Profits soar at Cap Gemini
Cap Gemini is now in the FF20bn club. The firm’s end of year revenues worldwide for 1997 grew to FF20.2bn – an increase of 36 per cent over 1996.
Profits grew to FF760m, compared to FF282m at the end of 1996 (including a capital gain of FF200m from the sale of a 19.6 per cent share in Debis Systemhaus). Over the next year it expects to see earnings grow by 16 per cent.
“The FF20bn is due to the very strong state of the IT market – we have started growing in IT in France and Spain. Demand is also fuelled by Year 2000 and the Euro,” said Pierre Hessler, chairman of Gemini Consulting.
“The growth has been helped by the convergence of our consulting and IT activities.”
In the convergence programme (announced in January 1997) the firm has been integrating Gemini Consulting and Bossard Consulting. The integration will be completed in the first quarter of the year, when the firm will announce split revenues.
Since convergence began the firm has won a #400m deal with British Steel – Hessler believes this is the first of many such global deals, and intends to move the converged firm in a global direction.
“The IT work will give Gemini Consulting lots of work in the next three years,” he said. “The UK market is booming and we have booked new orders in the UK, as a group, of more than #100m.”
He points out that while consultancy is growing, outsourcing has become one third of its business, but in terms of global projects the firm has only had two very large projects.
The firm’s life sciences business grew by 50 per cent and telecoms grew by 20 per cent. The firm saw sales soar with its latest offering: “Telco in a Box”, which offers clients all they need to set up new telecommunications systems.
“We are offering mobile services to new entrants to East European markets, who are setting up new telecoms systems,” Hessler said. “We are also developing some of these concepts for use on the Internet. And the notion of Telco in a box is very attractive to our clients.”