Mergers & Acquisition Archives

The Capital One Merger with Discover Potentially Signals a Shift in the US Banking Landscape | Blog

February 26, 2024

Capital One’s planned US$35.3 billion acquisition of Discover Financial Services would combine two of the largest credit card companies, creating the most dominant US credit card firm. This deal holds the potential to significantly impact the banking and financial services (BFS) IT services market and providers. Read on to learn the looming risks and what to pay attention to.

Acquiring Discover would give Capital One access to a credit card network of more than 300 million cardholders. If the Capital One merger clears antitrust regulations, the combined entity would become the sixth-largest US bank by assets and a leading card issuer and network provider for the US payments market.

Let’s explore the following four implications of the Capital One merger on the BFS technology and IT services sectors.

Increased deal activity will help banks sharpen their focus on core operations

Macroeconomic uncertainty and rising interest rates slowed financial services dealmaking in 2023. However, S&P predicts regional and community banks will be interested in mergers of equals this year. In these challenging times, banks want to understand the potential synergies of the merged entities clearly. They also require deeper due diligence than in the past, as exemplified by the failed merger of TD Bank Group and First Horizon.

Traditionally, acquisitions were an opportunity to enter new product lines and geographies, gain new capabilities, and achieve cost savings and operational efficiencies through technology modernization and streamlining processes and systems.

Recent banking sector acquisitions underscore a clear strategic focus on directing resources to targeted areas. Banks are divesting or seeking partners for non-core or insufficiently scaled units that lack a distinct competitive edge and demand substantial investment.

Investments in data and Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) will rise

Our analysis indicates that merger and acquisition (M&A) activity among regional and community banks will increase, driven by the need to achieve greater scale. This strategic move is essential for these financial institutions to compete effectively with larger players, particularly as customer engagement transitions from physical to digital platforms.

By joining forces, these banks will be better positioned to develop new competencies in data management, AI/ML, open application programming interfaces (APIs), and advanced analytics, aligning with the growing digitalization of banking services. The merged entities will benefit from larger resource pools, facilitating improved alignment between skills and talent.

Service provider portfolios will likely reshuffle

Discover and Capital One have traditionally relied heavily on outsourcing to two or three major service providers. In mergers, providers with significant contracts with both entities typically stand to lose revenue because spending by the merged entity will not be as large as it was under the separate relationships unless they gain wallet share from competitors.

Suppliers that solely provide services to Discover are at risk of having their portfolio consolidated and moved to Capital One. However, providers who bring intellectual property or a niche capability may maintain the business through the consolidation.

Discussions about increased regulatory scrutiny are emerging, as even the regional banking market is at the cusp of such transactions. Moreover, this transaction can potentially increase competition for giants Mastercard and Visa.

Banks will require substantial consulting and system integration support

M&As spur increased short-term spending on post-merger integration and consulting services. By rationalizing vendor portfolios and IT infrastructures, merged entities can substantially cut costs by eliminating redundant applications and platforms. BFS firms will need partners to devise modernization roadmaps to create long-term value.

Merged entities must swiftly adapt their operational models, delivery strategies, and sourcing decisions to excel in the evolving landscape. Investing in specific technologies and tools is essential to foster growth and ensure operational continuity. Emphasizing core operations becomes a prerequisite as firms assess the appropriate valuation before crafting their integration strategy.

The road ahead for the Capital One merger

Richard Fairbank, founder, chairman, and CEO of Capital One, has emphasized that the merger with Discover presents a unique opportunity to unite two highly successful companies with complementary strengths and franchises.

The Capital One merger aims to establish a payments network capable of rivaling the industry’s most extensive networks and companies. However, the potential impact of increased market concentration from this combination will face regulatory scrutiny.

Providers should closely monitor system integration opportunities, as Capital One plans to expand its 11-year technology transformation initiative to encompass all of Discover’s operations and network.

