Scient Corp, one of the pure play e-commerce upstarts of whom the major IT consultants are running scared, has opened a London office as the first step in a European expansion. The San Francisco-based internet services firm has enjoyed a year in which its revenue has grown from $10m to a predicted $100m and it is hungry for what it calls the wide open opportunity of Europe’s e-commerce market.
Scient’s entry into Europe should increase the pressure in a region where consultants such as Ernst & Young and Andersen Consulting have so far been relatively insulated against aggressive American dot com firms. Scient chief knowledge officer Doug Kalish is unfazed at the size of the players pitted against it and says that he does not expect to go head-to-head with the consulting heavyweights just yet. Scient’s customers, Kalish claims, are looking for cutting edge technology and commercial advantage. Companies that go to Andersen et al for their e-commerce systems have a different agenda; You go to a Big Five company for low risk, he said.
Scient says it is already seeing demand in financial services and telecoms but expects mobile telecoms to provide the bulk of new European business. The company plans to increase its European presence but didn’t specify in which countries it would open offices. The money for the expansion comes from a Nasdaq flotation in May (CI No 3,624) which raised $50m. Expansion is likely to be through organic growth rather than acquisition, as the company is keen to preserve its aggressive, non-hierarchical corporate culture.
