On September the 30th, Delaware Consulting will be celebrating ten years as an independent IT services provider. Since the demerger from Deloitte, in 2003, the company has achieved impressive growth, far beyond the Belgian borders and is now hitting the Luxembourg market. The keys to this success are Delaware’s strong customer and results-orientation, as well as its unique management philosophy. “Including vision and a good deal of audacity,” adds managing partner Jan Delaere.

The roots of Delaware Consulting go back 30 years and are closely intertwined with companies like Bekaert, Arthur Andersen and Deloitte. Soon after the management buy-out in 2003, the three partners plotted their own course. In the following years, Delaware Consulting rethought its strategy, every now and then, yet its customer focus always remained key. Today, the Delaware team comprises 850 people in 7 countries (Belgium, Luxembourg, France, the Netherlands, China, the United States and Singapore).

The Sherpa in Delaware
Yet this growth is not what Delaware Consulting is most proud of. The company is particularly happy about what it achieves for its customers. “We have built up an excellent reputation as a firm that tracks every project until the final handover, in close cooperation with its customers and its partners. We like to see ourselves as a Sherpa, who guides every customer to the top.”

Flexibility to grow the business
The solutions that Delaware Consulting offers have been developing in line with its growth. The company flourished as a provider of IT solutions based on SAP, Microsoft and, later on, OpenText technology. March 2013 saw the launch of Delaware Digital, which supports B2C firms in the strategic implementation of multi-channel commerce.

“Delaware Digital was a logical next step, in which we combine our many years’ experience in ERP, mobile technology and e-commerce with new expertise in the customer experience and digital marketing,” explains partner Olivier Verberckmoes. “It perfectly illustrates how Delaware has grown and developed, over the past ten years, through trial and error.”

Setting out the future strategy
An increasingly growing group of partners – 24 at present, one of them being Denis Latour, for Luxembourg – is already drafting the strategic plan for 2020. “Our firm is based on a unique management philosophy: the strongest leaders get the chance to become a partner and shareholder. This cooperative approach allows us to attract the very best talents,” Oyserman continued. “This also implies that there are no external shareholders watching over our shoulders when we set our future course. That’s key, as Delaware adheres resolutely to this constant: we want to keep our individuality and core values at all costs!”