Deloitte bolsters digital offer with acquisition of design consultancy Market Gravity
Global professional services firm Deloitte has bolstered its digital offering in Scotland with the purchase of Edinburgh-based design consultancy Market Gravity.
Deloitte currently has three offices across Scotland, in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen. The firm employs around 600 people, with 32 partners and 56 directors among them, providing a full range of services to businesses in a variety of sectors, from audit and corporate finance advisory, to building digital experiences and solutions.
Disrupting business
The acquisition follows the company setting up their Digital Studio last year and the launch of their in Spring 2017 – the third facility of its kind in the UK, after London and Belfast.
The Edinburgh Studio and Greenhouse offer something quite different, giving organisations the opportunity to think disruptively about their business and their market, allowing them to rapidly prototype new products and services.
Gareth Edwards, Head, Deloitte Digital, Edinburgh:
It [Market Gravity] has operations in London, New York, Toronto, and Edinburgh, and has worked with some of the world’s leading brands in a variety of sectors.
“Expanding our digital team and capabilities is a real focus for the firm, as we look to help our clients develop new services that will help them lead the way in their respective industries,” explains Gareth.
“The acquisition of Market Gravity was a logical next step. It has operations in London, New York, Toronto, and Edinburgh and has worked with some of the world’s leading brands in a variety of sectors.”
“The team in Edinburgh complement and enhance the team we have at Deloitte, and we’d even worked with them before on a number of different projects. Combined, we’ll be able to help our clients re-invent their businesses for the future,” adds Gareth.
As a result, Deloitte have expanded their headcount in Scotland’s capital city. “Across the two teams, our headcount in Edinburgh is spread across design, software development, and a host of other expertise,” continues Gareth.
Capital evolution
The professional services firm have plans to expand even further, with the addition of around 15 or so specialists in the months ahead. But it’s really just the first stage of the business’s evolution in the city over the next few years, as demand for the kind of services on offer continues to grow.
The vision for the combined business is to enable the team to bring the clients’ ideas to life. The ability to quickly produce new services and prototypes makes the Greenhouse and Studio a unique proposition, even among other Deloitte facilities in the UK.
It’ll give businesses of all sizes the ability to turn a concept into something real, finding out what works, what doesn’t, and taking things to the next stage as quickly as they want to.
“From our perspective, we see it as a way of differentiating the firm from the other consultancies out there. Innovation has never been more important than it is now, and we see digital as a source of significant growth. It will also help us develop new ways of working in some of what would be considered our core business areas, such as audit, tax, and advisory, by developing relevant technologies,” concludes Gareth.