The new entity will invest in growth initiatives, including faster time-to-market, innovative products and experiences, and personalized real-time marketing efforts. Operationally, underwriting, efficiency, risk management, and compliance enhancements will drive data and technology investments.

We are closely watching the market and regulatory actions. To discuss the Capital One merger and its impact on the US banking landscape, reach out to Ronak Doshi, [email protected], Kriti Gupta, [email protected], or Pranati Dave, [email protected].

Join this webinar to hear our analysts discuss Global Services Lessons Learned in 2023 and Top Trends to Know for 2024.

Konecta-Comdata Merger Creates a Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) Giant – What Does it Mean for the CXM Market?

May 18, 2022

The planned merger announced last month between Konecta, the leading provider of Spanish-speaking Customer Experience solutions, with Italy-based customer management provider Comdata will create the sixth-largest player by revenue in the customer experience Management (CXM) BPO sector. This consolidation will intensify competition in the attractive CXM market, with the combined entity commanding close to €2 billion in revenues and €300 million in EBITDA. Read on to find out what this big deal will mean.

Creation of a global champion

Comdata

Global CXM provider Comdata offers end-to-end management solutions (acquisition, retention, customer service, technical support, and credit collection) in 30 languages across four continents and 21 countries with its network of 50,000-plus agents. Headquartered in Milan, it served more than 670 clients in 2021, generating revenue of approximately €980 million.

Konecta

Konecta, acquired by Pacheco together with the company’s management team in 2019, is a leading tech-enabled end-to-end CX BPO player in the Spanish-speaking markets. It has successfully integrated different companies such as the Brazilian Uranet and the Spanish Rockethall group, reinforcing the company’s leadership in Artificial Intelligence, digital marketing, and big data solutions. In 2021, it generated revenue and EBITDA of approximately €918 million and €148 million, respectively.

Combined entity

Subject to approval by authorities, the merger is expected in the third quarter of 2022, creating a global CXM leader capable of providing the “best shoring solution” to local, regional, and global clients in 30-plus languages across industries such as finance and insurance, technology, telco, retail and e-commerce, utilities, and healthcare.

The combined entity will be headquartered in Madrid (Spain), jointly chaired by the CEOs of Konecta and Comdata. It will serve more than 500 large corporations across Europe and America, leveraging the expertise of 130,000-plus employees. According to a statement by the companies, “the new group has a solid financial structure and will take advantage of its position in Spain, Latin America, Italy, and France to deploy all its commercial and operational capacity in its strategic markets. In addition, it will have additional capabilities to fuel its growth in the North American market and throughout Europe.”

Key drivers of the merger

The advantages of this deal are:

Expansion in Latin American and Spanish markets: The combined entity will become the market leader in Spain and Italy with a strong presence in Latin American domestic markets such as Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Guatemala, Argentina, and Chile. It will have over 500 large corporate clients in Europe and Latin America. The new company will enjoy the advantage of Konecta’s strong dominance in the Spanish market, where Konecta has been aggressively expanding in the past few years, especially by acquiring four different Spanish companies that were part of the Rockethall Group in 2020. In these markets, the joint company will have a significant role in telecom, BFSI, utilities and energy, the consumer goods sector, and several big tech and new economy global brands
Enhanced delivery capabilities in Latin America: Labor-cost pressures, the talent shortage in onshore North America, and the desire to relocate some offshore operations closer after the pandemic have increased Latin America’s attractiveness for nearshore delivery capabilities. Some of the latest examples include Transcom’s re-entry in Colombia; new sites opening in Trinidad and Tobago by Teleperformance, iQor, and Valenta BPO; and itel’s acquisition of Emerge BPO with employees in Guyana and Honduras. The combined entity will have strong nearshore delivery capabilities to support US clients, including 20 sites in Colombia and seven in Mexico, offering a multi-country delivery model across the entire LATAM region
Differentiated customers: Both Konecta and Comdata are leaders in their respective local markets. The majority of Konecta’s revenue comes from Spain, Portugal, and Latin American regions, with Comdata having a strong presence in Italy, France, and some Latin American countries. Overall, the client overlap between both service providers is very limited, reducing the revenue loss due to cannibalization
Operational synergies: Buyers’ preferences when outsourcing CXM have evolved from the traditional levers of cost and scale to now prioritizing digital CX capabilities, end-to-end integration, and value-added services in their portfolio. This merger will allow the sharing and cross-selling of certain specific CX transformation capabilities such as Comdata’s C-suite tools, expertise in Voice of the Customer (VOC), and consulting and operational redesign services with Konecta’s content and performance marketing and conversational commerce offerings. Through its Uranet subsidiary in Brazil, Konecta also owns platforms for customer journey orchestration, knowledge management, and contact center infrastructure

