The Continental Contender

Find the Pain

ERP projects are a sweet spot for Atos Origin, which says it is conducting the world's largest SAP  implementation for a client in Saudi Arabia. "It's not like loading up Windows on your laptop where you pop in a CD, choose a couple of options, and off you go," says Vice President, Consulting Services, Joe Edwards, 56, who splits the 20 percent of his time not spent on client sites between the South Plainfield, NJ, office and his home office in Connecticut. "With SAP, Baan, PeopleSoft, or Oracle, there are myriad choices. You're trying to find a balance between the options the software offers and what the company needs to be successful in running at a world-class level."

Edwards and his consultants closely monitor the extent to which companies are willing to change to realize those world-class benefits. "We're adamant about discussing early on with clients that the people side of these projects is probably most important," Edwards notes. "If you don't get buy-in from the users of these systems, if you don't get their help in designing the system or at least selecting relevant best practices, and if you don't go through a structured and integrated change implementation and training program, it will fail."
ERP implementations involve infrastructure deployment, application integration, and substantial consulting (technical, business, and change-management-oriented activities). These projects can last anywhere from nine months to three years, with total costs as high as $100 million. Atos Origin organizes its implementations incrementally so that the solutions soothe client pain as quickly as possible.
For example, when a packaged goods manufacturer enlisted Atos Origin's SAP implementation expertise to resolve inventory problems, Edwards says that his company first conducted an assessment to verify that the problem was indeed inventory. "We determined that inventory was a huge issue, but the actual cause of that pain was the company's forecasting."

If Wal-Mart ran a sale on hair dryers, for example, it wiped out the packaged goods company's inventory. And then the company might decide to make 10,000 more hair dryers a month based on Wal-Mart's massive order. "But the company never knew about Wal-Mart's sale and that the increased demand for hair dryers was no more than a two-month surge before it dropped off the radar screen," Edwards notes. "So we helped with the SAP implementation, but first we helped them get control of their forecasting environment. We locate data to help understand the forces behind product demand. And then we helped them modulate suppliers to fulfill demand while still keeping enough safety stock around."
A team of two to 15 Atos Origin consultants, depending on the level of the client's participation, work on site during typical implementation and integration projects. Most implementations run eight to 15 months. For any implementation, the team possesses expertise in key areas such as distribution and manufacturing, enterprise applications, behind-the-scenes administration, and corporate finance. Another critical component on the implementation teams is industry experience. "We look for folks who have 10-plus years' experience in an industry and, more specifically, in a discipline within that industry — for example, expertise in finance within a high-tech company or shop-floor manufacturing in a pharmaceutical company. When we consult with clients, we talk to them at their level. The consultants our clients talk to probably have been through the same experience and challenges before. They're on the same wavelength, and there is a lot more credibility involved because of that."

Empathetic and Technical

In addition to hiring seasoned industry experts, Atos Origin also brings in junior-level consultants directly from undergraduate programs and business schools. "Because we provide end-to-end solutions that require extensive strategy consulting as well as technical skills related to running and managing systems, we look for a broad range of skills," says Mol. "When it comes to skill sets we look for, I can't be too specific. I can say that SAP consultants, integration consultants, professionals in supply chain and CRM domains, and consultants who understand the business issues of clients in our target industries are always welcome."

Atos Origin wants technical expertise, but not necessarily techies. "We look for people who want to consult as opposed to make things," says Edwards. Dennis Brown, 30, senior application consultant based in New York, originally joined Atos Origin as a programmer but now spends a majority of his time consulting on business issues. "Technical skills mean that we want our consultants to possess a higher level of understanding than our clients in this area," Brown explains. "I don't think that means you need database, operating, or programming experience. It does mean being able to understand the data model underneath these systems — the concept that there are tables that store the data in these databases underneath all these systems."
But Brown emphasizes that a more business-oriented focus on clients must complement this type of technical know-how. "As much as we're an IT company, we still have to understand how our clients think," he adds. "Having the experience of being on the other end of a major IT project and understanding the suffering, uncertainty, and necessary change makes for a better consultant. Some of our best consultants once were key users on the other side of the implementation process. They've suffered the late nights and understand the sacrifices they're now asking clients to make."
A mentorship program helps new junior-level consultants acclimate. "The mentors have been consulting for four or five years," says Edwards, who, like all other senior managers, is a mentor. "I still get calls at 9 p.m. along the lines of, 'I'm about to go into this client's office and I got chewed up today, I don't want that to happen again. Let me tell you what I did today, and can you help me figure out what I should do tomorrow?'"

