BCG Platinion off to a flying start in the UK, says Andreas Rindler
BCG now commands global revenues of over $6 billion, having booked double-digit growth for the past four years, and is keen to grow its headcount across multiple nations in order to consolidate this progress. In a bid to tap into growing demand for digital transformation services, BCG is globally investing strongly in its digital and technology subsidiary, BCG Platinion. In the UK, BCG Platinion has made an excellent start since launching 18 months ago, says the firm’s Managing Partner Andreas Rindler.
BCG Platinion is the IT architecture and solutions unit of The Boston Consulting Group, one of the globe’s foremost strategy consultancies, together with McKinsey & Company and Bain & Company; a trio otherwise known as the MBB. BCG Platinion sits alongside several other business units BCG has established to broaden its multidisciplinary offering globally. These including BCG Digital Ventures, its digital innovation, incubation and investment arm; and BCG Gamma, an advanced analytics and data science service.
The world-wide roll-out of BCG Platinion has been accompanied by impressive results by BCG. Last year the firm booked double-digit growth for its fourth successive year, reaching a revenue of $6.3 billion. BCG Platinion specialises in the development and implementation of business-critical IT architecture and solution, so it came as little surprise that in his commentary on the results, CEO Rich Lesser earmarked digital and advanced analytics as key drivers for growth. According to Andreas ("Andi") Rindler, Head of BCG Platinion’s London operations, the firm’s focus on big data and analytics has played a large part in this.
Elaborating on keystone projects in this regard, Rindler said, “There are quite a number of remarkable projects we have supported in recent months. Two good examples are an insurance clients where we designed and built the data lake which was the basis for an analytics use case. With the new insights the client could improve significantly their service offering and the customer experience. The other example was a migration of a life insurance policy portfolio. This is probably one of the most complicated projects to do as the parameters and data are partially in plain text, but the investment results of the old and new calculation engines need to be exactly the same. Here, we use AI methodologies to significantly reduced the migration time of the policies.”
Ridler has been at the reins of BCG Platinion in the UK for 1,5 year now, having joined in 2017 from BearingPoint, where he had reached the rank of Partner over an 11 year tenure at the European consultancy. Ridler’s current role sees him working to grow BCG Platinion’s UK practice by hiring and developing talented IT consultants, solution architects and engineers, who are looking to work with cutting edge technology for key clients in financial services, TMT, energy, utilities and consumer goods sectors.
“We have been off to flying start in the UK,” Riddler said, when asked about his first 18 months at the helm of Platinion in Britain. He added, “There is a lot of penned up demand from our clients for Platinion services like IT legacy modernisation, digital & data platforms and agile transformation. Although my initial focus was on building the foundations of the UK practice and rapidly hiring top digital, data and technology talent, we were already able to win a couple of high profile projects early on which tested our regional and global staffing and delivery model.”
Riddler is keen to emphasise the collective nature of Platinion’s achievements, as well as how they are complemented by individual talent. He said, “I had great support from our other practices and we quickly started to deliver real client value, which was the best proof point for starting the UK business in the first place and confirmation for me personally that I had made the right decision to join BCG and Platinion. We have ambitious growth plans but it’s amazing to see what a few dedicated individuals can do when they come together as a team.”
BCG Platinion’s growth
The firm’s UK Managing Director also highlighted a number of advantages which he believes help BCG Platinion stand out amid crowded segments including architecture design, cybersecurity and big data. Understandably, first and foremost, Platinion works hand in hand with its parent firm BCG, giving clients direct access to talent from one of the world’s top three strategy consultancies – meaning that while Platinion may be relatively small, it possesses a clout that few other IT and architecture solutions outfits. Riddler referenced Platinion’s recent work with BCG’s traditional strategy teams, as well as with other offerings including design (MAYA) and venturing (BCG Digital Ventures) to illustrate this. He stated, “It is a one team approach where we identify the necessary skills for the project and then compose the team accordingly.”
However, complimenting this, Platinion retains independence from any solution provider, meaning that the firm can end-to-end with no conflict of interests help client select the right solution for a particular business problem. The firm further can tap into BCG’s wealth of tools and best practices, including methodologies for Agile working.
“The top talent wants to work on the things that really matter and can move the needle for our clients, the industry and ultimately customers and society.”
– BCG Platinion UK Managing Partner Andi Rindler
Another part of BCG Platinion’s success is in its ability to enter new markets, and successfully compete for talent within them. The firm first launched in Germany in 2000, and since the Millennium, it has been working to spread its footprint across all the major consulting markets of the world – arriving in the world’s largest consulting industry of the US in 2014, and neighbouring market Canada in 2016. One year later, BCG Platinion launched in the UK, France, and the Netherlands. The company also boasts presences in the Asia Pacific region, and across its footprint now boasts a team of around 350 consultants. Looking forward, BCG Platinion is working to grow its headcount by “double digits”, confirmed Ridler.
With a pricing premium resulting from a talent shortage in technology related work, many of the top IT professionals are eyeing positions in the tech sector or start-up scene. In spite of this, Riddler believes that BCG Platinion remains an attractive employer for top talent in the UK. “While we can offer a unique opportunity to build up a new business, BCG Platinion is back backed by a large, established firm which offers a lot of benefits in terms of resources, professional support services and sustainable funding, providing our people with the best of both worlds!”
However, Platinion’s pull is chiefly thanks to its participation in major and high impact projects. Riddler explained, “The top talent wants to work on the things that really matter and can move the needle for our clients, the industry and ultimately customers and society. BCG is widely recognised as one of the few firms that can credibly deliver strategic business change at large scale by drawing on an awesome set of cross industry insights & expertise, and a deep pool of strategists, data scientists and technology experts to create sustainable value.”
Related: Interview with Ties Carbo, a Senior Consultant at BCG Platinion in Western Europe.
