very flexible in managing your time making sure your current client gets what he needs from you but also supporting other people in the firm as well.

Describe the process of your work?

For my current client we are just at the beginning of the project so right now we are doing some detailed planning of what the rest of the project is going to look like, they came to us to ask for help in buying a new IT system that replaces a current one that does asset management as in property asset management, property and facilities, so their current system we are now looking at and what it can do and looking at their new requirements for a system, what they do in their area and how those processes might change in five years so what a system will be able to achieve, and then writing that down as a set of requirements to form what will be the basis of what will go out to procure.  So part of what we are doing is setting requirements of what we are going to buy and the other part is actually planning how we are going to buy it and my client is public sector organisation and they are subject to legislation about how they can go and purchase IT services for example and this is where Deloitte was brought in for our experience in doing this in buying IT services in this way so, right now I am doing some planning on what the different steps in the procurement process are, what documents need to be produced at different points, who needs to be available on those and then how to do that best for the client and bring our experience from other contracts to position the client for negotiation and then eventually to be able to sign a contract with the supplier which should put us in a strong position.

Why don't companies just utilise their own IT departments?

Well an organisation may use us for our specific experience in buying the type of thing they are trying to buy which may not be for every five or ten years for example.  So we might have more relevant experience about the process and about the market place so we can show them comparable deals and that puts them in a better negotiation position when they go and buy there own services.

Also we have experience in project managing and we are very successful in bringing together parts of our organisation for different skills so that could be about skills for tax or corporate finance for example, as well as IT and that is something that companies don't necessarily have available under one roof I suppose.

Why did you choose to work for a large firm?

I think I benefited from working for a large company like Deloitte rather than a niche company because of the breadth of work Deloitte is able to do and therefore the breadth of project role that I get involved in.  We win projects on our ability to bring in extra skills such as tax or finance skills to an IT project for example and then as responsible for delivering that project I need to have a network and contacts from the organisation that I can call on.  For example I have used projects to find out much more about VAT, corporate tax, security audits, and all kinds of activities that Deloitte does across the firm.

What are the speicialisms within your industry?

Within consulting there are different areas you can apply for, so technology which is what I am in, which is focused on technical solutions to achieve a client’s objectives there is strategy which looks more broadly at a client and what it sells or how it finds customers for example.  There is operations, which is maybe looking at the processes that a company is involved in and ways of improving or changing those.  I work with a team that looks at the supply chain and I work closely with them in terms of the procurement and the best ways of doing that. There is a team of enterprise applications which looks at big IT solutions such as SAP for enterprise resource planning or customer relationship management systems so big IT implementations that pull on all different parts of the company.  Human capital is focused on the people and change so how businesses can change and how best to engage with their people to achieve that.

What are the best bits about your job?

The best bit is the range of projects I get involved in.  Each one will probably be related to my procurement experience but the thing I might be buying will be different.  So one time it might be a mobile phone contract and another time it might be a system for public sector to do something that is totally unique to government. One of the first projects I got involved in was congestion charges which Deloitte designed and implemented the congestion charging and having moved quite recently to London.  It was quite exciting to get involved in because within a year or two actually seeing the change and impact of what you have been doing and when you can actually see the change you have then that is fantastic.  Then in terms of variety of projects you get to experience different things you learn.  Lastly I would say the people as well, I think without exception every project team I have been a part of has really been fantastic and you really respect the skills and capabilities everyone else brings and there is always a friendly and good rapport that you build up on these projects, not only with your project team within Deloitte but also with the client.  We have a good reputation at Deloitte at being very collaborative and I think clients really like that and as a project team we work very closely with them.

What are the worst bits about your job?

The bad bits I would say are probably the workload when you have to respond to something unexpected.  I think when we are bidding for work is a good example so a client will come to us with a request for support and it won't be just to us it will be with other consultancies as well so you get a couple of weeks maybe to respond to that requirement and put together a proposal about how you would approach it, who you would put on the team to do that, what their skills are, where you have done it before and what makes Deloitte unique in doing that. The quality of response we normally outstanding which means that you end up working very late for a few nights before that just to make sure everything works together and you give the best proposal you can.  So I think workload when there is something unexpected that comes through and I think where you are not careful enough to manage the client’s expectations it can get quite tricky, so if the client is expecting something that you weren't intending to provide then you might have to respond either by having a robust discussion with them perhaps or by having to do something extra that you weren't intending to do. So it can impact on your working hours so you can end up staying late to do stuff you weren't expecting to do.

What has been your greatest achievement?

I mentioned congestion charging before and it was fantastic to be part of that team, it was a huge project so I was only one out of about 50 people but being able to point at something on the streets and knowing you were part of that is a good feeling. So congestion charging is a good thing or bad thing depending on your perspective, I suppose, but Deloitte was responsible for not just getting the technology out there but right from the beginning being able to get all the political process moving as well so taking a policy from the mayor and actually being able to enable it to happen in terms of running procurements to make sure we get suppliers who can set up the technology there but also in terms of all the processes about the detail of how the scheme works, where it is located, who pays for what and then supporting all the political processes whether it be in terms of getting law enacted or getting it through public consultations for example and Deloitte played a part in each bit of that.

