Media Information

Düsseldorf/Cologne, November 24 2017. The prestigious "Best of Consulting" award presented annually by WirtschaftsWoche to the best management consultancies in the country went twice, as it did last year, to the management and technology consultancy Detecon. Detecon was the first-place winner in the competition for "Pro Bono" projects, and the consultants were awarded third place in the "Restructuring" category. The teams headed by project managers Amira Zayed and Michael Meissner (both pro bono) as well as Björn Menden (restructuring) accepted the awards on November 21 during a festive gala at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Düsseldorf.

Education for Rwanda and Sierra Leone: In order to ensure the long-term continuation of its successful aid projects in Central and West Africa, the development aid organization "L'appel" (www.lappel.de) needed a sustainable fundraising concept. Donations and financial flows were to be made plannable and stable even beyond the short-term horizon in order to be able to secure and expand the financing basis of many health and education projects. The team of Detecon consultants therefore developed specific measures for a systematic fundraising strategy which included, among other things, a target group-specific approach to private donors, companies, foundations, and institutions. At the heart of the work was also a detailed analysis and subsequent configuration of suitable customer management tools that would organize KPI-driven reporting and relationship management with all donors as interactively and transparently as possible.

"It is important to us to promote both education and strengthen health in countries like Rwanda and Sierra Leone, which have suffered terribly from civil war and epidemics. Our projects are intended to be a jump-start and, if possible, to emerge from solution ideas of those people who will ultimately benefit from them," explains Christoph Lüdemann, board member at L'appel Germany, about the goals of the student-driven organization based in Cologne, Lüneburg, and Witten. Detecon project manager Amira Zayed is also pleased about the growth course of "L'Appel": "Every additional healthy child who goes to school is a great step forward! A lot can be achieved here even with small amounts, so we are all the more pleased that our measures are contributing to stable financing of the aid projects."

Digital products and services for business customers

In the competition category "Restructuring", the Detecon consultants led by Managing Partner Björn Menden won third place with the project "Target Operating Model 2.0". Their task was to further develop an operating model for the development and implementation of a portfolio for scalable, digital products and services for business customers for Deutsche Telekom, in particular the Digital Division of T-Systems International. In doing so, the team designed effective organizational structures, processes and governance that are characterized by agility and flexibility to a high degree and therefore effectively serve as a basis for innovative, digital products and resources. In addition, a new, competency-based approach to attracting, developing and promoting digital talent was realized together with the customer.

"We are very pleased about this award. It was important to us that the targeted view of innovative digital competencies is not obscured by corporate standards and norms," says Managing Partner Björn Menden, explaining the approach. " Digitalization can only work without fences in our heads. Here, co-innovation between consultant, client and employees was lived."