The Senior Consultant Who Can Do Everything – Except That

A Senior Consultant can do everything.
At the very least, everything can be billed.

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This is how Ariba consultants end up being sent to clients to implement a module they know exclusively from PowerPoint slides, legends, and a vague memory of an internal training that once happened. Possibly.

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Naturally, the consultant was sold to the client as a Senior Consultant.
The tiny detail that they have never actually implemented this module in a productive system was quietly edited out — slide decks must not exceed target length.

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Management, after all, firmly believes in a simple truth:
Competence is created under pressure.

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In the force field between customer expectations, budget constraints, and an unrealistic timeline, knowledge materializes spontaneously.
The higher the pressure, the faster it condenses from “theoretically familiar” to “practically mastered.”

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Anyone who doubts this either didn’t pay attention in physics class —
or, regrettably, has no revenue targets.

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The consultant is therefore advised to get up to speed as quickly as possible. Preferably at night. Or during the kickoff meeting. Ideally before the client realizes that “Senior” is more of an emotional state than a factual description.

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This phenomenon is also known as the  Second Law of Consulting Dynamics:
“The banana ripens at the customer.”

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The escalation heat generously provided by the client significantly accelerates the ripening process.
In MBA programs, this approach is taught under the elegant label “Learning by Billing”: learning on the project, paid for by the customer.

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Research is currently underway to determine whether consultants grow a bear’s fur when office temperatures are kept near freezing point. If confirmed, this could unlock substantial savings in heating costs and reduce the need for remote work.

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Why “Just Taking a Look” Is Not Consulting

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High-quality consulting is not based on boldness, overconfidence, and ChatGPT.
It is based on something far less fashionable: experience.

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On projects you have actually lived through.
On mistakes you personally caused — including escalation calls, crisis meetings, and the quiet realization: I will never do that again.

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Anyone who believes you can simply “take a look” and then build a robust solution confuses consulting with sightseeing:

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You see a lot, understand very little, and still feel qualified to recommend restaurants.

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The result is usually a solution that works perfectly in theory, but in practice only under a full moon, with a stable internet connection, and no more than three suppliers.

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If you want quality, you need experience.
Real experience.

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Everything else is an experiment at the customer’s expense — conducted without the supervision of an ethics committee.

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How to Tell Whether Your Consultant Really Has Experience

 

The good news: you don’t have to become an Ariba expert to spot an inexperienced Ariba consultant. A few simple tests are enough.

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1. Ask for stories, not buzzwords

Not: “I’ve done the module.”
But:
Where? How large? What problems? What escalations?
One reference is coincidence. Two are a pattern. Never settle for just one.

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2. Ask them to explain processes — without slides

An experienced consultant can explain workflows freely.
An inexperienced one needs slides.
Many slides.

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3. Ask explicitly about failures

Experienced consultants will openly talk about what went wrong — and why.
Inexperienced ones speak exclusively about “best practices.”

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4. Ask uncomfortable “what-if” questions

For example:
What happens if the backend has already been switched to the Business Partner concept, but Ariba is still using legacy supplier IDs?
Experience answers briefly and clearly.
Insecurity answers at length.

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5. Listen carefully for the word “similar”

A good consultant says:
“I haven’t done that before.”
A bad one says:
“That’s similar.”
Or worse:
“We’ll figure it out.”

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6. Don’t be impressed by company size

“We are a large consulting firm” only means that somewhere in the organization, someone has experience.
The real question is: Is that person on your project?

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You are competing with other clients for the very few truly good consultants.
Those who don’t ask get the learning curve.
Only those who insist get competence.

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If you’re unsure which questions to ask about a specific module, get in touch.
We’ll give you two or three questions (and answers) that immediately reveal whether someone knows what they’re talking about —

or is still ripening at the customer.

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contact@ariba-improvements.com

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