Digital Transformation Consulting Services

Digital Transformation Consulting: From Target State to Measurable Delivery

Digital transformation means rebuilding a company so that digital technology serves its purpose — not the other way around. Three levels are always affected at once: the business model, the processes and the system landscape. It rarely starts with enthusiasm for technology. It starts because a system reaches the end of its life, because figures from different departments no longer carry a decision, or because the market expects something the existing landscape cannot deliver. What that calls for is less a set of new tools than a clear target state, a robust order of priority, reliable data and people who own the new process in day-to-day work. Which digital transformation services a company actually needs follows from that order, not from a product catalogue. That is where digital transformation consulting begins.

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Digital transformation consulting — strategy discussion in front of a metrics dashboard

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Scope and Limits

What a Digital Transformation Consultancy Delivers — and What It Does Not

Two consultants working through a digital transformation baseline assessment

A digital transformation consultancy works on one question before any other: which change a company actually needs, and in which order that change holds. Its subject is the target state, the processes and the responsibilities — not the selection of a piece of software. Its value therefore sits at two points: at the beginning, when it is decided what gets touched at all, and at the end, when it becomes clear whether the new process holds without support.

It settles the starting position before technology is chosen. A process that has grown around its exceptions for years does not become shorter through new software, it becomes more expensive. A sound assessment therefore separates whether a loss originates in the technology, in the process or in the ownership — three causes that feel alike in day-to-day work and demand entirely different answers.

It produces an order of priority, not a wish list. Most companies hold more digitalization ideas than capacity to build them. The value here lies less in adding than in leaving out: what genuinely changes something in the coming financial year, what can wait, what is dropped. Four programmes at half staffing take longer than two at full.

It stays involved to the point where projects lose their effect. Between concept and routine operation sit data migration, the authorisation model and the special cases that appear in no requirement document. Mistakes there surface only after go-live. Work that ends with the roadmap hands over precisely where it gets difficult.

What it does not do. It takes nobody’s decision about their own business model. Without the willingness to genuinely change processes and ownership, even the best software maps the old workflow digitally — only at higher licence cost. And it does not replace a system integrator: the rollout itself is carried by your own departments together with the chosen vendor.

Situations

When External Support for Digitalization Is Worth the Effort

External support is not always the right answer. Where the target state is settled, capacity is free in-house and a comparable process has already been converted once, the internal route is the faster and the cheaper one. In the situations below the calculation usually comes out differently — not because knowledge of the business is missing, but routine with this particular kind of change: a system migration comes up in a company every five to ten years, in our network several times a year.

1. The Roadmap Exists, but Nothing Moves

Concepts are on the table, often two of them — what is missing is delivery capacity close to the decision.
Whoever is asked to run delivery alongside the day job will prioritise the day job. Rightly so.

2. A System Migration Is Coming Up

ERP, CRM or a move to the cloud — and nobody in the house has accompanied one before.
Mistakes in data migration and in the authorisation model surface only after go-live, and are expensive by then.

3. The Data Does Not Carry a Decision

Reports contradict each other, every department holds its own truth.
Rarely a tooling problem, almost always a problem of definitions and ownership.

4. Two Organizations Are Growing Together

Duplicate systems, differing master data and unclear processes after an acquisition.
The longer two landscapes run in parallel, the more expensive the merge becomes.

5. A Project Has Stalled

An honest outside view before more budget flows in.
Whoever owns the project can hardly question it themselves — from outside that takes a few weeks.

6. The Organization Needs to Be Enabled

External delivery is finished, but the knowledge did not stay in the house.
Roles, responsibilities and maintenance routines get settled so the new process holds without support.

Does your starting position appear in one of these situations? Twenty minutes are enough for a first assessment: what should be measured first, which project takes precedence — and whether you need anyone from outside for it at all.

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Fields of Action

The Fields of Action Behind Digital Transformation Consulting Services

Digital transformation consulting services are commissioned one field at a time or several together, depending on where a project stands. In practice it usually starts with the baseline assessment and the order of priority; architecture, data and change follow where the sequence demands it.

Digital Strategy and Target State

Where digitalization is meant to lead, in figures rather than slogans. That includes a sound baseline assessment, a target state for the next two to three years and prioritization by contribution to value, not by visibility. The result is an order that still holds when the budget is cut.

Technology Advisory and Architecture

Selection and evaluation of systems, target architecture, interfaces, effort and risk estimates. Vendor-neutral: we sell no licences and hold no partner commissions that could colour a recommendation. That includes the honest answer to when an existing system is better upgraded than replaced.

Process Digitalization

Close media breaks, cut throughput times, automate where it pays. Simplification comes before automation: a workflow with seven approval steps does not get better by having seven digital approval steps. Measured by throughput time, error rate and cost per transaction.

