BearingPoint records solid revenue growth despite transition year

28 March 2019 Consultancy.uk

BearingPoint has enjoyed a year of consistent growth, despite going through a number of transitions in 2018. Alongside the installation of Kiumars Hamidian as the firm’s leader, BearingPoint also launched a new office in Luxembourg and integrated two firms into its make-up. The consulting firm recorded 4% growth globally, while outpacing the UK and Ireland management consulting market with its growth in the region.

In 2017, data released by BearingPoint, one of the largest European-origin consultancies that traces its roots back to KPMG Consulting, showed that the firm had outpaced the consulting industry for two consecutive years. Following 10% growth in 2016, BearingPoint added another 12% to its total fee income in 2017. While the consultancy saw its level of global expansion slow considerably in the following year, it still saw a respectable increase in its revenue over 2018. BearingPoint saw growth of 4% to see its fee income hit a record €739 million.

With analytics firm Statista having estimated growth of 4% for the global management consulting market in 2018, this places BearingPoint's results squarely on the level with the broader industry. At the same time, when only considering the firm’s core consulting business, the firm was further ahead of the market, recording 6% growth. The firm’s software solutions business grew slightly slower than in previous years, however, lowering the firm’s overall growth rate.BearingPoint records solid revenue growth despite transition year

BearingPoint saw especially promising developments in its core European territory during the last year. Alongside the FBA region (France, Benelux, Africa) – where it opened a new Luxembourg office and made a strategic move to acquire Inpuls, doubling the size of its Belgian presence – the firm’s UKI wing (United Kingdom, Ireland) stood out with strong growth. A release from BearingPoint stated the UKI arm was “far above the market average”, though it did not specify by how much. 2018 saw growth of 5.6% for the UK consulting market, slowing considerably on 2017 levels in the shadow of Brexit uncertainty.

James Rodger, Partner and UKI Regional Lead commented, “The UKI region performed extremely well in 2018, with both the UK and Ireland significantly outpacing market growth. Our strategy to focus on specific industry sectors has contributed to this success, with Ireland seeing growth in financial services and healthcare, and the UK growing in retail and automotive… Our continued investment in both our client and our employee value propositions has not only supported growth financially, but also contributed to our attractiveness as an employer, with a 17% increase in employees across the region.”

BearingPoint remained strongly profitable, despite going through a year of continuous change. In the UK, this was the first full year of results since the integration of LCP Consulting within BearingPoint, but this contributed to strong growth in supply chain and operations engagements.

Further to this, the firm underwent a key change at the top, as long-time Managing Partner Peter Mockler stood aside for veteran executive Kiumars Hamidian to take up the office in September. Hamidian updated the strategy to navigate the firm through 2025, focusing on markets, portfolio and people for the future.

Commenting on the results, Hamidian said, “I am proud to report that we were able to continue our path of sustainable and profitable growth in 2018 and reached the highest revenue ever. It’s also fair to say that 2018 was a year of transition, not only because we had a well-prepared change in leadership, but also because we started to make adjustments to our long-term strategy. The execution of this strategy will allow for more success and further growth in the upcoming years.”

Related: BearingPoint's CEO Peter Mockler reflects on the firm’s bumper 2017 year.

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