A Consulting Firm from Tel Aviv Comes to Milan

Tefen has acquired VC to expand its presence in Central Europe and its activities in the strategic consulting practice.

A new international player in the consulting practice has landed in Italy. Its name is Tefen Management Consulting, an Israeli firm with 400 employees in the US, London, and Tel-Aviv, and a turnover that is projected to reach € 60 M. The firm is growing fast, particularly on the global scale (the second quarter of 2007 witnessed a 49% growth compared with the same period of last year).
In October 2007 Tefen acquired VC, a boutique firm founded and managed by Alessandro di Fiore. The firm has an annual turnover of € 7 M and employs about 40 consultants stationed in Milan and Munich.

VC's partners, Kiwi II and 3i, which held 40% of its shares, are leaving the firm, while Alessandro di Fiore, who held the majority of the shares, will give up on it, remaining with a small part of the shares and a marketing position in the new firm - Tefen Venture Consulting. He will also be responsible for the entire strategic consulting practice of the Tefen group.

In the industry terms, the action reflects a further diversification of Tefen Israel, which is currently focused on operations optimization with Six Sigma and Lean Production tools. VC specializes in business strategy, and has a particular strength in the Blue Ocean strategic consulting developed by Insead.

This integration has a geographic bonus. Tefen will expand its presence in Central Europe, which has been less prominent until now. According to Alessandro di Fiore, "...there will be knowledge sharing, and we will be utilizing Tefen's capacities and human capital, bringing them reinforced to the US and the UK."

Tefen is traded on the TASE. Apart from individual shareholders (30%) and founders, among whom is Aaron Lichtenstein, CEO of the Tefen group, the firm has a partner holding 30% of its shares - the Baran group, which has an annual turnover of $ 260 M in the engineering practice.

Among Tefen's clients, led by Aaron Lichtenstein, are several pharmaceutical (Pfizer, Cisu, Serono), banking (the Royal Bank of Scotland, ING, Abn Amro) and transportation giants (Virgin, London Underground).

Tefen registered an avalanche of acquisitions in 2007, locally and globally. For example, it acquired the Severn group in the UK, which specializes in project management - an action reflecting a golden turn after a few lean years.

Alessandro di Fiore also pointed out that the consulting practice growth pace has been two or even three times faster that the pace of economic growth. Di Fiore published the Italian version of the Harvard Business Review about a year ago (via the StrategiQs) in addition to his consulting activities. It is not accidental that the media and entertainment sector is capturing a significant position in VC's consulting practice. Among the firm's clients are Eni, Erg, Basf, and Basel. As part of its activities, the firm has been working on the Milano Expo 2015 project supporting the budgetary preparations of the event.