BDRC and BVA join forces

From left to right:

Ian Stevens (Managing Director and Co-Founder, BVA BDRC), Edouard Lecerf (Directeur Général Adjoint, BVA), Pascal Gaudin (CEO, BVA), Lydia Oumakhlouf (DGA Déléguéé aux Services, BVA), Cris Tarrant (CEO, BVA BDRC), and Richard Bordenave (DGA Marketing, Innovation and Transformation, BVA).

London 8 June 2018

BDRC, the leading UK market research consulting group, has been acquired by French group, BVA.  Paris-based BVA, the third largest research and consulting group in France, has 800+ staff, revenues of over €150m and offices across Europe and in Asia and the USA.

BDRC Group in the UK consists of main agency BDRC, mystery shopping and store observation firm ESA Retail, digital agency Alligator, operations business Perspective Research Services, and Viewpoint, the qualitative recruitment and studio specialist.  Internationally BDRC has offices in Washington DC, Sydney, Singapore, Jakarta, Beijing and Cape Town.

Founded in 1991 and headquartered in London, BDRC Group is a multi-award winning international consumer insight group, working in over 90 countries, with annual revenues of more than £25m and 170 staff.  BDRC works with many leading organisations, including HSBC, CNN, Transport Focus, Hilton, Tesco, UK Finance, Sky, Just Eat and AccorHotels.

BDRC CEO, Cris Tarrant, explained, “While the company has been very successful with strong recent growth, to move up to the next level we need to be part of a larger organization.  It has always been our intent that the company should only ever be sold to a business that preserves and builds on what has been achieved at BDRC and that has a similar culture.”

“In BVA we are confident we have found such a partner.  Our aim now is to bring to our clients the benefits of being part of a larger group, including fresh thinking in emerging areas such as behavioural economics / nudge theory, a scaled up investment in R&D and a more extensive international network.”

There will be no change in the leadership and management team of BDRC and all staff will be retained, as this is a deal based not on cost savings but rather on business synergies and shared enterprise.

BDRC’s key market sectors of financial services, retail, media, leisure and culture, hospitality and transport are an excellent fit for BVA’s sectors.  While there are longer term plans for new services, there will be no immediate impact on clients as they will continue to work with the same account management teams.

BVA Group, which has strong financial backing, has ambitious plans to become a European leader in the global research and consulting space and is actively engaged in building an organisation with the credentials and capabilities to compete for and win the largest global contracts.

Pascal Gaudin, BVA’s CEO, said, “BVA present themselves as an ecosystem of passionate experts, fostering innovation and cutting-edge projects, combining human science and data science to drive their clients’ performance.   In BDRC we see a like-minded group and together we will both progress more quickly.   The acquisition of BVA BDRC is an important step for us as we build our project of a European based global leader in research-based consulting.”

The combined group will have over 20 offices in 11 countries, with their main coverage being across Europe, Asia and America.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

About BVA

BVA-Group is a fast-growing research and consulting firm, expert in behavioural science, ranked in the top 20 world-wide agencies. BVA brings data to life and converts deep understanding of customers and citizens into behaviour change strategies. We operate both for public and private clients with methodologies fuelled by data-science and behavioural science. Our PGC department (PRS INVIVO) is a global leader in packaging & shopper research, and BVA Group is a European leader in Customer Experience research (feed-back-management, mystery-shopping, quality monitoring, customer satisfaction & NPS and ethnography).  More than 100 leading brands use our behavioural insights to provide seamless shopper journeys and design successful new products and services, including solutions from our multi-awarded Global Nudge-unit.

As well as its various offices in France BVA also has offices in New York, Chicago, London, Geneva, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Rome, Milan, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Singapore.

For press enquiries contact richard.bordenave@bva-group.com

About BDRC

Founded in 1991 and headquartered in London, BDRC Group is a multi-award winning international consumer insight consultancy, conducting research in over 90 countries, with annual revenues of more than £25m and 170 staff.  BDRC Group’s businesses cover the full range of research services, from data collection through to consultancy.  Common to all is the mission to deliver clear insights that place the customer at the heart of our clients’ strategic decisions.

BDRC Group in the UK consists of the following businesses: leading full service market research agency BDRC; the mystery shopping and store observation agency ESA Retail, the digital research agency Alligator, the operations business Perspective Research Services with its own CATI centre, f2f field force and the Holborn Focus viewing studios, and Viewpoint, the qualitative recruitment specialist with the Viewpoint Sunbury suite of viewing studios and demonstration kitchens.

BDRC Group has offices in London and St Albans in the UK and an international network of offices in Washington DC, Singapore, Jakarta, Sydney, Beijing and Cape Town.

For press enquiries contact robert.dodds@bdrc.co.uk