May 10, 2021
As you have likely read, effective today, we have signed an agreement and formed an alliance with Wavestone.
As part of the agreement, we are transferring our Consulting practice to Wavestone, and as we do this, we are also forming an alliance. With the alliance, Wavestone will be our exclusive partner in North America, and our former consulting colleagues will have privileged access to Everest Group’s research analysts, published research, and Everest Group Market Intelligence – accessing a similar level of content that was available prior to the acquisition.
All good stuff.
But I would be disingenuous if I didn’t acknowledge that this decision was emotionally fraught.
From a personal perspective, the Consulting practice was a quick second iteration of the company that I founded in 1991. That’s nearly thirty years of blood, sweat, and tears – the majority which were happy ones – developing and growing a consulting practice to help companies extract the value from the sourcing of services and digital transformation. The most valuable asset of that practice was and is the people – and, of course, that’s where emotion enters the picture.
It’s been thirty years of friendships — watching people progress in their careers, some moving on to other opportunities, others retiring, and new consultants coming onboard each year. Their individual and collective ambition and intelligence – and willingness to challenge me – made the practice what it is and helped shape me professionally and more importantly personally.
This brings me to the number one reason why the agreement is one of the best things to happen in 2021:
#1 – This is in the best interest of our consultants. Moving to Wavestone gives them a bigger field to play within, while working on potentially larger, more complex projects. As employees of Wavestone, our consultants will have broader advisory resources to draw upon on behalf of their clients.
Wavestone, headquartered in Paris and listed on Euronext, is one of the leading independent consulting firms in France and has offices in New York, Philadelphia, London, Hong Kong, Brussels, Geneva, Luxembourg, and Casablanca. It employs 3,300 staff and generates sales of approximately €420 million and has an ambitious international growth strategy that is particularly focused on two geographies—the UK and North America.
Wavestone values the expertise that our consultants have to offer and believes the team will play an integral role in helping it expand its areas of expertise, scale its resources, and pursue further growth opportunities in North America. It also shares Everest Group’s commitment to delivering unparalleled service and to being a great place for exceptional people to work.
So, objectively, Wavestone provides a great home and career path for our consultants.
#2 Consulting clients will benefit from the agreement. Our consulting practice has grown rapidly over recent years, and our Fortune 500 and other clients have asked us to broaden and deepen the services that we provide. As a public company, Wavestone is well-positioned to provide the investment this requires, and Wavestone will provide a broader set of consulting services to these clients. In short, clients will benefit from Wavestone providing more investment and more access to skills.
#3 The move is in the best interest of Everest Group’s Research practice and its clients – current and future. This move allows us to place all our investment into our fast-growing research practice. This singular operating model and focus allows us to respond to the market demand to expand and deepen our offerings – while staying committed to our focus on strategic IT, business process, and engineering services. We have recently expanded our coverage in life sciences, talent, and pricing. We just added coverage of marketing services and impact sourcing and sustainability. Our ever-expanding portfolio of expertise is highly differentiated, and we look forward to growing it further.
Our clients tell us that it’s this focus in the services segment that provides the value that they seek – and why they consider it an upgrade from alternatives in the market.
So, we enter the future with a refined focus and expanded opportunities, new but familiar partners, and excitement beyond measure about how we’ll more fully guide clients in their journeys.
For your consulting needs related to your technology and business process optimization and sourcing challenges, please reach out to our exclusive Consulting partner in North America, Wavestone.
Contact Wavestone for support with your technology and business process optimization, sourcing challenges, and all your digital transformation needs.
