BSI sees global revenue rise for eighteenth consecutive year to £473m

BSI, the business improvement company, has announced its results for the year ending 31st December 2017.

During this period global revenue rose for the eighteenth year in a row to £473m, while underlying operating profit grew by 19% to its highest ever mark of £59.5m.

Howard Kerr, chief executive of BSI, commented: “Our commitment to Organizational Resilience has enabled us to adapt and thrive despite economic, social and political headwinds across the globe.

“We have delivered record results as we unlock the benefits of our evolution as an integrated global enterprise. Our financial expansion is mirrored in the growth of our offering and our team, as our products and services reflect the needs of an ever-changing business landscape.”

BSI also secured a record number of clients, working with over 86,000 businesses over the last twelve months, marking an annual increase of 6%, in more than 190 countries.

Expansion of BSI’s range of products and services helped increase average revenue per account by 11% in 2017. BSI’s products and services span three areas; Knowledge, Assurance and Compliance.

Knowledge is made up of standards development and publishing and grew 2%, to revenues of £60.7m. Assurance, covering systems certification, product certification including the internationally renowned BSI Kitemark and training, grew 14% to £337.7m. Compliance, which includes two consultancy businesses and supply chain services, saw 59% growth, of which the majority was inorganic, to revenues of £74.6m.

The company also acquired the Neville Clarke Group of companies in December 2017.

As the UK’s National Standards Body, BSI has been working with the government ahead of Britain’s exit from the European Union. Working with a range of departments (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, the Department for Exiting the European Union and the Department for International Trade), as well as industry and consumers, BSI remains optimistic that the UK’s membership in European Standards Organizations (CEN and CENELEC) will continue after 29th March 2019.

Kerr continued: “As political negotiations continue, it is vital that the UK, through BSI, remains active in the European single standard system after Britain’s exit from the EU. The European Standards Organizations sit outside of the EU, so we are confident that this will be the case.

“We have also closely monitored the negotiations in Brussels with regards to Notified Bodies. To ensure we can continue to provide our important conformity assessment role for our clients, we are in the process of establishing a Notified Body in the Netherlands.”

Kerr concluded: “Our successes over the past year are best summarized by our new financial objectives. Such was our strong performance in 2017 that we have now set ourselves a revenue target of £625m by 2020 – a target that we are confident we will achieve.”