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| | set for partnership with
firms like us.”
“Firms like us” may
be a bit of an
understatement as
BearingPoint has some
unique attributes.
Initially set up as a
successor firm to KPMG
Management Consultancy,
it also absorbed a large
number of partnerships
from the old Andersen
Business Partnership.
This makes it the only
former “Big Four”
consultancy that didn’t
either end up in the
world of IT and
outsourcing (like Ernst
& Young and PwC) or
remain with the audit
partnership.
In theory,
BearingPoint is cut off
from whatever synergies
these firms enjoy, but
Costello relishes its
“message of independence
and not being an
outsourcing firm”.
“We not only offer
increased performance
but sustained
performance,” he says.
“Other firms bridge the
operational strategy
with the ability to run
the stuff – we do the
opposite.”
Business integration
is what BearingPoint is
all about. “We pick up
where the strategy firms
leave off,” he says.
“Some firms stop at the
technology level but we
don’t—the difference
between us and the audit
firms is we know how to
run big technology
projects.”
While BearingPoint is
not an outsourcing
player, it does have
centres in India and
China, as well as Chile | |
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| | (where it has a major
SAP capability) and
“nearshore” locations
such as Spain and
Ireland.
“It’s not easy to
build a cost effective
resource here in the UK
– we try to use our
global resources to our
advantage,” says
Costello.
One of the quirks of
BearingPoint’s history
is that the realignment
of the consultancy
industry left it with no
presence in the British
Isles outside Ireland.
A while back we reported
on the strange case of a
global consultancy in
start-up mode, which
Costello confirms is
still the case: “We’re
still in the adolescent
stages in the UK,” he
says. “That’s one of our
unique selling points,
that we’re a global firm
which still has that
entrepreneurial
mentality. In the UK we
don’t have any
limitations – the only
limits are the
constraints we set
ourselves.”
As a result, Costello
says, the UK firm is
“attracting folks who’ve
had it with that heavy
infrastructure and
politics”.
“At the same time
they don’t have to build
everything themselves,”
he says. “There’s
training, there’s global
branding, but they also
feel they’re part of
something that’s
building from the ground
up. We have some
exceptional people, but
our strength is also our
constraint – we rely on | |
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| | these very scarce
resources.”
BearingPoint in the
UK has now grown to just
under 300 consultants,
and will probably add
around 60-70 more this
year, probably at junior
level.
“We believe we have,
more or less, our team
in place,” says
Costello, “Our strategy
has been to go out and
get the top level
resources, and then to
keep the pipe flowing,
build up our junior
consultancy base and
build them in our
consultancy model.
There’s a lot of
high-end MBA talent out
there with one or two
years’ experience
looking for a change.”
BearingPoint is on a
roll at the
moment—Costello says
that the UK firm has
smashed its first
quarter sales targets to
the extent that it has
already achieved 60% of
its goal for the year.
But building up the firm
as a UK brand is still
an ongoing project.
“Brand building is
something we work on
everyday,” he says. “It
can be frustrating,
coming from these 100
year old firms like KPMG
and Andersen and having
to walk in and say this
is BearingPoint and this
is where we come from.
But I think the brand
perception is one of
intrigue—as the firm has
emerged there’s been a
strong mixing of the
Andersen and KPMG people
and the UK is more of a
melting pot, with folks
from all backgrounds.”
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BearingPoint’s strong
background in areas like
oil and gas, life
sciences and supply
chain has enabled it to
build a strong presence
in commercial services
in the UK, with
financial services as
its second biggest
market. It has also
made a strong start in
the public sector, an
area where it has a
massive presence in the
US, and teams are
already working on
developing solutions for
the UK based on this
portfolio.
“Where we don’t have
scale and leverage we
will partner with other
firms to do that,” says
Costello. For example,
the firm works with
Honeywell on operational
transformation at the
production and
engineering level, and
on the technology front
has an exclusive
partnership with search
engine leaders Google.
While BearingPoint
may not be alone in the
areas it consults in,
Costello believes its
positioning makes it
unique.
“We can honestly say
this space is our space,
it’s our core business,”
he says. “Our challenge
compared to the
outsourcing firms is we
don’t have that annuity
revenue – so we have to
think a little bit
harder, work a little
harder and be a bit
bolder. That attracts a
certain type of person.”
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| | By Mick James
Not so long ago there
was a real danger that
consultancy was becoming
a “me-too” industry
dominated by a small
number of big firms who
were all gradually
converging on the same
business model. This
wasn’t necessarily good
for clients, or
consultants, and in
retrospect the slightly
shambolic realignment of
the industry that’s been
taking place can only be
seen as a good thing.
Consulting “DNA” has
been spread far and
wide, and rather than
play the one-size fits
all or one-stop-shop
game, firms are staking
out clear and
distinctive positions in
the value chain. This
not only widens client
choice, but respects the
intelligence of an
increasingly
sophisticated clientele
and their ability to
select the right
consultants for the
right tasks.
It’s a new world, and
one in which
BearingPoint’s recently
appointed UK managing
director Matt Costello
believes firms like his
can thrive.
“Clients have
matured,” he says.
They’re not fishing for
ideas, they know how to
structure projects in
such a way that
consultants can be
successful. The table is | |
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