Dusseldorf The management and technology consultancy Bearing Point has long been a so-called hidden champion in Germany. That is about to change – with transparency. Head of Germany Iris Grewe is now giving figures for the local business for the first time. “We are growing strongly and are profitable,” says Grewe in an interview with the Handelsblatt.
In the past year, consulting in Germany increased by 21 percent to 385 million euros in sales. “In the years before, we gave ourselves efficient structures,” says Grewe. Bearing Point is now ready to invest even more in Germany – in people, growth issues and technology. Takeovers of specialized consulting companies and the recruitment of expert teams are also conceivable.
Grewe is the strong woman behind the growth story. She has been managing Bearing Point Germany since October 2018. At that time, the consultancy in Germany had a turnover of 240 million euros.
On her own account, she did what her consultants usually suggest to their clients: increase efficiency. She made the company, which has its headquarters in the Netherlands, leaner, had the accounting harmonized, the processes digitized and relocated various administrative activities to southern and eastern Europe.
Unlike restructuring consultants looking to cut costs, Bearing Point focuses on companies that are transforming and expanding. This orientation is supported by a traditionally strong expertise in technology. Both topics have been in high demand in recent years.
Bearing Point is ahead of Roland Berger globally
According to its own statements, the company is now doing well in German business and politics with 1,660 employees, including 1,500 consultants and 79 partners. 32 of the 40 Dax companies and twelve of the 16 federal ministries are customers.
In order to be able to demonstrate this success, Grewe is also publishing figures for individual markets for the first time. Until now, the company had only given global figures. And they can also be seen. In 2022, the business grew internationally by 24 percent to a turnover of 862 million euros. In 2018 it was still 620 million euros.
On a global level, Bearing Point is slightly larger than the largest German consulting firm, Roland Berger. This generated sales of around 745 million euros in 2021 and is expected to have increased to around 800 million euros in 2022.
The Bearing Point partnership, founded in 1997, is managed by the German-Iranian Kiumars Hamidian. He says: “In 2023 we want to build on the successes of 2022, further advance our strategic ambitions and aim for one billion in sales.”
This should also succeed with takeovers. In 2022, Bearing Point completed four acquisitions in the areas of sustainability, financial services and digital business transformation. Investments of around 300 million euros are planned by 2026. Consulting is therefore also a driver of consolidation in the industry.
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Grewe expects a positive response from the new openness: “We want to be tangible and approachable as a consultancy in Germany.” The consultancy is part of the economy and does not live in the ivory tower. Grewe is now also involved in the industry. In 2022 she was elected to the executive committee of the BDU association.
The manager was born in Sweden and grew up in Liberia and Tanzania, where her parents worked in the Foreign Service. For 20 years she has been responsible for strategic and operational transformation and integration projects at financial service providers at Bearing Point.
Industry giants like McKinsey and BCG remain silent
Your transparency offensive is a small coup. The consulting industry usually keeps quiet about its own affairs and presents itself in a non-transparent manner. The leading international strategy consultancies McKinsey, Boston Consulting and Bain and the world’s leading IT consultancy Accenture only publish global sales and employee figures.
Even German industry giants such as the management and personnel consultancy Kienbaum sometimes do not present any business figures at all. Only Roland Berger offers transparency.
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Market analysts like Lünendonk therefore have to provide an overview with estimates. With the sales figures that have now been published, Bearing Point is among the top three German management consultancies. According to the data, only Roland Berger with a total turnover of more than 800 million euros and a traditionally strong German business and Simon Kucher from Bonn with a turnover of around 500 million euros should be doing better in Germany.
385
Million Euros
Bearing Point achieved sales in Germany in 2022.
McKinsey and Boston Consulting are dominant in the consulting market, which is characterized by small and medium-sized companies. In 2021, they each made an estimated turnover of more than one billion euros in Germany, the number three Bain more than 400 million euros. The so-called MBB traditionally grow faster than the smaller competitors. According to a current forecast by Lünendonk, the market for management consulting in Germany will have grown by ten percent to 42 billion euros in 2022.
However, medium-sized consultancies such as Bearing Point are increasingly suffering from the lack of specialists and managers. Without this, some of them could grow even more. Unlike the world’s leading strategy consultancies, they do not benefit from their global profile and global recruiting campaigns. Rather, creative solutions are required in order to score points on the graduate and job market.
There is no limit to the number of vacation days at Bearing Point
Here, too, Grewe goes on the offensive. Since the beginning of the year, Bearing Point has been offering its employees trust-based vacation time in addition to trust-based working hours and free choice of workplace. “The focus is on achieving goals, not where, when and how long people work,” says Grewe. “We want to empower our employees to organize themselves in terms of time and space.”
The number of vacation days is not limited, the absence is determined independently together with the team and the managers. Minimum vacation time is 20 days, but system approval is required from the 41st day, and the employee must be contactable on vacation from this day.
The goal: Up to 400 new consultants are to be added this year. With a turnover of 15 percent, there could be 2,000 employees by the end of the year. There is no talk at Bearing Point of a possible downsizing like that of the big competitor McKinsey.
“We started 2023 with well-filled order books,” explains Grewe. The business structure is “robust” across various industries and the focus is on the future topics of sustainability, efficiency and growth.
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