Consulting Must Transform – Michael Valocchi, Cognizant

This is Textron TV. Today I have the pleasure being joined by Michael voloki Michael is SVP America's Consulting strategy and Clank centricity with cognizant. Welcome Michael.

Oh great to be here. Imagine good to be talking with you. I'm really excited to kind of jump in and see what what you're seeing happening in the industry for we do that tell us a little bit about yourself a little bit the kind of the work that cognizant does.

So as you said Michael, okay, my main job really is running cognizant consulting which is a which is a part of our business that really Bridges the technology and business together. Secondarily. I look over strategy for the Americas and our client partner program join cognizant.

Oh two and a half years ago from a long career PWC and IBM. So I like to say I'm a career consultant because it's hard to get a real job come by it honestly, so that's very nice. Well, you know, you said business and technology, so Probably not news to everyone that.

We're really emphasizing more how technology is a strategy are part of the strategy not a back office operational function. Right and I like to say that every executive every leader is a technology leader technology executive, but that they're techie but their job is figure out how to leverage technology in what in in the business and then put it to work fair enough. Yeah fair enough now and I I see that with our with our Executives whether you're an HR executive or a transformation executive or Finance executive is technology plays such a huge role in in the transformational of all of our clients actually all companies.

It really is and I think it's more than just sort of we operate how do we automate functions which of course is a bit of it, but I think it's more of how do we leverage this to get a strategic Advantage whether it's offensive defensive going to New Market new product test things out whatever may be it's not just run the business effectively, which it's that too, right? Yeah, but but it is but it's it's also where we're going in the world is is we're a growth mode and technology is as much more of an able or from a growth mode and and like you said, the old days was very much around that that optimization component of it, but now it's around the the growth and how do I get a better client experience customer experience how to get a better employee experience? And as you said, how do I have you know these new markets using and enabling by the Technologies?

I've worn a Consulting hat off and on a couple times. So a little bit of a feel for where you come from. Yeah, but when the advantages you get to get to work with a lot of different companies so soft and I'm repeating with the same customers, but also exposure to multiple.

What are the trends you're seeing what how are people applying this idea of hey, I'm supposed to be doing this or I think I have some ideas about technology or I'm working on my strategy come help me with the business side of it and then we'll work on the technology. What are the patterns and the trends that you see happening with your customers and Prospects. Yeah.

There's a couple things happening and I'll put them in two different buckets is is one we're seeing a lot stronger use of Consulting and and when I say when I think about Consultants what we be able to bring is an objective View and analytical View and that base of knowledge that you may or may not have within a company that outside in View and I see more of that and I also see our Tech our Consultants are much more Biology technological Savvy then they've ever been but then from a trend perspective. It's you know, I I alluded to a little bit that experience piece is how do I use technology to get a better employee experience a better customer experience? And the way we're thinking about it is strategy experience and Technology kind of merges into one now.

And the last thing I'll say is that the realm will possibilities with technology have gotten really, you know, a lot more exponential and we can talk about more as law and and all of that but you know, I go back like five ten years ago. I was like, okay, what's what's this Cloud thing and now it's like why don't aren't you innovate in a cloud why not from a cloud perspective and then you look at things like Automation and the analytics and the data. It just feels like a just a change in how we're thinking about all of our Industries.

I'm curious. What kind of Trends are you seeing for? The kinds of questions or problems customers are coming to you with is it I'm supposed to figure out new ways of doing digital experiences or increase the engagement with our customers employees and partners.

Is that you know competitive as a rebuilding Supply chains, I mean, it's probably a little bit of everything better. There's some trends that you you're starting to see now that we're there are some Trends and and again I is I see a lot of our clients in a growth is what is it? And how is it I grow maybe use my existing business model or a new business model or tangential business model.

So these these and I won't call them heady strategy issues. These are board level strategy discussions. This is truly in the operational component is what should my business model look like and is it practical?

Can I get there from here to there so example, I'll give you around. We had a client coming in from a digital Bank perspective and they had some really great ideas so we could break into agriculture. You can break into Healthcare and what we're able to do was bring them back to some of the practicalities of what is your brand?

What experience can you provide and what technology platform could we underpin for you going into that new business and then have to iterate over and over again. So the thing that I'm really I see a lot of our clients focused on is that optionality, you know, I you won't ever hear me use the words future proof because I don't like just don't think you can future proof, but give me enough optionality. So that one something face with something I know which way to go and I can take this road or that road based on the decisions I've made But a future proof you'd have to know what the future is going to be.

