BrazilQvartz buys BusinessMinds, integrates consultancy into Qvartz Analytics
Nordic-headquartered management consultancy Qvartz has integrated boutique firm BusinessMinds into its analytics practice. The move sees 20 consultants across offices in Sydney, Manila and Copenhagen join Qvartz, as it continues a campaign of global expansion.
Founded in 2002, Qvartz is a Scandinavian strategy and management consulting firm that serves both the private and public sector. Since its launch, the firm has grown out of its Copenhagen base to hold offices in Amsterdam, Hamburg, New York, Oslo, Singapore and Stockholm.
Most recently, the firm’s continued expansion strategy saw it arrive in the Netherlands and India with a duo of strategic partnerships. Qvartz first penned an agreement with Boer & Croon, a corporate finance and management firm based in Amsterdam, before striking a similar deal with Mumbai-headquartered UC Strategy, one of India’s premier strategy consultancies.
Now, as the firm further strives to build momentum, and its global client-base, it is looking to its analytics wing. Qvartz Analytics is a knowledge hub of specialists within analytics and digital solutions, which works in alignment with the core values of the wider organisation. Qvartz having a separate arm for this function draws similarities with many other major strategy players. These include BCG with BCG Gamma, and McKinsey with McKinsey Analytics. At Qvartz, many employees have former MBB background, perhaps accounting for this similarity in approach.
The analytics practice seeks to provide holistic solutions that provide both strategy and implementation advice, to deliver lasting impacts to clients. In order to fortify this, and draw in more clients, Qvartz has announced a new deal to bring Australian firm BusinessMinds into the fold.
New deal
Founded by Danish professionals Hanne Breddam and Philip Parslov, BusinessMinds is an international management consulting firm, headquartered in Sydney. In line with the ethos of Qvartz Analytics, it seeks to deliver value through its end to end Business Intelligence (BI) and Analytics Services and business partnerships, working with clients to build their business value by optimising business processes based detailed insights.
On top of this alignment of values, BusinessMinds and Qvartz have already been working together on a range of projects for some time, and BusinessMinds even has its own Copenhagen branch. As a result, the merger comes as a natural step to both parties, and is seen as an excellent cultural fit. BusinessMinds will now be integrated into Qvartz Analytics, operating under the branding of the arm established in 2016, bringing 20 professionals into the firm from BusinessMinds’ three offices, which also include an office in Manila, in the Philippines.
“BusinessMinds has a unique track record in developing and deploying advanced analytics while we specialise in applying analytics to create tangible business impact and insights.”
– Jens Friis Hjortegaard, Partner at Qvartz
The move will also help Qvartz to further grow its international market place. BusinessMinds has recently completed work for a number of global entities, including, among many more, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia – an Australian multinational bank with businesses across New Zealand, Asia, the United States and the UK – which BusinessMinds helped increase sale conversion rates by some 20% – and Dong Energy, the largest energy supplier of Denmark, which it supplied new reporting mechanisms to.
The partner group of QVARTZ Analytics will now consist of Hanne Breddam, Laura Prophet and Philip Parslov from BusinessMinds and Jens Friis Hjortegaard and Rahul Shah from QVARTZ.
Commenting on joining Qvartz Analytics, Breddam said, “QVARTZ operates on top management level across a wide range of industries, tying analytics to the strategic business agenda. We bring in deep knowledge about data and advanced analytics. Together, we have a unique offering and a unique client network.”
Qvartz Partner Jens Friis Hjortegaard, who heads the current analytics team, added; “BusinessMinds has a unique track record in developing and deploying advanced analytics while we specialise in applying analytics to create tangible business impact and business insights. We believe this to be a strong combination that will further build our position in the market as well as our ability to deliver world-class analytical insights and actionable strategic recommendations to clients around the globe.”
The move taps into the massive rise of analytics consulting in recent years. In 2017 the world’s largest corporations spent $43 billion on analytics, a multi-dimensional and evolving field that harnesses statistics, AI and other tools to identify meaningful patterns in large data-sets. This shows no signs of slowing, either, with more than two thirds of the executives expecting their organisation to increase analytics consulting spending in 2018-19.
Earlier this month, Qvartz acquired a stake in 2021.AI, a specialist provider of artificial intelligence services.
