Consultant intends to raise turnover by 50% by shifting emphasis from fee income to profit-sharing
EC Harris will reposition its business in an attempt to increase turnover by 50% by 2011.
The consultant plans to reduce its reliance on fee income and boost revenue from profit-sharing deals with clients. It hopes the move will increase turnover from 拢267m to 拢400m.
Despite making a number of redundancies so far this year, EC Harris also plans to boost staff from 3,800 to 5,000 by 2011.
Philip Youell, chief executive, said: 鈥淭here is a growing pressure to deliver profit in a way that goes beyond providing good services. Clients want partners to take a stake in the game.鈥�
As a result, the company will form more joint ventures and partnerships in areas such as strategic consultancy and asset and facilities management.
The turnover contribution of profit-sharing deals is expected to increase from 10% to 40% and Youell said margins could double under such schemes. In the year ended 30 April 2008 the company made a margin of 13.5% and pre-tax profit of 拢36.2m.
Next week the company will unveil a new brand to coincide with the rethink. Its new company slogan will be 鈥淏uilt asset consultancy鈥�.
David Sparrow, head of client solutions, said the corporate real estate, retail, and industry sectors were particularly open to the new model. He said: 鈥淭aking a stake in the life-cycle of built assets means we will increasingly move onto the patch of companies like CB Richard Ellis, Jones Lang LaSalle and DTZ.鈥�
The company said it will look at acquiring specialist companies as part of its growth plan.
1 Readers' comment