External Consultants Don't Understand Your Industry

I'll say it plainly: Most external IT consultants don't understand your industry. And that's a serious problem.

It starts with the big consulting firms. McKinsey, Capgemini, Accenture – names that sound trustworthy. Their websites show happy clients who just got "transformed." The reality is different.

These firms send you PowerPoint armies. The partner sits with you for two days, the associate maps your processes, someone crunches Excel sheets. The result: a 200-page presentation full of frameworks that look the same for every industry. Digitalization. Change management. Cloud migration. Same bullet points everywhere. Only the brand logos change.

The problem: These consultants don't know your industry. They have no practical experience with your processes, your customers, your regulatory requirements. They build solutions that look like they fit. But they don't really.

The Other Extreme: The Pure IT Freelancer

Then there are the others: solo consultants, freelancers. Many are technically excellent. They can code, they understand system architecture, they get technical things done.

The problem here is different: They build what you ask for. Not what you actually need.

An energy company calls and says: "We need a tool to manage our customer contracts." The freelancer builds a generic CRM-like system. It's technically clean. But it doesn't solve the real problem: utility customer contracts are fundamentally different from regular B2B contracts. Balancing groups, network fees, redispatch regulations – these are complex business logics that every tool needs to embed.

The freelancer doesn't know that. He builds something generic. You start working with it, and quickly realize: this doesn't fit. Customizations follow. Then more customizations. Costs explode. Everyone is frustrated.

The Middle Ground: That's Rare

What I believe is needed – and what I am – is the middle ground.

I understand the energy industry. This isn't theoretical knowledge from presentations. I've worked in energy companies. I know the headache of balancing group billing. I understand why redispatch management is so complex for renewables. I know how EEG subsidy structures work and which data interfaces connect you to SCADA systems.

At the same time, I'm an engineer. I write code. I build actual systems, not PowerPoint slides.

It's an unusual combination. Many big consulting firms don't get it. They think: consultant = strategy person, not a coder. Too many freelancers think: engineer = no business sense, just code.

I think both are wrong.

Why This Matters

When I build a system with you, something different happens: I ask stupid questions. "Wait, why do you run this process this way?" Often the answer is: "Good question. That's an old rule. We needed it years ago." Then we ditch the old rule and build it better.

A pure freelancer doesn't ask that. He implements. A pure strategist has no idea whether the implementation makes sense.

In renewable energy, this is critical. The technology changes constantly. Your power generation is different than five years ago. Redispatch rules shift. EEG subsidies get reformed. A tool that doesn't understand these logics becomes outdated fast.

I've seen energy companies invest in generic "digitalization tools" built by consultants with no industry experience. Two years later? Useless. The industry-specific requirements were never built in.

That's expensive. Not just in euros. Also in trust and time.

That's My Differentiator

I won't be modest about this: That's why clients come to me. Not because I'm cheaper than McKinsey. I'm not. But because you get to the core faster. Because I don't need to ask: "What exactly is a utility company?" Because I understand which requirements are truly critical and which are nice-to-have.

It saves time. It saves money. It delivers better results.

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You need someone who understands your industry AND can deliver technically? Let me help you build the right solution – not one that fits every company, but one that fits your business.

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