From Greenfield Setup to Strategic Asset
Building and scaling a fully integrated Professional Service Hub in Portugal, contributing to a successful Big Four acquisition.
Between 2018 and 2026, Q Talent Hub supported the establishment and scaling of a Professional Service Hub in Portugal for Qiado GmbH, a Germany based Consultancy firm in the area of Finance Transformation.
What began as an exploratory initiative evolved into a fully integrated, high-performing cross-border unit.
Built from scratch, the hub grew to 27 consultants and reached billability within 4-6 months on average.
27
Consultants
80-90%
Retention
3 Structured
Cohorts
4-6 Months
Time to Billability
Key Lessons
Strategic expansion requires structural patience.
Cost efficiency follows architecture — not the other way around.
Full integration outperforms isolated nearshore models.
Early investment accelerates long-term ROI.
Cultural architecture is a measurable performance driver.
Strategic Rationale:
Why Portugal?
The expansion into Portugal was not designed as a pure cost-saving initiative. It was a strategic response to structural challenges in the DACH talent market.
Key drivers included:
Growing difficulty building stable junior consultant pipelines in the DACH consulting market
High training costs combined with early attrition
Strong interest among team members in working from Portugal while remaining fully active in the DACH market
High academic education levels
Strong availability of multilingual professionals with near-native German proficiency
Access to experienced external trainers for structured trainee development
More stable retention dynamics compared to traditional DACH entry models
While lower entry-level salary levels created
structural cost advantages, the primary objective
was long-term scalability, retention stability, and sustainable value creation.
Initial Challenge: Performance Risk, Not Cultural Resistance
The central business question was clear:
Could consultants be recruited and trained
in Portugal — often with different educational and career entry profiles than those typically seen in the DACH consulting market — developed at comparable speed and quality?
The initial investment per cohort was significant:
Structured training architecture
Mentoring model
Senior supervision
Non-billable onboarding period
The key performance metric was therefore:
Time-to-productivity and return on investment.
Evolution of the
Trainee Program
Phase 1 - Exploratory Cohorts
The initiative began with smaller, less structured junior cohorts of
[3–4] consultants. Key learnings included:
Strong language
capability for DACH
client work
High motivation and adaptability
Phase 2 - Structured Trainee Architecture
Well Defined Selection Process
Structured interviews
Capability-based assessments
Validation of near-native German (& French) proficiency
Motivation and resilience screening
Need for clearer
structural onboarding
The success of the Hub in Portugal was not based on the trainee program alone.
It relied on a number of structural decisions that shaped how the team was built,
integrated, and developed over time.
Across both phases of the program, three elements proved essential for ensuring supervision quality, cross-border collaboration, and long-term performance stability.
Based on initial experience, Q Talent Hub designed a fully
structured annual trainee model.
Each yearly cohort included approximately [6–10] trainees and consisted of:
Structured Mentoring Concept
Assigned senior supervisors
Defined milestone checkpoints
Billability-readiness evaluations
Enablers of Sustainable Growth
Requirement for more formalized mentoring processes
Parallel Development Tracks
Technical Consultants
Functional Consultants (IFRS 16)
Functional Consultants (Finance Transformation / SAP FI)
Blended Development Model
Structured interviews
Capability-based assessments
Validation of near-native German proficiency
Motivation and resilience screening
-
To avoid creating a purely junior-heavy structure, selective senior consultants and managers active in the Portuguese market were hired.
At maturity, the team structure reached approximately:
[70%] junior and mid-level consultants
[30%] senior consultants and managers
This ensured:
High supervision quality
Strong client-facing credibility
Sustainable mentoring capacity
Local leadership stability
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A defining design principle was full integration into the parent company’s operating model.
The Portugal hub was not positioned as a nearshore support structure.
Instead:
Teams were formed cross-border
Consultants worked directly on DACH client projects
Career paths were location-independent
Mobility between Germany and Portugal was actively supported
Transparent compensation adjustments applied in both directions
This integration significantly strengthened retention, motivation, and performance alignment.
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Beyond technical training, strong emphasis was placed on:
Early integration into billable project work
Clearly defined micro-learning units
Active cultivation of group dynamics within each trainee cohort
Strong social embedding within the Portugal-based team
Direct leadership visibility and accessibility
This created a high-performance culture without sacrificing team stability.
Value Creation: From Operational Unit to Strategic Asset
It became a structural contributor to
enterprise value
Explicitly referenced during due diligence
Evaluated as a scalable capability platform
Considered a structural contributor to enterprise value
Its contribution extended beyond financial metrics — it demonstrated replicable international talent architecture and long-term organizational scalability.
Stable Talent Pipeline
Built across structured annual cohorts
Cross-Border Integration Blueprint
Fully embedded operating model
Retention-Stable Engine
Reduced early attrition structurally
Scalable Capability Center
Instituionalized development architecture