Our Management Consulting business, previously known as Performance & Technology, has grown substantially over the last six years.
In a challenging market we performed well overall, with net sales up by 11%, although results were mixed across the region. The UK saw growth of 17% on the back of a surge in FS work despite a 40% slump in Public Sector net sales. We adapted well to the changing market, redeploying people from Public Sector to FS and embedding them in mixed teams to speed learning and development.
In Germany our business shrank by 22% as corporate clients switched their attention from cost reduction, where we are strong, to areas where our capabilities are still growing. We are addressing the balance of our offerings by recruiting market-leading, experienced talent in the areas most relevant to our clients’ needs. Elsewhere we have continued to grow significantly in the Netherlands (17%), Belgium (22%) and Spain (21%). The expansion of our delivery capability resulted in significant growth also in the CIS, where net sales increased by 57%, Norway 46% and Switzerland 32%.
Segmental contribution declined by 2% during the year, which reflects the significant investment we are making in this part of our business.
To accelerate our growth we launched our global Management Consulting strategy this year. We consulted over 100 clients to understand what they really valued from consultants. They told us that they want consultants who provide real insights, work in partnership with them, and consistently deliver value.
We are still a relatively young business with individual practices at different stages of development across ELLP firms. In the UK we have a broad capability footprint, maturing capabilities in Germany and a fast-growing presence in Russia, Spain and in our other markets.
We are also building capabilities in key areas through acquisition. We acquired EquaTerra, a global outsourcing advisory consultancy, Plexus, a Dutch healthcare specialist, and Xantus**, a UK IT consultancy. These acquisitions, together with our increased focus on forming successful alliances with our partners, extend our relevance and credentials in large transformational projects, such as the work we are doing with Novartis and BT.
We continue to invest in KGS in India, where we now have a team of 145 supporting our practice by providing services such as research and benchmarking. And we have co-developed a number of Centres of Excellence in the areas such as HR Transformation, Cloud Computing and Banking.
We continue to invest in our people. We have rolled out a Management Consulting core skills programme and are running business schools in Financial Management, Business Effectiveness, IT Advisory and People and Change. A third of our people went through these during the year and a similar number will attend in 2012. Recruiting and retaining people of exceptional talent remain among our very top priorities.
*Growth rate figures in the 'Functions' sections are for ELLP firms at 30 September 2011, ignoring the impact of mergers and exchange rate fluctuations (see note 3)
** The acquisition of Xantus took place in October 2011, post year-end