Forte Partners launches expanded analytics offering in the Middle East

The former EY recruits and founders of analytics consultancy Forte Partners have launched an expanded service portfolio in the Middle East.

Istanbul-based analytics consultancy Forte Partners – led by the co-founders of 2016 Ernst & Young acquisition Forte Consultancy – has launched an expanded service portfolio in the Middle East in a bid to accelerate the regional adoption of analytics, with the four provisions – named ‘firestarters, gearshifters, pathfinders and trailblazers’ – targeting varying levels of analytics maturity in the local market.

With a focus on functional excellence, customer experience analytics, robotics decision automisation, and data optimisation, Forte Partners by way of explanation provides ready-made assets for common business problems (firestarters), customisable blueprints for high performing analytics operations (gearshifters), innovative analytics tool for a competitive advantage (trailblazers), and analytics consulting for niche and complex requirements (pathfinders).

“We’re excited to work with industry leaders and disruptors wherever analytics can make effective, long-lasting change. With access to a flood of information and numerous stand-alone AI technologies, organisations need, more than ever, clear guidance on what will support their business goals,” said Forte’s Technology & Solutions Partner Berkin Ozmen. “We are here to make that happen and take them through the finish line.”Ozmen, together with Forte Consulting Services Partner Utku Sarioz, established Forte Partners after departing EY last year, having joined the Big Four professional services firm as associate partners following its purchase of their former company Forte Consultancy in 2016 – in a deal which was said at the time to have created the region’s largest practice for customer experience, analytics, digital transformation and marketing intelligence.

While former Forte Consultancy managing partner Ali Pirinccioglu has stayed on as a partner with EY, now serving as its Strategy & Customer Advisory leader for the Middle East and North Africa, Ozmen and Sarioz are joined in the Forte Partners venture by Innovation & Design partner Mine Bayrak Ozmen, who crossed from a strategy and customer advisory director role at EY and was formerly Forte Consultancy’s head of group analytics.

“We’d like to think there’s something for everybody”, she said of the Forte Partners portfolio. “Our goal is to come up with creative and effective ways to boost analytics capabilities and adoption. From a quick fix to organisational change, expert advisory, or cutting edge tool implementation, we identify what’s best for each client and put it in motion”. In a press release, the firm added that it also plans on expanding its collaborative network of vendors to complement their in-house solutions.

Headquartered in Turkey, the consulting firm boasts of decades of experience managing large scale transformations and one-of-a-kind high impact delivery projects in more than 15 countries across the Middle East, Europe, Africa and US, its consultants having served clients in numerous industries, including the finance, telecoms, retail, hospitality, e-commerce and government sectors. Prior to establishing Forte Consultancy, the trio served together as consultants at management consultancy Peppers & Rogers Group.