For years I sat on the consulting side of the table: analysing, recommending, implementing — and leaving. Good work, honestly done. But there is a moment every consultant knows: you hand over the concept, and you will never feel whether it survived contact with reality. I wanted the inside view. So I took it.
From advisor to accountable
At BBC group I became responsible globally for Salesforce and IT — six subsidiaries, every business process from sales to service to marketing, one target system. Suddenly there was no client to hand over to. I was the client. Every shortcut I would have tolerated as a consultant, I now had to live with as an operator.What changes when you own it
Three things. You stop optimising slides and start optimising adoption — a perfect process nobody follows is worth zero. You learn that harmonising six companies is 20% system design and 80% listening to people who fear the change. And you learn patience: real transformation is measured in quarters of behaviour, not weeks of configuration.Why founders should do time inside
Everything I now do at the eksperts is priced by that experience. When we advise a client, I know what the rollout feels like from the inside — the resistance, the politics, the Monday morning after go-live. Consulting taught me to design solutions. Operating taught me which solutions survive.If you can, sit on both sides of the table before you build your own. The view is completely different — and you need both.