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Thursday, 28th March 2024
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Servicing the financial services industry Back  
As director of enterprise solutions in Deloitte & Touche, a typical Monday for William Dolan is split between planning and managing his service-line, and working with his financial sector clients.
7.00 am In our house Sue, my wife, rises first. Usually without the help of the alarm clock. I don’t know how she does it because I need the alarm, her ‘encouragement’ and a game of chicken with the snooze button to get me up. The next forty minutes are a frantic series of tasks that somehow end up with us all washed, dressed, fed and ready for our respective destinations. I would love to say our breakfast scene is like the Walton’s household but in reality it is more like the Addams family. Later on, Sue drops the kids to school and drives into town. She tele-works and Mondays are her ‘day in the office’.

7.45 am I leave the house just after the business report on Morning Ireland and head in to Deloitte & Touche’s office. I have come to look forward to my commute because about six months ago I traded my car for a motorbike, a 500cc sports Honda. What started out as a mixture between a commuting experiment and an early mid life crises has proven to be a real success. Besides saving time and being flexible, I find the bike surprisingly calming, although I am wrapped up like something from Star Wars. Much better for my stress levels than sitting in traffic. Deloitte & Touche is recognised as the fastest growing independent services firm in Ireland - a couple of my wittier colleagues have dubbed me Ireland’s fastest consultant!

8.05 am My working morning starts once I hook into email. It always amazes me that no matter how late I work the night before and how early I might start the next day, my email inbox always has dozens of emails waiting for me when I sign in. I find my way through the email noise pretty quickly and deal with the important ones. I gather my management pack, synchronise my ipaq and head off to the management meeting.

8.30 am In Management Consulting we start the week with the partner/director meeting. Over the last five years we have grown significantly, both in size and in the profile of clients we serve. This meeting has become an important part of managing the practice. Last week was a good one for my service line, Enterprise Applications. We signed a new client and got great coverage in yesterday’s Sunday Business Post. The meeting wraps up just before 10.00 giving me a change to check my mail again.

10.30 am I meet with my senior manager team. Deloitte & Touche is co-hosting the CEO Forum at the end of the month. It is one of the flagship events of our marketing calendar and requires a lot of planning. We review our specific invitee list, a mixture of current clients and target clients, check the status of our plan and assign the actions for the week.

11.30 am Back to my email. I sometimes wonder how business ever managed to get done before email was invented. I sift through the email noise and deal with the urgent, the very urgent and ‘absolutely must be responded to’ urgent. I gather my Financial Services file and head off to the industry group session.

12.00 pm We set up a series of wide industry groups some time ago. Our objectives are simple, to gather the firm’s collective experience and focus the entire firms strengths on specific industry sectors ensuring we offer these clients a complete service. I sit on the Financial Services Industry Group. Recently we have been concentrating a lot of our efforts on dealing with the challenges arising from the new regulatory environment.

1.00 pm One final check on email, I pack up my bag and on with the helmet. I have arranged a lunch in Clontarf Castle with a prospective client. The primary purpose is to discuss the business case for number of potential systems initiatives and set a date for a follow up workshop. The secondary purpose is to catch-up with an ex-colleague. I have learned over the years that Ireland is a very small market where everybody knows everybody else. It is funny how many times I come across ex-colleagues and ex-clients in new positions. It is also funny how much of our business is still done through personal relationships. Before I head off to my next meeting I call one of our directors, Stephen Hughes, also on the Financial Sector industry group. We have been working together on a CRM initiative aimed at the treasury management end of wholesale banking. He tells me that design phase has been successfully completed.

2.30pm Another short hop on the bike and I arrive at my next client. This client is a large services firm. They recently engaged Deloitte & Touche to assist them in the specification and selection of a financial system. We spend the afternoon reviewing the finance process maps and preparing the Request for Proposal (RFP) document for issue. We also plan next month’s activities and review the best approach to evaluating the vendor responses when they come in. The key challenge is picking the correct evaluation criteria to ensure we select the best system.

5.15pm I finish up early because Sue goes to college on Monday nights. I drop the bike home, take off the ‘Darth Vader’ suit and collect the kids from after school. Usually I get presents from them, typically paintings, or if I am really lucky, plasticine figures. On the walk home I have to buy some cocktail sticks because they want to show me how to make plasticine hedgehogs. We make dinner, a collective effort, relax for a while with a story and then bed.

8.30 pm With the kids in bed, I take out the laptop and dial into email. This gives me some time to plan out the week ahead and catch up on my to-do list. Tonight, I also have some Deloitte Research Papers on the financial services sector to read. Sue arrives in before 10.00, just in time for ‘The Office’ on BBC2. Another Monday survived.

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