Don't you? Yeah, exactly. But you hook it you'll hear Consultants say that message I can future proof your business.

Well, I don't think you actually can and especially so what we all learned during covid and and what you know, what could have been a Black Swan event is, you know, none of us could have predicted the future. Oh, yeah, that's sure that's for sure. Are you most mostly engaging with technology organizations?

Are you more engaging with business and product lines of business organizations? Now so we are I mean in one of the things I'll say is is everything we do is in a lens of an industry. So if we're doing work in banking we're doing work in retail.

So, you know, we have some major industries that work in so everything we do is from an industry's perspective and we're saying a blend of who we're working with both technology and business and one of the other thing that frustrated me a little bit when certain of my competitors came out and said, well the CIO is really not important. You really need to look at the business buyer. Well to me, it's a duality of the buyers.

It's how do I bring together the business buyer with the technology buyer and bring their interest together because frankly we don't see anything going from a trans right transformation perspective unless the two of those are aligned even when they're maybe initiating it other own organization outside of it oftentimes like security. I have data I have systems. I need to talk.

Yeah, that's what you end up. Into CIO, right? Yeah, and and what's interesting is you is the business buyers can only go so far without the the technology Executives because you can't scale it right?

So I maybe I can do you know a little bit but once I get to a scale a good CEO is going to ask is hey, you know, does this fit our technology footprint because not it becomes really costly Mitch to have all these different environments floating out there. Well, and there's also sort of strategies around how you leverage not just build with Technologies. Right?

So, you know, if we have the if we have the perfect storm event and like this really takes off and how do we scale this and you know this when you get your software architects involved in the platform engineering folks and say great let's build this in a way that is microservers is a canoe kubernetes or it's whatever plan to back here. You've got to have those those elements to it's not just functionality and putting it into software. Right?

Wow, and I think we saw that, you know, especially during the early days of covid when when we move to the virtual workplace and we move to you know, implementing large-scale technology when all of us were sitting in our houses across the globe is you had to have that industrial strength technology backbone that fit with the business purpose and and you really can't do one without the other and that's that's where sometimes my frustration comes is is, you know people coming Just one way or the other and I think that's what I believe my Consultants do especially well is kind of do that bridge and help people to interpret and bring bring the business and the technology together. You mentioned it as a bridge. It seems like a big issue at least that I've experienced is truly having alignment between what the business wants where it needs to go why it needs to go there and do we really have because sometimes you sort of bolt on what you have right what you think the business wants or vice versa?

Right and you may not actually be on a path for Success right? Well and I think that gets even more complicated is the complexity of if I'm a technologist. How do I scale and how do I make it more efficient but also from a business perspective is I've got to get value.

I've got to get the value out of the technology and frankly as you said everybody's a technologist, but we're all different levels, right? I mean, I'm not a Diet in the wool can code something but I can at least interpret it. So I think what what I look for when we're working with clients is can I take some of that complexity out for you?

Can I help you? Think about things just a little bit differently. So they truly get the value out of it.

Mm-hmm. How much is speed, you know time to Market being able to experiment and Market some things that we hear about that, you know, we want to increase velocity here. So term that we that we frequently throw around is that truly something Business Leaders are looking for is that nice Consulting language or media language use both of us and and now I truly say it and and I'll go back to my point on optionality is that that is pointing to I've got to be quicker and faster and I'll use the word agile.

Sometimes that's a very overused word is, you know, agile Frameworks and That but it truly is how do I get and we're seeing a lot more proof of Concepts happening. And again, I don't I don't like the word proof of concept. It's phase one.

I'll do it this way. I'll learn some things and to me it's about continuous learning and we're seeing a lot of our clients focused on the continuous learning from both the business process perspective and a technology perspective because we don't have the business process piece figure it out as well because that's changed in the new world as well. I'm sure I'm curious for you for you individually personally stepping into a new role a couple years ago with with cognizant oftentimes you step into a role you make some changes that are needed you feel for the organization.

But how have you had to change either the organization there the offerings maybe the mindset the thinking about the kind of services you need to offer today as opposed to let's say prepandemic pre you know, focus on digital transformation what's different and why? Yeah, I think that that's a great question is is to me the well what I had to do and what are my leadership team? Do did was really thinking about offerings as capabilities?

Because what we found even in the post pandemic world is prepackaged things aren't truly working is I need to be able to customize this. So what I really focused on building out capabilities and and say for example in technology, so I build out very strong Cloud advisory capabilities, very strong agile capabilities, very strong kind of future technology capabilities coupled with process capabilities and then we kind of put the pieces of the puzzle together depending on the individual individual clients. So I found myself having to be a lot more agile in this that I couldn't have this cookie cutter offering and just go out and offer it to hundred clients because everybody's just a little bit different kind.

