Detecon Alumni today: Silvester Schmidt

I had been with Diebold since 2000, and after the merger I remained with Detecon until 2004. Initially, I was a Senior Consultant, later a Managing Consultant and Assignment Partner. A major part of my work flowed into the TIMElabs, where a kind of future research went on.

The merger of Diebold and Detecon was a fascinating period; this was when I first experienced up close what it means to bring different cultures together. I continue to draw on this experience even today because the introduction of agile structures is always tied to a cultural transformation.

As far as content goes, there was a series of extensive projects between 2001 and 2003 during which we had the chance to think ahead about the future of the information and telecommunications sector. The incredible part of this is that most of our predictions have come true.

I have been working as a freelance consultant since leaving Detecon. Even today, I connect the so-called hard topics of strategy, innovation, and technology with the people in the company. This is becoming increasingly important as digital transformation advances. For several years now, my focus has been on the creation of agile swarm organization. You can find out more about this here: www.schwarmorganisation.de (only in german)

I always found Detecon to be fair. We also enjoyed a certain degree of personal freedom in our choice of topics and our decisions about the ways we wanted to work. This was something that could not necessarily be taken for granted 15 years ago. I miss the collaboration with some of the outstanding, competent, and approachable people from my time at Detecon.

What three hashtags would you use to describe Detecon?

#ReInvent

#Emancipation

#Digitalization