Cases/03 · Scaling
Ciklum is a Danish-founded, US-based global engineering services business, founded in 2002. By 2014 it was a fast-growing technology services business with clients who needed senior advisory and architectural input alongside the development teams it was already known for — and no clear unit, offering, or operating model to deliver that. The technical consultancy practice had to be defined before it could be sold, and built before it could be scaled.
Challenge
Defining a new business unit inside a fast-growing technology services business is a structural problem and a commercial problem at the same time. The unit needed an offering distinct from staffing-and-development, a senior layer that could engage at director and CIO level, an operating model that didn't compete with the existing development organisation, and a sales motion that could land it at scale with Ciklum's largest clients. The organisational shape itself — a generalist engineering organisation — also had to evolve: clients were buying domain expertise, not generic capacity.
What was done
The technical consultancy was defined as a unit — its offering, its commercial model, its operating model. The wider organisation shifted from a generalist model to a matrix structure aligned around build expertise relative to client verticals, so that domain depth rather than generic engineering became the thing the company sold. A sales organisation was built out alongside the consulting unit, and services were defined modularly so that Ciklum's largest clients could plug new capabilities into existing engagements rather than restart commercial cycles. A senior consulting layer was established at director and CIO level, and the supporting tooling and SOPs were put in place so the unit could hold its service-quality standard as it grew.
Outcome
Specialists in less than three years
NPS turned around in less than two years — service quality climbing while headcount grew 11×
Person business today, on the foundation of the revenue and operating model defined here
Practitioner
Simon — Commercial strategy, Operating model, Organisational design, Sales build-out.
Where this fits
This case maps to 'We're growing but the organisation can't keep up'. The scaling problem here was the canonical one: a fast-growing services business with real demand and a structure built for a smaller version of itself. The work was defining the operating model, the organisational shape, and the sales motion that could absorb growth without losing the service quality the unit had to be measured by. The engagement combined an Analysis (defining the unit, its commercial model, and the matrix shape) with Implementation (the operating model, sales build-out, modular services, tooling, and SOPs) — sustained over multiple years.