Consultancy.eu comments on Humatica’s 20th anniversary

This year, Humatica celebrates its 20th anniversary. From its humble beginnings in Switzerland, Humatica has grown into a leading organisational consultancy to the private equity sector with four offices in Europe and Asia.

Founded in Zurich in 2003, Humatica has since its inception completed hundreds of organisational effectiveness projects for nearly 200 portfolio companies and more than 40 private equity funds.

After moving into the UK in the years following the global financial crisis, last year Humatica expanded its wings into the bustling Asian market, and entered Germany through a new hub in Munich.

Reflecting on the firm’s growth, Andros Payne, Founder and Managing Partner of Humatica, said, “Private equity has grown and industrialised since the firm was founded. Investors are putting more effort into operational improvements to improve the value of buy-outs they invest in. Humatica has benefited from this on-going industry trend as organisational effectiveness and performance are the foundation for operating improvements.”

Contrary to most private equity focused consultancies, which deal with the transactions side of work or the ‘hard factors’ of value creation, Humatica’s offerings revolve around ensuring that the ‘soft side’ fundamentals of change are in place, enabling successful post-merger integration and value creation. “People remain the key asset of any business,” said Payne.

Humatica also supports with organisational due diligence services in the pre-deal phase.

Unique in its approach however is its fact-based method to organisational change. “The unique hard-facts transparency we bring to the soft-factors that drive value creation is new. It has taken time for private equity to embrace the power of behavioural benchmarking to resolve organisational bottlenecks that hinder value creation. However, we are pleased to see that it’s now becoming standard practice with leading funds,” said Payne.

“Our unique suite services, benchmark data and advanced organisational analytics – backed by solutions – enables accelerated implementation of the value growth plan with minimal risk.”

The firm’s Modas tool, for instance, helps its clients measure and improve personnel resource allocations, while the Altus solutions measures and track the behaviours needed to ensure a successful implementation of the value creation plan at all levels.

Humatica’s approach is increasingly catching the eye of clients within the private equity sector. This year alone, the firm added three awards to its roster, including being named Specialist Adviser of the Year by RealDeals, and a leading Private Equity Consulting Firm in the UK by industry publication Consultancy.org.

“We are proud of our growing standing in the market,” said Payne. “Over the years, Humatica has supported the transformation and value growth of some of the best performing investments in Europe.”

While the firm does generally not disclose its clients, known is that Humatica supported ESDEC (a Dutch leader in solar panel mounting products) through a string of acquisitions in the US which helped the company become the market share leader in the United States.

Speaking on record about Humatica’s support, ESDEC chief executive Stijn Vos said, “Humatica helped us collaboratively transform three former competitors in the US into one strong organisation, while building momentum for the business plan execution.”

Humatica also supported the re-organisation and turnaround of IMI’s Precision Engineering division during the Covid-19 era. Despite economic headwinds, IMI managed to turn the business around from lossmaking into profitability and growth within the space of two years, underpinned by a rigorous financial restructuring and operational value creation plan.

According to IMI’s global HR director Richard Burdon, “Humatica worked with us to design and implement our new global business unit operating model. This has helped us to simplify our organisation, reduce management layers and ensure we were more closely aligned with our customers. The collaboration with Humatica was a true partnership throughout the reorganisation process.”