Competition among other global providers

With US$2 billion in revenue and 130,000 agents, the combined entity gives tough competition to other global CXM providers such as Teleperformance, Sitel, and Concentrix. Below is a look at the capabilities of these global providers in comparison to the combined entity.

	Teleperformance	Sitel	Concentrix	Konecta+Comdata
Revenue	US $8.4 billion	US $4.3 billion	US $6 billion	Approx. US $2 billion
FTEs	420,000+	160,000+	290,000+	130,000+
Languages	265+	50+	70+	30+
Countries served	170	40	40+	24

Considerations for buyers

Although organizations have the best intentions to use mergers and acquisitions to supplement their organic efforts, they generally underestimate the risks such as failure to achieve synergies, lack of due diligence, and security and integration challenges. Business leaders have often recognized people, culture, change management, and communication as the top reasons for integration failure. Lack of adequate change management policies can affect the organization’s governance and accountability structure, cause stress and uncertainty for employees, and decrease productivity for businesses, ultimately impacting service quality and timely delivery.

Future outlook for the CXM market

With Sitel’s acquisition of Sykes and Webhelp’s acquisition of OneLink BPO and Dynamicall in 2021, the trend of consolidation among CXM market players is gaining traction. Consolidation enables service providers to work with large clients across multiple delivery countries and end markets, a capability that is rising in importance for CX clients. It also enhances service offering portfolios and technology capabilities by serving as a one-stop-shop for buyers for all CXM needs.

This deal also represents an opportunity for buyers to reexamine their vendor portfolio since certain service providers might now be better positioned to support their clients across multiple locations and processes, representing an opportunity to optimize their portfolio with fewer providers to achieve operational and cost efficiencies.

To discuss the CXM market landscape, please reach out to David Rickard, Vice President, BPS, [email protected], Divya Baweja, Senior Analyst, BPS, [email protected], or contact us.

You can also learn how expanding and developing businesses are attracting technology-focused workers to help execute existing and evolving digital transformation, adopt new processes, and innovate. Join our webinar, How to Effectively Attract and Drive Productivity within the Tech Workforce.

IBM to Acquire myInvenio: Completing the Intelligent Automation Puzzle with Process Mining | Blog

April 23, 2021

The intelligent automation space has been witnessing a slew of acquisitions over the past couple of years. Several big tech providers have entered the market through numerous acquisitions, especially in the robotic process automation (RPA) space.

While the trend continues in RPA, with ServiceNow’s acquisition of India-based RPA vendor, Intellibot as the latest addition, 2021 seems to be a year of increasing M&A activity in the process mining space. After the acquisition of Signavio by SAP earlier this year, IBM’s acquisition of myInvenio is the second M&A deal happening in the process mining market within a short span of three months.

In one of our previously published blogs, Is It Open Season for RPA Acquisitions?, we highlighted larger technology players entering the intelligent automation market and discussed why more acquisitions might follow as these players seek to build more holistic business transformation solutions.

IBM entered the intelligent automation space with its platform, IBM Cloud Pak for Automation, in 2018 to help enterprises scale up their digital transformation initiatives. Two years later, IBM acquired WDG Automation, a Brazilian RPA vendor, to augment its platform capabilities.

