(A screenshot from the Globant ad.) Should I work or should I not? Should I quit for another job or should I not? Should I leave the country or should I not? Companies, too, bathe in the difficult knowledge that their own transformation has to be digital. But it’s all quite difficult. Why, a recent survey suggested that most companies privately admit they have no clue about digital transformation. One problem, perhaps, is all the nonsense spouted by supposedly expert consultants. I was momentarily uplifted, therefore, to see a company aggressively and amusingly mock such consultants’ methods in a new ad. We’re inside a company’s offices and there are actual people there. This seems odd in itself. Everyone is crowded around a man seated at his computer. He’s feverishly typing. What is he doing? “Mike’s about to reach a thousand slides in the new client presentation,” explains an employee. This is most exciting. Mike is getting very worked up. Suddenly, he realizes he has a problem. “Ohh, I need to highlight product delivery,” he says. “Get me an incomprehensible graphic, ASAP!” By now, we’re all with the humor. This is lovely because it feels so familiar. The more PowerPoint slides, the deeper your thinking looks, right? I stumbled into this ad without even examining who was its sponsor. I was too keen to see what the message might be. Here it is: “Enough with the old consultancy bullsh*t.” Yes, that’s a precise quote and who can’t sympathize with the sentiment? The whole ad is very nicely cast and directed. It’s a joy to watch. When consultants come along, their job is to use lots of buzzy words and phrases and make work – for them. Or, perhaps, to offer so-called “solutions” and then disappear when it comes to real-life implementation. But wait, who’s the sponsor again? It’s a company called Globant. It claims to be “the future of digital transformation.” Something chimed in my recesses. Globant is a name I vaguely remembered. So I slipped to its website. “Seek reinvention,” it proclaimed. And then: “Reinvention moves the world forward. And that’s what we do best. We help organizations reinvent themselves through digital and cognitive transformation.” This felt disturbingly like consultant-speak. This felt disturbingly familiar. Indeed, not so long ago, Globant released another ad, one that twisted me into paroxysms of discomfort. It was all about how terrible the world would have been if we hadn’t made technological progress. Deep, that. And not necessarily entirely accurate. Globant’s website seems to be riven with buzzphrases from consultant types – fully embraced by tech companies, of course. Sample: “We want to transform our reality and make the world a better place.” Second sample: “We aim to boost a culture of self-mastery with endless possibilities.” With its previous ad, I wondered whether claiming you’re “a digitally native company focused on reinventing businesses through innovative technology solutions” makes you sound all that inventive. With this latest ad, I’m left fearing that Globant may succumb to precisely the same consultants’ nonsense that it so perfectly mocks. Then again, perhaps the company’s presentations have far fewer slides.