In terms of something I have been more responsible for personally I think for a large investment bank I got involved in setting up a telephone outsourcing contract for all their mobile phones across the world and basically setting up and negotiated a contract which was the first of its kind and had a massive cost saving in terms of that bank so it was a real success.

Any regrets?

I think Deloitte is pretty good at running appraisal process so that everyone's performance over a year is captured in a pretty comparable way so that when their performance is analysed at the end of the year there is a reasonably fair process for capturing if you have done well or not.  I would say one of the things I should have understood how that process works much earlier and I think perhaps I could have had better performance and accelerated through my career by maybe a year and really understood what the firm was rewarding or was after at an earlier point. In my instance, in my very first year, I ended up working on a project that was developing a tool that Deloitte was going to take to several clients over the course of the year.  It never actually made it, so I was working on a project that I couldn't demonstrate what it had been able to do at the end of the year.  It hadn't help to sell any work and I hadn’t spent any of my time working for clients so the metrics that Deloitte looks at, at the end of the year, is your contribution for working for clients and being able to sell your time and also be able to sell new work.  So for my first year I wasn't very well aligned to either of those measures, and my overall performance wasn't great compared to my peers and a year later I worked out what it was I should have been doing, I should have been getting off that project much sooner and getting a different project that would have helped me more. 

What is the pay like and are there any perks?

I think Deloitte pay is competitive and I would say I was reasonably well paid for the type of job I am doing, I'm sure I could earn more in banking or maybe a couple of other industries but overall I consider my salary to be pretty good. I think I would probably be able to get paid more by moving to a competing consultant firm but having considered it the benefits of the culture and the type of work I am doing means that it outweighs any short term financial gain from moving to a competing consultancy firm.  Also the company has been revamping its offices recently so there is a brand new gym that is very impressive and all staff can use, and there is a restaurant and they are certainly transforming the facilities they can offer to staff, I think a dentist as well.

How long is a working day and do you have to work out of hours?

I would say my typical working hours are around 8.00 or 8.30 to about 6.30 or 7.00, so I feel I work reasonably hard but less than I would do in banking perhaps and I typically work five days a week I don't normally work weekends although certainly the longer I have worked for Deloitte the more I have got into checking emails on a Sunday evening so I think you have to be disciplined about controlling how much time you are available to Deloitte and try not answering emails all of the time, day and night.  They give you a Blackberry but the secret is to work out how not to use it.

Is there much in the way of travel?

I have spent most of my time in and around London but I have had a couple of exciting projects where I got to travel. I spent a few weeks in New York for one project, a global bank and most recently I have had four trips to Columbia to work for the Latin America arm of our UK clients.  It has been fascinating working in a totally different office environment, where Spanish is the first language and you are still trying to do everything you do in the UK but in a foreign language and in a totally foreign culture, but in that case we were working with the Columbian consulting part of Deloitte so amazing how the culture is very similar in Deloitte in different companies and very friendly people in Columbia where I was and I had a fantastic time out there.  Fantastic coffee as well.  So that is the glamorous side of travel, I had another project for about 18 months where I was working in Slough and Heathrow and had about an hour and a half commute each way so that is the less glamorous side but normally if you are working that far away from home you get the opportunity to stay in a hotel for three nights or four nights a week and Deloitte is very flexible and our clients are usually flexible and if you want to work in London one day a week or you need to be at home for some of the time then that flexibility is very easy to achieve.

Do you have to be based anywhere in particular?

We have consultants across the country and lots of people from Birmingham and Leeds, Manchester offices and some of the projects, some substantial projects based in northern locations so it is much more convenient for people in regional offices to be based there.  So I think being nearer a city is important but that doesn't need to be London and we have a very strong capability in terms of lot of projects for public sector and all other kinds of industries.

What is the working environment like?

Most of my clients are public sector so I will go to work in a suit, usually a tie as well but that depends, but the demographic can vary every time, the offices can be new or old, and the facilities there can be fantastic or terrible.  Working at Heathrow, that was quite tough because there were no shops around but then working in Central London there is plenty of life and you can go and sit in one of the parks to have your lunch, so the working environment is different every time.

Interviewer: What about your team are we talking lots of youngsters, lots of old wise mean, boys/girls, what is the mix like?

The Deloitte people on the team usually I am managing people who are probably younger than me so a youngish team from Deloitte on the projects, but in terms of the client it depends on the type of industry and the demographics of that industry. The public sector sometimes can be pretty senior people but then, financial services sometimes you get very young and energetic team from the client as well.

How did you get into your job?

Deloitte has entry qualifications for the graduate scheme so a 2:1 from a respected university is important but besides that it is what you can prove in an interview process which is in two parts, the first is a competency based interview so you have to show leadership or team work or organisational skills and typical to other organisations as well there is normally an assessment centre where there are a few team exercises. So having a strong CV and not just showing an academic capability but also how you have done other things at university or school that helped you develop your full rounded skills. That is important.

What's the application process like?