Now, IBM is looking to further expand its automation portfolio with its latest acquisition of myInvenio, an Italy-based process mining technology vendor. The acquisition for an undisclosed price is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2021.

Why the acquisition is not a big surprise

IBM provides IT and business process automation services to enterprises through its automation suite, which includes RPA, Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA), and process orchestration capabilities. Looking at IBM’s offerings within the intelligent automation technology ecosystem, process mining emerges as the key missing element in its automation suite.

The COVID-19 crisis highlighted the importance of digital transformation and the need to accelerate automation journeys for enterprises. The lack of a healthy automation pipeline and the inability to identify the right level of optimization opportunities emerged as key barriers for enterprises to scale automation initiatives. This has led to an increased focus on better understanding business processes and optimizing them to improve value realization from automation initiatives.

Process mining emerged as a critical technology providing the ability to discover as-is processes and identify/prioritize automation opportunities. Lately, the intelligent automation space also witnessed increased consolidation and entry of other bigger players in the market such as Microsoft, SAP, ServiceNow, etc., resulting in increased competitiveness for IBM.

To cater to the market demand and better compete in the automation space, IBM partnered with myInvenio in November 2020 to help its customers gain visibility into business processes and identify automation opportunities. Through this partnership, IBM sought to deliver a single solution to its clients for streamlining and automating business processes.

IBM has a very strong focus on enabling a unified experience to its clients through a one-stop-shop automation suite. In line with this vision, this acquisition would help IBM provide process mining capabilities that are tightly integrated into its automation platform. Also, this union would provide a holistic solution to IBM’s clients where they could access various technologies that constitute the intelligent automation ecosystem. It also boosts their AI and hybrid cloud strategy to provide enterprises with the necessary AI-enabled automation capabilities.

Why myInvenio?

Founded in 2013 and headquartered in Reggio Emilia, Italy, myInvenio has a vision to support enterprises in their digital transformation journey by helping them create a digital twin of their organization. Over the last eight years, it has acquired clients globally spanning the European, North American, APAC, and UK regions and serves enterprises across key verticals such as banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), manufacturing, and healthcare and pharmaceutical.

Through its process mining solution, myInvenio focuses on enabling data-driven process discovery, analysis, and continuous monitoring to identify process improvement and transformation opportunities.

myInvenio was identified as a major contender in Everest Group’s 2020 Process Mining PEAK Matrix^® and brings a host of capability modules to enhance the value proposition of IBM’s automation suite. These include:

myInvenio Process Analyst
- Process discovery – to automatically generate process maps, perform multi-level process mining, and create BPMN 2.0 compliant process models
- Conformance checking – to compare discovered as-is process model with a target reference model, perform root-cause analysis, and check compliance rules such as segregation of duties
myInvenio Process Insights
- Process monitoring and reporting – to derive process insights through continuous monitoring, create customizable dashboards, and define custom KPIs/metrics
- Process enhancement – to identify processes/tasks for automation, predict and highlight any expected KPI breach, and perform simulations/what-if analysis
myInvenio Desktop Process Mining (DPM)/Task mining capability – to capture users’ interactions across multiple desktops and map the recorded tasks to respective processes using Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning algorithms for discovering end-to-end processes
myInvenio Process Store – to provide out-of-the-box pre-built templates for processes spanning across industries such as banking, manufacturing, and energy and utilities

What are the implications going forward?

Impact on process mining vendor landscape and partnerships

IBM has strategic go-to-market partnerships and technology alliances with other process mining vendors. Earlier this month, Celonis, IBM, and Red Hat announced a strategic partnership to help enterprises accelerate their digital transformation by combining Celonis Execution Management System (EMS) with Red Hat OpenShift’s hybrid cloud approach and IBM Global Business Services’ expertise.

