BCG banks record $11.7 billion amid 60th anniversary celebrations
Founded in 1963, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) is currently celebrating its 60th anniversary. Also being celebrated: an ongoing growth trajectory which has seen the global strategy consulting firm yet again bank record revenues.
US-headquartered Boston Consulting Group, one of the world top consultancies to leaders and government organisations across the world, last year pulled in $11.7 billion in global revenues, up by 11% at constant rates on the previous financial year. While the figures mark a slowdown on the massive 25 percent jump the year previous, the firm has more than tripled its revenues over the past decade alone, mostly through organic growth.
“I’m really proud of the work BCG is delivering to help our clients unlock their potential while navigating through the current unprecedented scale and pace of disruption around the world,” said CEO Christoph Schweizer, who has been at the helm since mid-2021 as the firm’s seventh chief since its establishment in 1963.
While closest rival McKinsey & Company was established in 1926 and in turn spawned A.T. Kearney (now Kearney), Boston Consulting Group’s lineage dates back even further, with Henderson having been a senior vice president at Arthur D. Little, which is considered the world’s first management consulting firm.
The third of the so-called ‘MBB’ – Bain & Company – would then emerge out of Boston Consulting Group in 1973, with founder Bill Bain departing a vice president role at BCG to establish the firm.
In addition to celebrating its 60th anniversary, the latest revenue figures mark just twenty years since BCG first crossed the $1 billion threshold, with the firm having now grown its global workforce to more than 30,000 professionals in over 50 countries – a figure almost equal to the number of its alumni. Last year the firm’s headcount jumped by almost 5,000 alone, and in contrast to McKinsey hasn’t yet made any staffing cuts in response to the current slowdown.
“As for 2023, macroeconomic uncertainty dominates most of the conversations I’ve been having with CEOs,” Schweizer said of the present climate. “Cost management will continue to be critical over the next few years. But so will capability building, scenario planning, scaling up digital and artificial intelligence, and addressing climate and sustainability. We are helping companies around the world to act and make decisions with imperfect information.”
Other recent achievements the firm highlighted included a $1 billion spend on social impact projects over the past decade; near gender parity among staff, including women leading major geographies such as North America and UK (respectively Sharon Marcil and Mai-Britt Poulsen); its partnership with COP27; and the recent formation of BCG X, its 3,000-strong tech build and design unit which aims to address some of the world’s most pressing digital issues.
“It is hard to imagine that what started in one room, with one person, could grow to a global force across 100 cities in over 50 countries,” said APAC chairman Neeraj Aggarwal. “This milestone is an opportunity to celebrate the incredible firm that we are all shaping and building together and I am proud to be a part of this celebration. Since its inception, BCG has been guided by the same purpose. We have done it for 60 years and we’ll keep doing so for decades more.”
“As our founder Bruce Henderson said: ‘We led the way before. We will do even more tomorrow.’ I can’t wait to see where we go next,” concluded Schweizer.