More interviews, same team? How a consultancy won a merger review
Benthurst interviewed a client’s 20 key stakeholders in person, as always, and used Cartorga’s AI interviewer to hear 60 more leaders with their exact methodology. Promising that reach helped win the proposal. Delivering it gave the client a fuller picture of the merger, without adding consultants to the team.
Key results
- Wonthe bidA stronger proposal: more voices made the offer stand out
- 20 +60Leaders interviewed: 20 in person by Benthurst, 60 more by Cartorga’s AI interviewer
- 0extra hiresThe 60 extra interviews were conducted through Cartorga, not by getting a bigger team involved
The client’s question
A client of Benthurst, a large European organisation, had been through a long and complex merger process. Before deciding on its next steps, its leaders wanted to look back honestly. What worked? What did not? And what should they learn from it?
The merger had touched many parts of the organisation, and every leader had seen it from a different position. A real review had to bring all of those views together.
Depth for a few, or reach for many
Benthurst’s core method for this kind of work is the stakeholder interview. A senior consultant sits down with each person, asks the right questions and listens for what is really going on. This is where Benthurst’s expertise shows.
But every interview costs hours of senior time: preparation, the conversation and the write-up. With a normal team, that works for the 20 or so most important people. Going further means a bigger team, a longer timeline, or both. So most reviews stop at the top layer, and the leaders in the middle, who often feel the effects of a merger most directly, are not heard.
An advantage before the first interview
Benthurst chose not to accept that limit. In its proposal, it offered to hear a much larger group than the client had expected, with the same team.
For a consultancy, this is a useful lever: not a lower price, but a broader and better-grounded project, delivered with the team you already have.
Offering to hear more leaders strengthened the proposal and helped Benthurst win the project.
“In the proposal phase, we made clear that we would interview a larger group than the client had expected. That helped us.”
Benthurst
How it worked in practice
Three things made the wider reach work for the participants, for the client and for Benthurst.
EasyFrom invitation to interview in a few minutes.
No app to install, no account to create, no scheduling back and forth. The AI interviewer listened, asked follow-up questions and went deeper where it mattered, the way a good interviewer does.
- 1Email with a personal linkSent to each participant
- 2A phone call within minutesNo app, no login, no scheduling
- 3A spoken one-to-one interviewWith follow-up questions
A merger review is sensitive, so the interviews were confidential, processed in line with GDPR and hosted in the EU.
YesParticipants responded well, and the client valued the approach.
Talking to an AI interviewer was new for some participants, and a few found it unfamiliar at first. Once the interview started, that changed quickly.
“Once they engaged, participants were satisfied and impressed by how the conversation flowed. It felt like a real conversation.”
Benthurst
The client also saw the approach itself as innovative, which added to the value of the project.
TheirsThe methodology and questions stayed with Benthurst.
Our AI ran the conversations. Benthurst did the thinking. In its own Cartorga workspace, the team set the questions and context and chose the participants.
Cartorga executed the interviews and enabled the consultants to analyse the gathered data reliably at scale, with quotes backing every insight. The conclusions and the advice to the client stayed with Benthurst.
| Step | Benthurst | Cartorga |
|---|---|---|
| Questions and context | ||
| Participant list | ||
| Interviews, key ~20 | ||
| Interviews, 60 more | ||
| Analysis at scale, with quotes | ||
| Conclusions and advice |
Keep the depth, add the reach
Benthurst did not replace its method. It took it further, in two layers. The senior consultants still interviewed the 20 or so most important stakeholders face to face, as before.
For the 60 leaders with supervisory roles below them, Benthurst built its own AI interviewer on Cartorga, set up with its own method and the same core questions, and deployed it to each of them for a one-to-one spoken interview. Because both layers used the same questions, Benthurst could see where the top layer and the wider leadership agreed, and where they did not: one evidence base instead of two separate pictures.
“It allowed us to scale our project and accelerate, without expanding the project team.”
Benthurst
What this means for consultancies
- WinA stronger proposal.Offering to hear every relevant stakeholder, not only the top 20, sets your bid apart before the project starts.
- MoreMore voices, same team.The AI runs your interviews with your questions. Your senior people keep the key conversations and the judgement.
- ProofFindings that hold up.Every finding rests on what people actually said, across the whole leadership layer.