Daniel Goodacre, Roland Berger Strategy Consultants
Strategy consultant Daniel Goodacre works for Roland Berger Strategy Consultants. He received an MEng manufacturing engineering from the University of Cambridge.
Daniel went straight into strategy consulting after graduation and has since worked on a variety of projects in a number of diverse sectors. He is now involved with a performance improvement project at a major international manufacturing company. The project will last three months, and Daniel is currently halfway through.
Monday
My week begins at 8.00 am at Euston, where I meet my project manager to catch the train to Blackburn. We’re visiting one of our client’s manufacturing sites, to meet the UK managing director and assess the site performance. In the previous weeks we’ve visited their seven other facilities across the UK. We first spend an hour updating the managing director on the project progress, then take a tour around the site to get firsthand experience of the equipment and people working there. On the train back to London we discuss where improvements could be made to the site and what my plans and objectives are for the rest of the week.
Tuesday
I meet my project manager at Canary Wharf to take a taxi out to our client’s offices in Bexleyheath. Tomorrow I will be facilitating a workshop to generate new revenue stream ideas for the UK business, so today is spent preparing for this. This involves a number of tasks: analyzing competitor products, calling the company’s product development managers in other countries to see what products are in the pipeline and preparing a presentation for the workshop. Work completed, I check into the local Marriott and have dinner before running through my presentation for the next day.
Wednesday
After breakfast in the hotel, I head to the client’s offices to ensure everything is ready for the workshop. Though the workshop takes most of the day, many useful ideas are generated, and it’s my responsibility to ensure that they are all documented, while also maintaining the smooth flow of the workshop. Once it is finished, my project manager heads off to the airport. I will be joining him tomorrow, but this evening I have a project dinner to celebrate the successful conclusion of my pervious project. Here I get a chance to catch up with my colleagues from that project.
I will be facilitating a workshop to generate new revenue stream ideas for the UK business.
Thursday
Still recovering from the night before, I’m at City airport by 7.30 am to take the first flight out to the Netherlands. There I meet up with my project manager and my Dutch colleagues, who have also been working on the project, in our Amsterdam office. We have a steering committee meeting tomorrow, so today is predominately spent preparing for it. However, I also have to make a couple of calls. One is to the UK manufacturing director, to discuss the feasibility of the ideas that were generated at the workshop, and the other is to one of our client’s customers, to get an external perspective on the business. With all of this to be done, it’s a hard day in the office and we don’t get the final documents printed until well into the night.
Friday
Holding the meeting in our boardroom, we host the client’s management from both the UK and the Dutch parent company. I field a couple of questions on the new revenue streams, and by lunchtime the presentation is complete. The afternoon is spent documenting the meeting outcome and planning our actions for next week. At 5.00 pm, it’s time to join my Dutch colleagues for their office drinks. This is a great opportunity to meet overseas colleagues, and continues well into the evening and on to a club.