Partnerships like these are expected to continue, giving clients the flexibility to choose as co-opetition is becoming quite common in the enterprise software space. For example, IBM maintained its partnerships with RPA vendors such as Automation Anywhere and UiPath after the WDG automation acquisition.

The IBM acquisition of myInvenio could put pressure on other process mining vendors since many do not have a global reach and would need to expand their service provider partnership ecosystem. This latest deal could also encourage the acquisition of process mining capabilities by other tech giants, Business Process Management (BPM), and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) companies in the coming months to offer a more holistic solution to their clients.

Increased adoption of process mining

Process mining technology would reach a much broader audience after its integration into the platforms offered by these service providers, resulting in improved awareness and adoption. IBM offers its automation products to enterprises across different sectors such BFSI, healthcare, and manufacturing.

IBM started delivering process mining services to its customers in November 2020 by leveraging its OEM partnership with myInvenio. Augmenting its prior implementation experience with in-house technology capabilities, IBM can now provide process mining capabilities that are tightly integrated with its automation suite. It is expected that IBM would offer process mining on a standalone basis as well as part of its Cloud Pak for Automation platform.

Impact on service providers

This acquisition will nudge other service providers to demonstrate their ability to think ahead and make more investments to strengthen their automation suite. Last week, Celonis announced its execution management without limits program that gives service providers access to its process mining solution with unlimited users and processes but charges them based on the volume of data being analyzed. While Celonis offering its EMS to consultants could be a win-win situation for both Celonis and service providers, some large service suppliers still might look to acquire process mining capabilities to strengthen their in-house technology portfolio. Also, having this capability in-house would give service providers more negotiating power and reduce the reliance on third-party vendors for capabilities that can be critical for their business going forward. The acquisition route can provide them the ability to deliver innovation faster in their focus industries and functions.

The takeaway: the acquisition could fuel more activity

Since IBM has been faster in integrating acquired capabilities into its suite because of its cloud-based platform approach and containerized product architecture, it is expected to take less time to embed myInvenio’s process mining offering at a technical level within IBM’s automation suite.

With process mining emerging as a critical component of the automation ecosystem, the process mining market is entering a disruptive phase, garnering attention from all parts of the world. This acquisition could also trigger other big enterprise tech vendors like Microsoft, Oracle, ServiceNow, and Salesforce to make similar moves to enter the process mining market.

Salesforce Acquires Slack: Salesforce Stands to Gain Much More Than Slack in the Long Run | Blog

December 4, 2020

There was much excitement on December 1, 2020, when Salesforce announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Slack, and Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff called the US$27.7 billion deal a “match made in heaven.” In the days since, however, the market has significantly dampened that excitement, with Salesforce losing more in market valuation than the price it paid for the acquisition.

But we at Everest Group are bullish on the deal; we believe Salesforce has much to gain in the long term.

Microsoft’s erstwhile involvement

Microsoft considered buying Slack for US$8 billion in 2016, but ultimately decided to take this market on organically, releasing Teams within a year. Microsoft used the US$8 billion to invest in Teams growth through:

An ecosystem play – Microsoft leveraged its Office 365 ecosystem to increase the Teams user base. It effectively provided Teams for free as part of multiple Office 365 packages, providing a more holistic value proposition.
Aggressive sales – Microsoft started a price war with Slack by offering Teams as a free product or at a highly discounted price. With its deep pockets and bundled offerings, Microsoft effectively contained Slack, turning the market against it, causing its valuation to decline.

Slack’s story

They say necessity is the mother of invention, and Slack is the poster child for that. What began as an internal tool, developed out of necessity turned into a wildly popular chat and productivity offering. Then Microsoft set its sights on the space, effectively crushing Slacks’ growth. In terms of market adoption, before Slack stopped reporting daily active user numbers in 2019, it was able to grow to about 12 million users in seven years; Teams matched that number in only three years. Moreover, Teams continues to expand its presence with a daily active user base touching 115 million in October 2020.

