BearingPoint opens office in Timisoara, 3rd in Romania
BearingPoint has opened an office in Timisoara, its third office in Romania. Building on the local ramp-up, the European origin consultancy aims at growing its Romanian business by 40% next year.
With over 3,500 consultants, BearingPoint is one of the globe’s largest management and IT consulting firms. Over the past six years the consultancy has under the leadership of the German Peter Mockler – who currently runs his third term as Global Managing Partner – booked strong growth, growing its revenues to approximately €560 million from €441 million in 2009, the year when the EMEA business completed its management buyout.
Nine years ago BearingPoint entered the Romanian market, and since then the firm has expanded its on-the-ground footprint strongly to a team of more than 250 consultants in Bucharest and Sibiu. On the back of an acceleration in growth over the past three years – headcount has grown by a staggering 40% year-on-year – the Netherlands headquartered firm has decided to expand its wings into a third city: Timisoara, with a population of more than 300,000 inhabitants the third most populous city in the country.
The Timisoara hub will mainly serve clients in the financial services sector, supporting among others banks, insurance companies and supervisors. From a functional perspective the focus will be on regulatory reporting and finance projects. Recruitment for consultants has already kicked-off, says Marcel Nickler, Regional Leader for Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Italy and Romania. “Entering the Romanian market has proved to be a real success for us, we have developed a strong brand and are an employer of choice. We strive to hire the most talented consultants in Timisoara.”
The new office will collaborate closely with other BearingPoint country organisations in the region, including Ukraine (opened in April 2013), Austria and Italy, and work together with the Banking, Capital Markets (both headed by Robert Wagner), and Insurance (led by Matthias Höhne) industry practices. “Cross-country and cross-cultural management and teaming is part of our one-firm agenda, hence we live this philosophy also on a regional level,” comments Nickler.
Looking ahead, Christian Gurny, Country Leader of BearingPoint Romania, says the outlook is bright. The Romanian operations currently books a revenue of €10 million, and foresees growth of 40% for 2016.
Financial services thought leadership
In recent months Consultancy.uk featured three research studies released by BearingPoint’s financial services practice. One study revealed that the Islamic finance market is expected to grow to $3 trillion by 2018, while another highlighted the growing importance of collaboration between banks and start-ups / fintech ventures. The third article looks into operational best practices in the insurance industry, finding that adaptive and agile insurers significantly outperform peers.
