Context
Growing a consulting service business is not only a function of putting more effort in business development. It requires a deeper re-think around the portfolio and making it more relevant and aligned to emerging requirements of the customer segment. It also requires re-configuration of the solution design and delivery processes to ensure adequate capacity and profitability.
This is the story of a Consulting firm based in Europe and how it was able to use digital technologies to expand its assessment practice.
The firm was founded in 2019 with experienced founders with deep consulting experience and was quickly able to establish a reputation for its expertise and its commitment to high-quality service delivery. In particular, the firm was able to create a strong assessment practice with a focus on design and delivery of assessment centres targeted at managerial levels in the organizations. These assessment centres were designed using an exercise mix which included simulation-based exercises like In-basket, Case Presentation and Role Plays as well as 3rd party psychometric instruments.
Digital Transformation Journey
In 2019, the leaders of the firm started exploring ways to grow the assessment practice. This initial brainstorming led to a few key insights:
- Clients increasingly were expecting ability to deliver assessment centres in a virtual or hybrid mode rather than the traditional physical mode.
- There was a greater focus on participant experience of these assessment processes. Increasingly, client teams felt that traditional paper-pencil assessment centres were not able to adequately replicate participant work environment and were seen as “not intense or engaging enough”.
- Logistics cost, including travel, accommodation and venue costs, contributed a large portion of the overall cost of assessment centres. By delivering assessment centres virtually, the firm could offer significant reduction in overall implementation costs to clients.
Based on these insights, the team started actively exploring digital platforms being offered in the market which could enable them to deliver assessments virtually. After careful consideration, the firm decided to use the Elemetrik platform to offer virtual assessment centres.
Initially, the team at the firm worked closely with an Onboarding specialist from Elemetrik to identify how best to map existing offerings and processes to the functionalities in the Elemetrik platform. The Elemetrik team also supported the firm in conceptualizing new assessment exercise formats and C-E matrices to help accelerate the transition. With the support of the Onboarding specialist, the team at the firm became fairly adept at using the Platform within a 6-8 week period.
Total Exercises Completed
Total DCs Delivered
Over the last 3 years, going digital has helped the firm rapidly expand its assessment practice. In terms of scale, the number of participants covered in assessment centres has increased 5X from 50 per quarter to 250 per quarter. Also, with better adoption, more of the exercises are delivered virtually and average number of exercises delivered virtually has increased 10X from around 75 per quarter in 2020 to 800 per quarter in 2022.
Results
On reflection, the leadership team at the firm feels that going digital has provided it with 4 key benefits.
- The digital portfolio has allowed the firm to differentiate its portfolio in the market and position it as more contemporary and cutting-edge compared to competition.
- By improving the ability to do demos and run small pilots, it has allowed the team to reach out to and engage more deeply with a wider set of clients.
- It has enabled design innovation by allowing the team to configure exercises in new ways which improve participant experience and at the same time improve time utilization of assessors. For example, instead of requiring assessors to interact with participants in real-time for case presentation, the team now conducts case-based video interviews in which participants can talk through their responses to case-based questions. These videos can be reviewed by assessors at a time of their convenience.
- Using the Platform has significantly improved the team’s productivity. The leadership team estimates that delivering a typical DC program now requires 60% less time investment from a Program Manager than earlier because of the smart automation built into the Platform. This has allowed the team to offer more aggressive pricing for its solutions without sacrificing profitability.
Next Steps
The digital offerings and delivery processes are now firmly embedded in the overall operating mindset of the assessment practice. The leadership team is now actively exploring options to go digital with the learning and coaching practices using the Elemetrik digital platform.
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