BearingPoint Pioneer Project

We partnered with BearingPoint to create a bespoke programme to accelerate their senior consultants leadership, foster innovation and sustain the firm's growth.

BearingPoint is an independent management and technology consultancy with European roots and a global reach. The firm’s purpose statement ‘Together, we are more than business’ expresses a strategic intent to grow its people into leaders of the future, enable clients to transform their businesses and leave a positive footprint in the world. This vision is supported by three pillars: people, innovation and sustainability.

BearingPoint offers tangible, tailored solutions for complex business issues. A network of more than 13,000 people assists clients in over 70 countries. Follow-through and strategy implementation help clients achieve measurable and sustainable success.

BearingPoint strives to build a strong firm that will have a positive impact for future generations. To achieve this, the Class of 2022 was the first cohort of senior consultants to embark on a year-long leadership development programme with Oxford Saïd. The objective was to develop their leadership capabilities and help them transition to more senior roles as they make the shift from being technical experts to managing and leading others.

Since a key pillar of the firm’s purpose statement is innovation, BearingPoint wanted to incorporate this into the curriculum in order to build knowledge, skills and mindset. In response, Oxford developed the Pioneer Project, an experiential module that combines both academic and practitioner teaching to simulate the first stages of creating a new venture. The project provided participants with the experience of being entrepreneurs by exploring the processes, trends and tools to catalyse innovation within future client projects, as well as the firm.

The Pioneer Project immerses participants in the innovation process, with a focus on design thinking and customer interaction. Participants formed entrepreneurial teams, applying lessons from earlier portions of the leadership development programme on topics including strategy, self-awareness, building relationships and collaboration.

BearingPoint executives provided 12 themes relevant to their business for the simulation, and participants chose the ones they considered most interesting or important. Associate Fellow and Programme Director Angela Adams explains ‘Participants have a hand in the co-creation of the learning process. They are central to the shape of the learning experience and actively determine the extent to which the intended outcomes are achieved. They are able to transfer what is learned into new challenges.’

Designed by Associate Fellow and entrepreneurship expert, Charlie Curtis, the Pioneer Project leveraged Oxford Saïd’s advancements in online education to deliver high-quality hybrid teaching and support learning that aligned with BearingPoint’s commitment to sustainability. This custom design reshaped the simulation from an exclusively in-person experience.

Instead, it included online and on-campus sessions, with online learning incorporating an intentional blend of synchronous and asynchronous components. BearingPoint Global Head of Career & Leadership Development Billie Burns comments: ‘The hybrid approach allowed for teams to come together with excellent input from the faculty at Oxford Saïd and executives from BearingPoint.’

Delivering experiential online instruction at scale (in this case for 150 participants) showcases Oxford Saïd’s deep knowledge of digital pedagogy and its ability to innovate without compromising the quality of teaching and learning outcomes. As Charlie explains, ‘Oxford understands how to strike the right balance between which portions to hold face-to-face and which sessions to hold online. We have a fantastic support team that ensures the online portion is a great learning journey by making it experiential and interactive and supporting it with a strong process.’

The key benefits of hybrid learning for the pioneer project are:

• Making greater use of technology to scale the programme whilst supporting small teams to work at their own pace to achieve the goal of pitching to the BearingPoint executives and Oxford University faculty
• Enabling the Oxford team to work with the venture teams between the delivery of the live workshops by making extensive use of Oxford Saïd’s virtual learning environment
• Providing participants with an opportunity to work in diverse teams formed from many different countries and offices to leverage collaborative and social learning approaches.

The project incorporated the latest research and insights on innovation and entrepreneurship from Oxford University faculty and practitioners in the field. Working in teams of five to eight people, participants developed an innovative product or service for 2025 in the same market in which BearingPoint competes. Each team focused on understanding their customer’s need today and projecting that need into the future. Charlie notes: ‘We encouraged them to be radical and creative and push the boundaries of their thinking.’

The programme kicked off in Oxford with an in-person event that brought everyone together to form teams, identify customers, determine customer pain points and surface venture ideas. Four live online Zoom sessions followed as teams collaborated to tackle each phase of their ventures.

The Zoom sessions afforded both plenary and small-team working. This relied on the skill of the programme coordinators, who managed the movement of all teams with a high degree of skill in the asynchronous learning space. A discussion forum connected the Oxford team with each venture team and enabled them to check in and report on team dynamics. As Billie explains, ‘The Pioneer Project created an environment for diverse teams to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and new skills in innovation, business management, customer experience and leadership, to name a few. Each phase built upon the other to create an expansive learning journey and impressive final output.’

There were major lessons around team performance and communication, which was challenging at times. Angela comments: ‘It stretched the teams in many ways, whilst at the same time provided a chance to leverage the learnings on teamwork from the first Oxford module. Participant feedback showed how much the senior consultants enjoyed the opportunity to learn with their peers and improve their internal networks within the organisation.’

Online materials supported the teams throughout the four-month journey. Participant feedback demonstrated that the templates, guides and documents were clear and useful. One participant observed: ‘The independent learning material was rich in insights and reflections.’

Angela notes that this combination of structure and resources was crucial. ‘The key to online experiential learning is to have a well-structured programme where the process of learning is clearly defined and uses regular milestones as guidance. It also places great focus on reflection to include what they are learning about themselves and about working in teams. That’s a big part of the Pioneer Project experience, and for our client, equally as important as learning more about innovation.’

The Dragons’ Den-style event where all 23 teams pitched ideas to senior leaders in the firm allowed participants to put their new skills into practice while building capability and experience. One consultant commented: ‘The participation of partners in the pitch event shows sponsorship of the programme and was invaluable for participants.’

Ventures included innovations in technology, mobility, payments, blockchain, virtual reality, automation, sustainability, carbon footprint, biodiversity, social impact, resilience, and development education. The firm is discussing whether to continue to develop some of the more feasible venture ideas.

The BearingPoint executive management team were impressed by the quality of pitches and excited to see senior consultants demonstrate potential for developing new product or service lines. Angela reports: ‘They were impressed with the level of creativity that went into each idea, as well as the effort made by the teams to effectively communicate this at the pitch event. It was amazing to see how every team came up with an original idea and demonstrated the potential of the commercial model.’

The Pioneer Project helped participants think about creating new value for the firm. By tapping into Oxford University’s innovation insights, BearingPoint consultants were able to think like entrepreneurs and develop their capacity for innovating within the organisation and the wider marketplace.

The simulation also helped participants build confidence in their ideas and abilities. They appreciated the chance to think creatively and be part of a challenging journey with the support of the Oxford Saïd team. As one participant observed: ‘I am amazed at how many concepts it has been possible to learn, thanks to the business school professionals, without having to perform long periods of training. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to begin this journey.’

This experiential element delivered tangible benefits for BearingPoint. The project provided an environment where participants could learn by doing to test their ability to thrive in uncertainty, demonstrate passion and ownership, utilise the power of teamwork and develop persuasion skills – all core leadership competencies they continue to use today.