Own optionality if you it is your own optionality, and the other thing I will bring up is is from a consultant perspective is how do you keep them engaged in this virtual world? And then how do you keep their skills at a at a level? Because Consultants want to learn more and more and that's why I love this kind of jigsaw puzzle because you work on something different versus I'm going to do the exact same offering over and over again.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. I know Consultants like to be exposed to new things new projects not this the eight time I've done this.

I'm kind of getting old exactly right exactly. Yeah. What do you what do you see is the difference?

I mean ways you look forward for a Consulting industry. You know, where do you think we're headed and the kind of relationships that organizations have with you or is it building on the optionality idea? Obviously, it's probably easy easy answer but maybe what's the a little bit of a crystal ball answer?

Yeah. I think it's that I you I I use the word executable strategy. So is I see our clients and I think it's gonna get more cute in the future as well is this is a power point type of an industry anymore.

It's bring me some practicality bring me some show me and show me in in what you're bringing to me. So Much more practical type of a trade which is what I welcome my welcomed our new Consultants last week. And I said every one of you has to understand some bit of Technology don't care if your business major or strategy major supply chain major, you've got to understand that so when you bring it to a client client can say, oh I think this can work.

So I really see Consulting moving into realm of a lot less just pure ideation a lot more of Trials and and moving on and and building out those first steps in an implementation. I like your point about proof of Concepts. Right?

I've kind of learned that you know, you could you can do it best 50% planning as good. The rest is all execution because you only learn by doing it and yeah anything customers will tell you what they like and don't yeah tell me a little bit about cognizant and your business model my own experience running a consulting company starting my own was pretty quickly learned. I have better people smarter, whatever skilled people isn't a great value prop.

You really have to have a differentiator value proposition. It's also a bit about cognizance and how you compete in Market. Yeah.

So a couple things that I think are are differentiated is is one we've got this blend of Industry process and technology and so Or a couple thousand Consultants are in certain of those buckets and a lot of them overlap. So that capability where it brings it together is a differentiator. The other differentiator for us is the the people that were recruiting and bringing in Consulting.

Are not all the same. So I am bringing in people from industry teaching them Consulting bringing in some people have Consulting expertise and helping them with the industry so that when you look at the diversity of our Consulting it's not a cookie-cutter group of people. But again, the other thing is that we're all so very clear on what we don't want to be and what we want to be and focused on areas that we think we can be differentiated versus being a general consultancy that does everything for everybody.

Very good. What's typically the way folks engage with you. How do you how do they get started working with you?

Yeah, so it's a it's a couple things is because we're part of a broader large organization. We've got some wonderful sets of client Partners out in in engagement. So maybe a client partner who says hey I'm living and breathing at this client.

They have this issue. Can you help me with this issue? We also have our Consultants or living and breathing at at certain clients.

So they will bring in that expertise based on the client issues and the same time we will go out with points of view. So we're we're for example, we've got a extremely great point of point of view around payments in the banking banking Arena. Then we go out and bring the point of view and then our clients are saying okay how to how do you help me?

Bring that point of view to life because frankly that's what we owe to the rest of cognizant. Is that practical point of view? Well, you're actually offer a different perspective.

You know, when you're inside the bubble is hard to see things right that you don't see. What is the one question or so that you you know customers would wish they asked if they knew to ask it if they were challenges with projects like this. What would you say?

I I think to me one of the biggest questions the best questions at a client can ask is how long and how fast can you help me solve the problem I have and for us one of our best things we can do is being empathetic listener is actually listen listen for that. And then the last thing I would say is Is our client should be asking what is your perspective? Tell me and tell me what you think is wrong with my idea because you got to be open and honest with your client.

Kind of test those ideas put it out there. Let it stand the scrutiny or Improvement that you're gonna get through that scrutiny. Exactly.

Oh fantastic Michael tell us where folks can find out more about cognizant learn about what you do maybe engage you in some way. Yep. So it's at and in on our website WWE cognizant.

There is a Consulting page that you can find out there. We also have a LinkedIn live page as well. That's that sits under our cognizant LinkedIn page.

So, you know, very specific to Consulting good blogs and things maybe folks can follow us. Yeah a ton of thought leadership and and some testimonials from our our Consultants because frankly that's that's where it comes to life. Fantastic Michael.

Thanks for joining us for today. com and check out learn more from you. Okay?

Thank you. Great to be with you today. You bet.