Data and Analytics

Data model, data quality, governance and the reports everyone can finally agree on. The unspectacular part — definitions, ownership, maintenance routines — decides whether a data platform is still in use after two years or whether people go back to calculating in spreadsheets.

Change and Enablement

Enabling the teams, communication, roles and responsibilities. The part where transformations fail, and the part that gets cut first when things get tight. Training belongs to it, but above all clear answers to the question of what changes for the individual in daily work.

Transformation Office

Steering across several projects, with transparency on progress, dependencies, risks and budget consumption. Worth setting up from roughly four parallel projects, or as soon as several units draw on the same scarce internal people.

Which of these fields has to take hold first in your case can be placed in twenty minutes. Describe the starting position — you receive an assessment, not a presentation.

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Mandate Types

Four Ways External Transformation Capacity Is Engaged

The outcome is often decided less by depth of expertise than by the cut: how much external capacity, under which mandate, over what period. Our network covers four cuts, and a switch part-way through is the normal case. The same frame applies to all four: one named internal owner, written objectives before the start and a handover point agreed at the outset.

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Short Assignment

Targeted Expertise

One experienced person for a clearly bounded question: a system evaluation, an architecture draft, a review of a running project. Typically two to eight weeks, often part-time. Sensible where the work is happening in-house and only a gap in experience has to be closed.

Delivery

Blended Delivery Team

Two to five external specialists work in one team with your own people, under internal professional leadership. The most common model for system migrations and process projects, typically three to nine months. Its advantage is the handover: knowledge stays in the house because it is created there.

Mandate

Responsibility for a Defined Period

An external person takes on leadership or programme responsibility with decision-making authority — during a vacancy, in a special situation, or when a project needs an authority that sits outside the internal interests. Typically six to eighteen months, with an agreed handover point.

Steering

Transformation Office

A small steering unit above several projects: planning, dependencies, risks, reporting to the executive board. It does not deliver itself; it makes sure decisions are taken and bottlenecks become visible before they turn into delay.

Industry Experience

Digital Transformation by Industry: What Sets the Pace

The pressure to transform is high everywhere, but the bottlenecks sit in entirely different places. In manufacturing it is data continuity from the machine through to planning, in retail the command of product and price data across several channels, in banking and insurance the traceability of every single change. Whoever learns these differences first inside the project pays for them across its runtime.

We therefore staff by industry experience, not by availability: with specialists who know the regulation, the usual system landscapes, the metrics and the places where comparable projects failed before. The basis for that is a network across 25 fields with more than 300 role profiles. We work regularly in the industries below — each tile names what hurts first there and what progress is measured against.

Program Types

Programs That Get Commissioned — and the Metric for Each

What actually gets commissioned in transformation programmes falls for the most part into four types. Each has a typical starting position, a sequence that has proven itself, and a target figure that is agreed before the start and measured during the runtime — not estimated at the end.

ERP or CRM Migration

Starting position: a system grown over years with modifications nobody fully knows any more, and a vendor putting an end date on support. The sequence that holds: clean up processes and master data first, then target state and selection, then migration in waves rather than in one cut. Measured by the throughput time of the core processes after go-live — and by how many workarounds have reappeared.

Cloud Migration and Operating Model

Starting position: own infrastructure at the end of its lifecycle, an investment decision pending. What matters is not moving everything: applications are sorted by benefit and effort, one part moves, one part is retired, one part deliberately stays where it is. Measured by operating cost per application, downtime and the time from request to provisioned environment.

Process Digitalization in the Core Business

Starting position: a workflow running across several systems and departments with manual handovers in between — order processing, invoice verification, complaints. The process is simplified first, then automated, in that order. Measured by cost per transaction, error rate and the share of transactions that run through without manual intervention.

Data Platform and Reporting

Starting position: every department calculates its own figures, decisions are delayed because the data basis has to be settled first. The route runs through definitions and ownership, not through the choice of tool. Measured by how long a sound answer to a standard question takes — and by whether meetings still argue about the figure or about the decision.

From Baseline Assessment to Routine Operations: How the Work Runs

Scope and duration of the steps depend on size and system landscape, the sequence does not: measure first, then prioritize, then build, then hand over. We skip no step and shorten one only where sound groundwork already exists.

Step 1: assessing and evaluating the starting position in a transformation project

1. Baseline Assessment

Two to three weeks: processes, systems, data and ownership are recorded — against what actually runs, not against the documentation.

Conversations with case handlers, operators and department heads make the workarounds visible that appear in no system report.

The result is a sound picture of the starting point with named bottlenecks — not a feeling and not a declaration of intent.

Step 2: defining the target state and the order of priority

2. Target State and Priorities

What comes first, what later, what not at all — with effort, benefit and risk per project, openly documented.

