BrazilKonexus Consulting joins Capgemini Invent in Germany
Capgemini Invent has acquired Konexus Consulting, a German consulting firm focused on the energy and utilities sector.
Cyril Garcia, CEO of Capgemini Invent, describes the Germany-based consultancy as a good match for Capgemini’s consulting arm, stating; “The experienced consultants at Konexus are a natural fit in terms of their in-depth expertise, market leading best practices, complementary client base and culture. This acquisition will reinforce Capgemini’s position in the energy & utilities sector in Germany and Central Europe.”
Formerly known as Capgemini Consulting, Capgemini Invent is the strategy and management consulting wing of the publicly-listed French-origin IT services group. In a bid to meet the changing demands in professional services, which is seeing traditional consulting increasingly blend with creative and technology, Capgemini bundled all its offerings in these areas to form Capgemini Invent. The bolt-on of subsidiaries LiquidHub, Fahrenheit 212, Idean, Adaptive Lab and Backelite formed an advisory group with over 6,000 consultants across 30-plus offices and 10 creative studios.
For Capgemini Invent, the deal is the firm’s first since the internal joining of forces, however, it follows shortly after one of Capgemini’s largest consulting deals in its history. Last month the group acquired Altran for €3.6 billion, which added a major engineering and technical consulting capacity to its portfolio.
Germany’s Konexus Consulting adds a team of around 30 consultants to Capgemini Invent, which in the region is led by Steffen Elsaesser. Hamburg-based Konexus, which was founded in 2003 and is dedicated to the energy landscape, supports its clients with business model change, performance improvement, innovation and change management. Among the firm’s roster of clients are energy corporates, municipalities, mobility companies and utility companies. The firm also has a practice that advises clients on sustainable environment topics.
Alongside bolstering its team in Germany – Europe’s second largest management consulting industry at €34 billion – the move according to Garcia enables Capgemini Invent to meet growing client demand. “With the ongoing transformation of the energy sector across Europe, including the formation of new energy ecosystems and smart infrastructure, we are seeing a high demand for our innovation, strategy and transformation services to help our clients build their businesses of tomorrow.”
Guido Wendt, Managing Director of Konexus Consulting, said the move will allow his team to broaden its portfolio, by among other areas tapping into Capgemini’s end-to-end digital transformation capabilities to further benefit its clients, with a recent report by Capgemini highlighting that intelligent automation provides a plethora of still untapped opportunities for energy and utility companies. “The scale and breadth of the Capgemini Group and its global client is an exciting prospect for us” – globally, the professional services company has 200,000 employees in more than 40 countries.
Konexus Consulting will be integrated into Capgemini Invent’s Energy & Utilities wing, which is one of the firm’s larger industry practices.
Shopping in Germany
German consulting firms have been a hot target for international consultancies of late. Earlier this month, operations consulting firm ROI was picked up by Franco-Italian firm Efeso Consulting, and German restructuring advisory firm Andersch joined American player FTI Consulting. Meanwhile, last month one of Capgemini’s main global rivals, CGI, purchased SCISYS, which had operations in Germany and the UK.
