Lasse Lund is a Manager in Deloitte's Customer Management practice. At the 2013 MCA Awards, he was not only named Performance Consultant of the Year, but also Consultant of the Year for his transformation work with Canon. We spoke to Lasse, following the Awards, to speak about his career and find out his thoughts post-ceremony.Why did you join the Management Consultancy Industry?
I am really fascinated by the opportunity to work with different customers on different types of projects – and very much enjoy the momentum and excitement we help create in the organisations we work with. I joined Oracle Consulting back in 2008 and worked in Spain for a few years with them, supporting different projects around Europe. In mid-2010 I joined Deloitte in London and immediately started on a project in the Netherlands where I worked with a great team to transform their European service business across 20 countries.
Were you surprised to be nominated for an award, and then to win it?
Definitely. First I heard about the nomination for the team award for the Canon project. As a team we were very excited about it. It was only afterwards that I was told about my individual nomination. I was very surprised, I didn’t have many expectations but it was just good news, after good news, after good news.
What would you like to achieve in your future career?
I would like to continue to work in the transformation space, particularly now that I have had the opportunity to work on relatively large business transformations – I certainly see my career progressing down this route. At Deloitte we frequently get asked to help shape the future for our customers and work on cutting edge projects – I think it is really exciting to be at the heart of driving the change in the market place.
In the Canon Project you used Google Docs, how is the development of software and new apps helping business?
I think it’s fascinating how technology is changing. What that particular example gave to us was real time tracking. If you have people scattered around the world, you need to have some tools that can visualise what other people are doing, and you can do that real time with tools like SharePoint or Google Docs. It breaks down the barriers that people normally would have if they are in different locations and on different teams.
It isn’t just changing what the businesses can offer their customers, but also what we do in the consulting industry. We have so many different tools at our disposal and we should be using them.
What challenges do you think there are for management consultancy, its reputation and continuing to grow into the future?
The continuous challenge for consulting companies is that it is a knowledge industry. You are nothing without your people having knowledge and skills that customer’s desire and will pay for.
It’s about being able to support a model which allows you to develop faster than the customers. It requires you to have technology available and to ensure knowledge is transferred between people and between projects.
As society and people get more adept with new technology, so does the consulting industry. The transition to the model where you can move faster than your customers is the challenge for the consulting industry.
When I look at Deloitte there are a tremendous amount of things happening, such as internal social networking applications and new ways of sharing knowledge in SharePoint. In the past you would have to email someone to ask a particular question. Now those barriers are really breaking down. We are putting the technology and processes in place that will allow people to think fast and move fast, and get to the right solution.
What is your favourite part of your job?
Being in the middle of all the different pieces that need to come together. It may sound odd but I really enjoy the issue resolution process. For example an issue comes up and you need to think “oh, I haven’t seen that before, I need to pull in the right people from the right teams, I need to put in place the right processes and I need to get the right technology in place to fix that issue”. When that issue is fixed there will be a new one. The excitement around new projects coming along as well as learning something new, which in turn makes you better equipped for the next project is probably what I enjoy most about my job and one of the things I enjoy about being a consultant.
What difference do you think winning an award will make to your career?
The best thing for me about the awards ceremony was that we had some of the people from the Canon project there, and everyone celebrating and cheering.