Deloitte has got a website for all potential applicants, one dedicated for graduate applicants as well, where you would register and put your details in then you get invited to take part in online tests and if you are successful in that you get invited to first round interview and I said this first round focuses on your competencies or team work, leadership, organisational skills as well as going through a case study so they also look into your analytical skills and commercial acumen.  If you are successful through that interview you get invited to an assessment centre where there are more case studies, more interviews but more opportunities for you to understand the different types of role you could be taking part in depending on which organisation you are in. Then also team based exercise as well and if you are successful in that you get the job offer.

I think Deloitte's entry criteria is a 2:1 degree from a respected university but in terms of technology or consulting actually you don't need to have a technology background at all.  I think an interest in technology is important and certainly what it can achieve and how it helps customers I think it is important but whether it is a history degree, English degree, computing, or science degree it doesn't really matter it is what people are looking for through the interview processes, potential and interest in that area.

What are the key skills required for your job?

I think being strong at analysis or problem solving which you could wrap as common sense, I think having a mind that can think through problems and come up with ideas for solutions that is really important, that is one of the things we really use case studies for, to try and understand.  Being numerate is pretty important in all areas, certainly I work in technology but having a technology background isn't important at all and people from all type of degree backgrounds are doing my type of role.

Interviewer: So you don't have to know all about technology, I thought that would definitely be a prerequisite?

I think you need to, depending on what part of consulting you are applying for so it could be technology, strategy, operations or human capital, but if you are applying for technology consulting an interest in technology and probably an understanding and a passion for what it is able to achieve is important but knowing detailed technology is certainly not as an interview application is not important and anything you need to know about technology you get taught on the training and then on the job from that point on.

What's your top tip for breaking into your industry?

I am an assessor in the graduate jobs interview programme so I get to see a lot of applicants and the ones that impress me most are the ones that thought a lot about their experience whether it be about their degree or whether it be from different sports clubs or society, they have really thought about what they have achieved from that and can be applied to business, whether it be leadership or teamwork. So really thinking about what your experience is very important. The other part is being able to think quickly around a case study and work out what is important in a business situation and there are lots of different business frameworks if you look at text books that can help you think of a whole range of things around a situation and I think it is that breadth and maybe a commercial angle on that which I think is important to demonstrate through interviews.

What's the career progress and how quickly can you move up the career ladder?

The first grade when you join is the analyst grade and that is quite structured, and is deliberately done so to make sure there is a training programme that goes on parallel to the work you are doing.  So that after two years everyone should have the right mix of skills and experience from projects. After that point there are the grades of consultant and senior consultant, manager, which is where I am, and then senior manager.  Moving from one grade to another is all about being able to show you have the skills to perform in the grade above so it is entirely capability based rather than the number of years within each grade. Obviously having responsibility for people changes so as a consultant you are probably working up to a project manager, whereas as a senior consultant you might have a couple of people you are responsible for managing to deliver part of the project for example. Whereas manager, you are more likely to be taking the lead for the whole project and representing Deloitte on a day to day basis to the client and making sure the client gets all the answers they need and what you are doing is exactly what they were expecting.

Where do you see the industry going?

The credit crunch and what is likely to be a recession is going to change our typical projects, I think our clients are going to focus on cost reduction, I think for potential graduate applying for consulting, I think have some thoughts about what change that might have on consulting.

Is there scope for movement during or after this career?

Absolutely, it is a very good career to build up transferable skills and part of that is to do with the experience you are building, like project management, or commercial skills that you building up.  Then part of it is to do with some of the training and accreditation through Deloitte so for example I am finishing off my Chartered Accountant qualification as well, so that is going to be positive on my CV. Also I think Deloitte is happy for you to take breaks for three, six or twelve months or whatever you want, if it helps achieve something you have always dreamed of, so travel or something different.  Then there are opportunities that Deloitte tries to create, so you can work in different offices for a couple of years for example, and if you leave Deloitte there is a very good programme where they maintain contact with you to Deloitte it is always important to maintain that relationship because you could be a future client or you could decide that you want to come back and work for Deloitte again so there is a very strong programme in always maintaining those links in the relationship.

People who joined with me seven years ago have gone to all kinds of different places, some have gone to other consulting companies but the majority have gone to work for some of our clients, and it is in all different kinds of industries, whether it is manufacturing or finance or health, potentially.  Sometimes they are working in procurement or IT departments for example or sometimes they are using their project management skills for doing something different perhaps.

What are the industry resources that someone interested in joining must know about?

I think there are some resources out there for graduates I think just make sure they have good understanding of business, so reading papers and business magazines is good start.  In terms of what I would read on a day to day basis there are a few alerts on IT and Government which I will tend to skim most days and also some IT analyst news shots as well, but that helps me in my job but wouldn't necessarily help someone who is applying for a job.

If you weren't in this career, what would you be doing?

I always had a desire to be a fireman really, but apart from that, I think I would be working for an IT organisation for a bank or something, but something with a lot of adrenalin but of technology focused.  But I prefer being in Deloitte because there is more business focussing and certainly more breadth of projects so business challenges all of the time.

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