Prioritization by contribution to value, not by visibility inside the company. Deferred projects are named, not concealed.

At the end there is an order that still holds on a cut budget, because the first steps deliver benefit on their own.

Step 3: technology integration and system selection

3. Technology and Architecture

Vendor-neutral selection and evaluation of the systems that carry the target state — without licence interest and without partner commission.

Target architecture, interfaces, data flows and a realistic effort and risk estimate per option.

That includes the honest answer to when an existing system is better upgraded than replaced.

Step 4: change management and enabling the teams

4. Enabling the Organization

Roles, responsibilities and communication are settled before systems get rolled out.

Teams are enabled so the new process holds after the project — with training, but above all with clear answers to what changes in daily work.

Resistance is taken seriously instead of planned away: it usually points to a place where the new process does not work yet.

Step 5: delivery and monitoring of the measures

5. Delivery With Accountability

We staff the tasks a project actually needs and take responsibility for results rather than for presentations.

Stepwise rollout along milestones instead of a big bang — every wave delivers its own verifiable benefit.

Internal people work in the same team so the knowledge arises where it is later needed.

Step 6: evaluation and optimization after the rollout

6. Measure the Effect and Hand Over

Few, clearly measurable goals fixed at the start of the project: throughput time, error rate, cost per transaction, time-to-market.

Adjusting on the basis of measured values, not on the basis of status slides.

The handover point is agreed at the start: at the end the organization carries on without external support.

Daily Rates

What Digital Transformation Consulting Costs: Daily Rates and Budgeting

Two figures determine the budget of a transformation project: the daily rate and the number of days. The second is the larger of the two and the one that is planned less often. Our network bills by daily rate — without a project flat fee and without success-based components.

What moves the rate. Availability first: profiles that have already carried a system migration twice are scarce, and scarcity works harder than any other factor. Then the proximity of the role to the decision — whoever owns a target architecture or represents a programme to the executive board sits above a role that supplies into one. Then the industry: regulated environments with evidence obligations demand additional experience, and that narrows the circle. The share of on-site presence cuts both ways — plants, branches and shift operations need attendance, while architecture and data work runs largely remote and opens the candidate pool beyond your own region. Finally the runtime: an assignment over twelve months sits below a four-week assignment per day at the same onboarding effort.

The ranges of our roster, as they are published on the role pages. For architecture work on the target landscape €700 to €900 per day (Freelance Solution Architect, Freelance Legacy Modernization Consultant). For IT governance, portfolio and service processes €750 to €1,450 (Freelance IT Governance Consultant, Freelance IT Portfolio Manager, Freelance IT Consultant). For work on processes, roles and acceptance €700 to €1,400 (Freelance Stakeholder Management Consultant, Freelance ERP Change Manager, Freelance Change Management Consultant). Programme and leadership responsibility sits above that, at €800 to €1,600 (Freelance Digital Transformation Consultant, Freelance Business Transformation Consultant). Every figure is a range and not a fixed price; the rate for a specific assignment is agreed before the engagement.

Release section by section, not as one total. Every section ends in a decision that is allowed to read “no further”: the baseline assessment with a sound order of priority, the first single project with a measured figure, the rollout with a handover into operations. Whoever releases everything in one amount loses exactly the points at which stopping would still be cheap — and in transformation work those points are the real brake on cost.

The difference to a classic consulting firm lies less in the price than in what you are buying. There you commission a team including method, quality assurance and the apparatus behind it; here you staff a role inside your own line organization. That requires the professional lead to stay in the house, and it has the consequence that the experience stays where the work is done. Licence, cloud and operating costs of the systems in use are not part of the daily rate and depend on your architecture, not on the staffing.

The staffing follows the cut: a baseline assessment needs a different profile from an ERP migration. The full overview sits under Transformation & Change Management — among them Digital Transformation Consultants, Change Management Consultants and ERP Change Managers. For the technical side, IT Service Management and Software Engineering & Architecture add the missing profiles.

40%

of businesses face disappearing inside a decade unless they move onto new technology

John Chambers, Cisco

2 Years

of digitalization in two months — that is how Microsoft’s CEO described the surge the pandemic set off. The pace has been the new benchmark ever since.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft (April 2020)

81%

of already digitalized companies were able to push that further with the help of public funding

Digital X

Digital transformation consulting services tie business model, processes and technology into one target state and accompany its delivery. That covers a baseline assessment, prioritization by contribution to value, architecture and technology decisions, the digitalization of individual processes and the enabling of the organization. It differs from classic strategy work in that it does not end with the roadmap but stays involved through to measurable results in operation. Digital transformation services are usually commissioned in that same order: the baseline assessment first, then the single project, then the rollout into operations.

