- Ongoing Investment
- Very strong development (+40%) of the WIDE offer in France and Switzerland
2016 witnessed significant acceleration in Micropole business growth. In line with our strategy, Group positioning on high value-added complementary offers continues to bear fruit. The very favorable business dynamic over the 4th quarter as well as the initial indicators for 2017 enable the group to re-affirm its confidence in the sustainable continuation of growth.
Micropole, an International Group in consulting and innovative technologies, specialized in digital transformation, Performance Management and Data Governance, achieved 10.2% like-for-like growth over F/Y 2016. The annual turnover stands at 113.5 million euros, as opposed to the 103.0 million euros recorded over the same period in 2015.
As for the fourth quarter, acceleration in growth amounted to 10.9% to stand at 32 million euros. Like-for-like, the turnover for this specific period has shown a 9.7% improvement. These figures integrate the acquisition of the Chiveo Company in Belgium over the fourth quarter.
A positioning totally suited to the Digital Transformation stakes
The strong growth in turnover in 2016, clearly higher than the market average, incontestably confirms the Micropole Group positioning based on high Value-Added services and Innovation. It fully meets the expectations of corporations for which Digital transformation, driven by business management and IT & Digital management, is a major stake.
The different offers have shown significant progress, particularly in the strategic segments such as Digital Transformation (+40%), Consulting (+10%), Data Governance (+10%), and Financial Performance management (+9%).
The Digital Transformation business, grouped in France and in Switzerland under the WIDE brand, has recorded strong growth. The relevance of our positioning of this offer is manifest from the strong development of the competition which WIDE is now regularly facing from major Communication and/or Consulting firms.
Development of the turnover spread per business sector
In terms of sectorial analysis, Micropole also benefitted from the growing partnering needs of certain sectors for high-value added Consulting and Innovation services, to enable them to take up the increasing challenges of Digital acceleration. Retail mass-market sectors, and more specifically Luxury enterprises, have thus significantly multiplied their international transformation projects. Demand is also growing for corporations in the insurance and service sectors.
Improvement over all countries
All geographical zones where the Group is established are showing growth.
- Business in France (Paris and Regions) has continued to improve over the whole period (+6.2%), the last quarter 2016 having been especially dynamic.
- Switzerland has achieved excellent performance highs (+39%) following the heavy investment undertaken to launch the Digital Transformation business on the market under the WIDE brand, and this since mid-2015.
- Benelux continues the sustained growth begun several years ago (+36%), buoyed by the deployment of the consulting offer which has given an added boost to the flagship Performance Management and Data Governance offers.
- China has achieved almost 9% growth, having won several significant contracts.
Only the related Training business, operating under the Micropole Institute brand, recorded a drop in turnover of almost 20%, as did most of the actors in this line of business .This drop in business is mainly due to the regulatory developments which continue to impact the Professional Training market. It should, however, be noted that the e-learning business continues to progress and should compensate for the drop in traditional training in the short –term.
Business development in Belgium
Micropole wishes to accentuate its business development and strengthen its presence on the Belgian market, which is especially dynamic. To do this, the group, before based only in Brussels, bought a stake in the Liège-based Chiveo company in the 2nd half-year 2016. Chiveo is specialized in Business Intelligence with a pro forma annual turnover in the region of 1 000 000 euros. Micropole has also opened a new agency in Gand (Flanders). Wherever they are established, Belgian companies may now have access to all Micropole services and offers, with the benefit of business and geographic proximity. Micropole Belgium has incidentally reinforced its commercial and operational teams. All of these significant investments made in 2016 enable targeting high growth objectives for the coming years.
Development of new offers
Micropole also wishes to leverage the most original projects to develop new offers in line with market expectations. Several projects based on innovative technologies (NFC, Beacons, IoT,…) and new services sold on an on-demand basis were thus launched in 2016,and these in very different areas (urban traffic management, region enhancement, workspace management,…). The commercial launch of two of these offers will be announced in the first half-year 2017.
Prospects
2016 was thus notable for strong growth in turnover. Significant investment was undertaken to amplify the development of different markets and strengthen existing teams. Simultaneously, the Group has maintained a very active Research and Innovation policy in order to continue anticipating our customer expectations and meet the stakes of tomorrow.
2017 has begun with favorable prospects Micropole. To sustain its growth on a very dynamic market, The Group is pursuing an active recruitment policy, notably in seeking business consultant profiles, project managers and data experts.
«We have set ourselves very ambitious objectives for 2017. The positive focus of our business at the start of this new year, the overall market prospects, added to the excellent suitability of our offers to corporate needs enable us to affirm our confidence in the sustainable continuation of turnover growth», commented Christian Poyau, CEO of the Micropole Group.
