This spring, a new consulting firm with an international network has entered the Hungarian market, aiming to become the fifth largest player in the short to medium term, as an alternative to the Big 4 (Deloitte, KPMG, EY, PwC). Moore Global, based in London, is entering the long-established Hungarian consultancy market with a new brand and a team that is familiar with the Hungarian market. We asked the three founding partners of Moore Hungary, Ákos Boross, Péter Hajnal and Gabriella Huth, about their plans, recent events and the specifics of the Hungarian consulting market.
It's not every day that an international consultancy firm appears in Hungary. How did Moore Global come to Hungary and what can it offer to an established market?
Ákos Boross, founding managing partner: The brand is new, but the partners are well known, established professionals. Moore Hungary was established in March this year as part of a global Anglo-Saxon (London) based international consultancy network. A Moore Global is a leading international consulting network with 600 offices in more than 100 countries providing consulting, audit and business services. We are present in the Hungarian market with a full range of services, Financial- or tax advice and all business services, and with audit we are also present.
Ákos Boross Photo by Portfolio
In the past two decades or more, no consulting and audit firm with such a broad range of services and such an international network has appeared on the Hungarian market, with such firms typically entering Hungary in the early 1990s.
Péter Hajnal, founding partner: This has created a Big 4 alternative, which is an important development for the market, as there is a long-standing market need for another strong player that can offer complex solutions.
Gabriella Huth, founding partner: The founding partners have been working together for more than 10 years, we are a close-knit team, we know each other's strengths, we know each other's weaknesses. Not only the founders, but also most of the staff have a very long professional history together.
How do you imagine the international background and the home team meeting? Who finds who?
BA: The clear and clear objective was to deliver complex solutions to our customers across business lines and borders.
There was a demand from clients for this, and as we all have been socialised in international networks, we know that to do this at the right level, with a good client base and professionalism, you need a strong international background. This ensures that we can serve our clients to the same high standard when working across borders.
A our team of experts professionally very strong, dynamic and motivated, which, combined with an international background, will ensure that the above objectives are met. In terms of network, what was considered was a dynamic and growing Anglo-Saxon network with a global presence, which can ensure both professionalism and flexible, efficient and dynamic cooperation. These criteria made the choice clear to me. The arrival of an international network of this quality is obviously the result of a long negotiation process.
HG: It is not a given that a team of experts can be assembled so quickly to cover a full range of services. However, the team has been working together for a long time, so the speed of the process has been remarkable.
Gabriella Huth Photo by Portfolio
HP: We don't want to sell a specific service, we want to offer our customers complex solutions across borders and business sectors. There is very close cooperation between disciplines and in terms of international locations, so globally across the network. This allows us to provide complex solutions that are not typical in the Hungarian market.
What has been the reaction in the Hungarian market to the emergence of a new international player?
BA: This process was essentially a response to customer needs, and as a result we are able to support our customers to an even higher standard and with a wider range of services, but with the same, familiar staff.
HP: Like the Big 4, we have global coverage, we offer the same broad range of services, but I think we have a strong competitive advantage in serving our clients with a more senior, cohesive team and a greater focus.
HG: The strong collaboration between the business lines is unique in the market and allows for complex solutions across business lines and disciplines.
We bring together a serious tax expert, accounting expert, financial expert, and we put together a complex package where we provide solutions across business lines, disciplines and borders.
HP: We have several colleagues who have been working in the field for decades, so it is natural that we have developed a strong professional relationship with decision-makers and authorities. This means that we can be flexible in supporting them in certain decision-making mechanisms, and we are often asked for our opinion on the practical functioning of a piece of legislation. As I see it, we have already transformed the balance of power with our arrival, and we plan to further reshape the Hungarian market.
Péter Hajnal Photo by Portfolio
BA: Our clear goal is to be the fifth largest player in the Hungarian market in the medium term, both in terms of our full range of services and in terms of revenue.
HG: Importantly, we can provide a full range of services from the outset: we offer business services, auditing, financial advisory, tax advisory, accounting and payroll services, as well as outsourcing. In addition, hotel and tourism consultancy is also a priority.
What is the expectation of the London headquarters in this market entry and what are the goals of the Hungarian team?
Tourism is a bit out of the ordinary: why is it a priority area?
BA: We have sector-specific knowledge in this area, which is important because we are the global lead within the network for a group of many countries on this topic. This means that we have a global network of more than 100 countries, and we are developing a central knowledge base in Hungary, a centre of excellence in company terms. This is a knowledge centre through which we are taking complex hotel development projects from the Budapest office to, for example, South Africa, but we are also working on projects in Monaco, Cyprus, Saudi Arabia, Dubai.
Indeed, this is a specialised area where there is a significant market demand and relatively few players in this advisory segment.
What team size is needed to enter such a market?
BA: We currently have almost a hundred people, but we're growing all the time. At the same time, we do not have a predefined target for the number of staff, but we have to make sure that we can maintain our level of service even as we continue to grow. In other words, we always adjust the size of the team to growth.
Moore Hungary
Moore Global, which started in a London office more than 110 years ago, is now one of the world's leading consulting and audit networks. Present in over 100 countries worldwide, the network has more than 600 independent offices and over 30,000 employees. The group's turnover for the last financial year exceeded $3 billion.
Moore Global's services will be directly available in the domestic market from March 2021. Moore Hungary has been offering a full range of consulting services in the fields of business, financial, tax, accounting and auditing with a team of almost 100 experts since its inception.
In our fast-changing world, Moore provides strategic guidance and practical advice to help clients navigate and understand the complex regulatory and changing market environment and industry conditions, and thereby find the best solutions.
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