A technology consultancy answers which system gets used and how it is integrated — it presupposes a decision that has been taken. A digital transformation consultancy starts one level above: which value creation works better digitally, which processes have to change for it, and in which order the investment runs. Technology selection is then a sub-step, not the starting point. In practice the two interlock; what matters is that the order is right.

When a roadmap exists but delivery capacity is missing. When a system migration is coming up that nobody in the house has accompanied before. When the data does not carry a decision, when two organizations are growing together, or when a project has stalled and needs an honest outside view. External support is not sensible where target state, capacity and experience are already present internally — there it only costs coordination.

The baseline assessment takes two to three weeks. Single projects such as a process digitalization or a cloud migration typically sit at three to nine months. Programmes across several units run one to three years. What matters is less the total duration than the cut: a project should be split into sections that each deliver measurable benefit on their own — otherwise the entire benefit hangs at the end of a very long chain.

By verifiable target figures fixed before the project starts: throughput time, error rate, cost per transaction, time-to-market. By the ability to hand over — after the project the organization has to carry on without external support. And by whether uncomfortable findings get spoken out: work that never contradicts only confirms the opinion already in the room. A set of slides without a changed metric is not a result.

Data is the precondition, AI an application on top of it. Without a sound data model, settled quality and governance, every AI use case stays a prototype that never leaves the pilot phase. The sensible order is: data basis and process understanding first, then automation and AI where they pay. Whoever goes the other way round reliably automates a process that would have been better simplified.

Unclear target figures, too many parallel projects, missing proximity to the decision inside the project, and an organization that does not want to change processes and ownership. Added to that is the transition from design into operation, where responsibility often changes hands. Technology is rarely the cause: most often an old workflow is mapped digitally instead of being simplified first — the result is the same process, only more expensive.

As a rule both. Internal teams know the processes, the customers and the unwritten rules of the house; external expertise brings experience from comparable projects and capacity for the peak load. A blended team with clear internal ownership and a handover point agreed at the outset has proven itself. Which profile a project needs is decided by the cut — and with the move from design into delivery the need shifts.

The ranges on our role pages run from €700 for architecture profiles to €1,600 for programme and leadership responsibility. Where a profile sits inside that band is decided by availability, the proximity of the role to the decision, the industry, the share of on-site presence and the runtime. A sound figure only arises with the cut: the same task can be staffed as a supplying role or as an owned one, and several hundred euros a day sit between the two. The range per role is published on each role page and not held back until enquiry.

Besides the fees of the external specialists, three blocks arise that regularly go missing in early estimates: licence, cloud and operating costs of the systems in use, which remain after the project; internal effort for departments, testing and acceptance, which generates no invoice but ties up capacity; and data cleansing including migration, whose scope only shows itself against the actual data. For planning, therefore, a total amount counts for less than the question of how many days fall in which section — and in which order those sections run.

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Digital Transformation Consulting: From Target State to Measurable Delivery

Leading companies trust our network

What a Digital Transformation Consultancy Delivers — and What It Does Not

When External Support for Digitalization Is Worth the Effort

1. The Roadmap Exists, but Nothing Moves

2. A System Migration Is Coming Up

3. The Data Does Not Carry a Decision

4. Two Organizations Are Growing Together

5. A Project Has Stalled

6. The Organization Needs to Be Enabled

The Fields of Action Behind Digital Transformation Consulting Services

Digital Strategy and Target State

Technology Advisory and Architecture

Process Digitalization

Data and Analytics

Change and Enablement

Transformation Office

Four Ways External Transformation Capacity Is Engaged

Targeted Expertise

Blended Delivery Team

Responsibility for a Defined Period

Transformation Office

Digital Transformation by Industry: What Sets the Pace

Industry & Manufacturing

Logistics & Supply Chain

Retail & Consumer Goods

Healthcare

Banking & Insurance

IT & Software

Industry & Manufacturing

Logistics & Supply Chain

Retail & Consumer Goods

Healthcare

Banking & Insurance

IT & Software

Programs That Get Commissioned — and the Metric for Each

ERP or CRM Migration

Cloud Migration and Operating Model

Process Digitalization in the Core Business

Data Platform and Reporting

From Digital Strategy to ERP Migration: Frequently Requested Profiles

From Baseline Assessment to Routine Operations: How the Work Runs

1. Baseline Assessment

2. Target State and Priorities

3. Technology and Architecture

4. Enabling the Organization

5. Delivery With Accountability

6. Measure the Effect and Hand Over

What Digital Transformation Consulting Costs: Daily Rates and Budgeting

The Gap Between Digitally Led and Trailing Companies Keeps Widening

40%

2 Years

81%

Frequently Asked Questions About Digital Transformation Consulting

Excellent. We are not the only ones who think so.

Let’s talk about your transformation project.