Edwards serves as a sounding board, walks the new consultants through the company's methodologies, and makes sure that the caller is prepared for the engagement. "We use a number of different methodologies, so it's not as if we throw a junior consultant at a client and say, 'Figure out what's going on here and tell them what to do.' I also make sure they're not trying to be all things to all people," he says. "Consultants sometimes think that they're supposed to know everything. And sometimes the people you're working for think that, too."
The key to addressing that notion, Edwards says, is remembering that Atos Origin is a $2.7 billion company with 27,000 employees and a database brimming with the consulting equivalent of legal precedents. "You need to keep in mind that if you don't know an answer, you can get two people there tomorrow who do," Edwards says. "Or, if you're working on a problem for a pharmaceutical client, for example, you can look up all the other challenges we solved for all the other pharma companies we've worked with."

New consultants eventually graduate to managing small engagements and then large engagements. At that point, they can decide whether to join the senior management group or remain an individual contributor. "You don't have to be a senior manager," Edwards notes. "You can stay a consultant the rest of your life, be looked upon as a valuable contributor, and take compensation paths that do not penalize you if you do not want to manage 100 people." Senior-level consultants become more involved in pre-sales activities, cultivating new accounts, and ensuring client satisfaction. Senior management positions come with greater pre-sales and profit-and-loss responsibilities, and also manage those who manage the engagements.

Will Add Value for Furniture

Consultants who join Atos Origin gravitate to the global opportunities and the flexible but entrepreneurial environment that Mol ensures is executed with a no-nonsense, bottom-line sensibility.
"When we opened our first North American office in Toronto eight years ago, the only furniture I had in my office was a table and chairs," Mol recalls. "I said, 'We will not get decent furniture until we're profitable as a unit.' Of course, I made sure that our client boardroom was professionally equipped and that all of our consultants had the equipment they needed to make money for the company. We emphasize customer focus and shareholder value."
To that end, engagements are not deemed complete until the client submits a reference letter. "We incent people to do that, and bonuses are geared toward that," Mol says. The company's bonus plan also is tied to personal goals and objectives and utilization targets. Since the merger (Atos was publicly traded prior to the union, Origin was not), stock  offerings have been granted to some of the most senior managers in the company. "The plan is to slowly expand that further into the organization," Mol adds, "but it won't hit all levels."

And while focusing on customer satisfaction and shareholder value is not at all unique within the industry, Mol and Edwards maintain that the flexibility and freedom to roam, both geographically and professionally, distinguish Atos Origin from Big Five firms and other, more IT-oriented competitors.
"We're not a partner-based organization, so we're run a little differently internally," Edwards says. "The people are paid attention to a little bit more. We develop people for our purposes and their purposes. We tend to sell the cultural aspects of the company: the international opportunities — although we have more than we can handle in North America — and our industry experience. For example, if you're a senior consultant in the chemicals industry, you're working with five or six other people who have the same credentials. Therefore, you're able to have these roundtable discussions and settle in on the issues and solutions because you're working with the best people in the industry."

Sidebar: Building a Career at Atos Origin

Consultant: Dennis Brown, 30, senior application consultant
Practice area: Hired as a programmer out of the University of Western Ontario by Executive Vice President, North America, Rob Mol in 1993, Brown moved on to a consulting role a year later on an enterprise software implementation project for Boeing. Now, he gets involved in early stages of ERP implementations, focusing on application training and data mapping. Three years ago, Brown's activities became entirely technical as he worked with IT staffs to help them install new software. "Now, I consult much more on the business decisions surrounding the technology," he notes. "I spend half my time helping clients understand how they can map the software to their business processes and about 30 percent of my time working with key users on business/technical issues, such as making decisions about how to use the tables underlying the software. The purely technical stuff makes up about 20 percent of my work." 
Why he likes Atos Origin: "The salary and bonuses have always been relatively good in the marketplace," he says. "When headhunters phone me, they don't have much to offer that I don't already have. If you need something to happen in your life, the company is willing to work with you. When my wife graduated with a master's degree in library sciences from the University of Toronto, New York Public Library made an offer. Atos Origin had absolutely no problem moving me to the U.S. payroll and letting me move down to Manhattan. In fact, many of my co-workers simply live near a major airport, which really is the major geographical requirement for a consultant in this industry."

Atos Origin
World Headquarters: France and The Netherlands
U.S. Headquarters: South Plainfield, NJ
Number of Worldwide Offices: 33
Number of North American Offices: 6 (South Plainfield, NJ; Irvine, CA; Cincinnati, OH; Columbus, OH; Toronto; Mexico City)
Number of Consultants (Worldwide): 19,000
Average Age of Consultants: 35
Revenue: $2.7 billion (2001 projected)
Growth Rate: 8.2 percent (12.5 percent projected in 2002)