“It will be no walk in the park, but the goal is to have a turnover of one billion by 2025,” says our CEO Bjørn Jarl in an extended interview with Digi.no. Here you get some of the highlights.
The leading Norwegian technology media Digi.no has published a lengthy interview with our CEO Bjørn Jarl. You can read the entire interview here, but we have summarized some of the highlights below.
Digi.no writes: "Bjørn Jarl has built up a new Norwegian consulting giant in three years with a turnover of NOK 250 million in 2022. During 2023, the aim is to double this, and Jarl believes the company will reach NOK one billion by 2025.
“It won't be a walk in the park, but that’s the goal. It is quite hairy, but we prefer to work with tough goals rather than the opposite. Then we'll see if we reach it," says the serial founder.”
In the last three years, The Cloud People has acquired companies in Sweden, Denmark, Benelux, Norway, and the USA.
Competent consultants the prerequisite for satisfied customers
To Digi.no, Bjørn Jarl explains how the unique Smart Resourcing concept works and how The Cloud People makes sure that customers do not pay for expertise that the consultants do not have. Jarl also emphasizes how important it is to have competent consultants. Today, The Cloud People have 260 employees, of which 230 are consultants.
"You need to have the right people in place to win the customers," Jarl states to Digi.no, who writes further: "The CEO believes that the Norwegian consulting industry is too good at rewarding those who have it in their mouths.
“There are a lot of pointed elbows, which means that many feel that, among other things, compensation for the work they do is not quite in line with the level of competence. Many people talk about skills they don't have,” he says and continues:
“That’s why it is very important to be able to document what you actually can do. This is the reason why we have a grading system with us. The grades go from one to eight, and it is impossible to cheat. Here you advance when you can actually show that you can do what you say you can. Not everyone likes it, but it is the case that if you sell a high-quality team of consultants, strict requirements must be met."”
Documented competence has been put into the system
The Cloud People have established a seniority system that is predictable for all employees. As the consultants document their own competence, they climb the ranks. At the same time, the system also takes care of those who shine more in practice at the customers than at the school bench. Certifications are only part of documented competence. The Cloud People registers all projects and deliveries the consultants have carried out as experience and thus gets an overview of both vertical (industry) experiences and horizontal (platform/system) experiences that also contribute to building competence. This is an opportunity for those who are not "school-savvy" to show their actual competence. The Cloud People aims to have a fair system that sees and documents the total competence of the individual consultant.
“Many of our customers are concerned that we have people who can deliver high quality for many years to come. Therefore, it is important for us to make the job as attractive as possible so that our employees both find the job inspiring and that we allow them to develop further,” underlines Bjørn Jarl.
To Digi.no says Jarl: "In today's cloud market, as a consultant, you must be up to date on every single release, as customers cannot skip a release as was the case with legacy software. If you don't follow what's going on, you'll miss out completely. The right consultant must be in the right place at all times. Developers are put on developer tasks, architects work with system architecture, and so on. When you can have the right man in the right place, you are able to deliver on the strict quality requirements that the customers place on us. Since we have many people who work remotely from Poland, Sweden, and the Netherlands, we can build up very flexible teams for the customers."
Read the entire interview here.