In terms of market valuation, despite achieving robust revenue and user base growth, Slack has not been profitable, reporting a loss of US$138 million in 2019. Additionally, its market valuation has eroded significantly since its IPO listing: From its IPO price of US$38.50, Slack was trading at $25.89 on October 31, 2020, a valuation loss of ~33%.

In many ways, its rivalry with Teams and its ensuing market valuation loss made Slack desperate for an acquisition. Slack needed a partner to sustain itself and compete with Microsoft. Salesforce to the rescue!

How can Salesforce help Slack compete with Teams and Zoom?

One’s immediate reaction may be that Slack should be able to arrest its slide given its ability to reach into Salesforce’s deep pockets. However, our take is that Salesforce is good at selling to business units and sales and marketing folks, not to enterprise IT and tech, who would be the primary Slack buyers. That is Microsoft’s power alley – the area it rules. In addition to money, Salesforce will have to make big changes to its sales model to make a dent in Microsoft’s tight control of that space.

How does Salesforce benefit from this acquisition?

The acquisition comes at a time when Salesforce recognizes its need to build integrated suites for enterprises. Most of its competitors – Microsoft, of course, and SAP and Oracle – have been talking about integrating the front and back ends, especially as enterprises have started to realize the importance of end-to-end integrated suites cutting across ERP, CRM, and HCM.

This acquisition gives Salesforce the opportunity to move beyond the sales and marketing area and gain access to other parts of the organization. If integrated well with the Salesforce platform, Slack could potentially act as a unifying thread across ERP, CRM, and HCM, while also solving for the missing piece in their customer-360 value proposition.

Salesforce has made a couple of failed forays in the collaboration space with Chatter and Quip; the third time may be the charm with Slack, given its more robust offering and positive customer sentiment.

What does the acquisition mean for the market?

The acquisition highlights the fact that the industry is going through consolidation, and standalone products are finding it difficult to compete with larger players that offer bundled products. Moreover, the collaboration space is gaining significant traction among enterprises as remote working becomes the new norm. We wouldn’t be surprised to see Amazon or SAP getting into this space, and we’re wondering if we might see Atlassian, Splunk, or some other similar organizations in the acquisition news sometime soon.

If you’d like to share your thoughts on the acquisition or on Salesforce’s strategy, reach out to us at [email protected] or [email protected].

Salesforce Acquires Acumen: The Likely Ripple Effects in Professional Services | Blog

December 3, 2020

The news of Salesforce’s acquisition of Acumen Solutions on December 1, 2020, was completely buried under Salesforce’s whopping $US27 billion acquisition of Slack the same day. But don’t discount the Acumen acquisition – I believe it will be the cornerstone of Salesforce’s professional services strategy over the next several years.

Why this acquisition is unusual

For starters, tech vendors in general do not leverage M&As to enhance their professional services capabilities; most tech vendors’ M&A activity is driven by their technology arms. The Acumen deal is the only pure-play professional services partner acquisition that has happened in the past three years among big tech vendors, based on an analysis of 51 acquisitions by AWS, Microsoft, SAP, and Salesforce over that time period.

The acquisition comes at a time when most tech vendors are in a state of flux over their professional services strategies. For example, AWS grew its professional services arm by an eye-popping 40% over the past 12 months, while peers and other vendors were still figuring out the implications of the pandemic and whether they should be aggressive with their professional services offerings.

The acquisition is also important given the fact that Acumen was one of the few remaining pure-play Salesforce System Integrators (SIs) that was competing head-on with the larger SIs as a major contender in the market. Thus, the acquisition adds significantly to Salesforce’s professional services strength, as Acumen adds approximately 1,000 FTEs to the existing base of 1,000-1,200 FTEs currently working in Salesforce’s professional services arm, effectively doubling the overall headcount.

What’s in it for Salesforce?

Salesforce gains significant advantages from the acquisition, chief among them:

Bridging the talent demand-supply gap – Everest Group’s recent talent study suggests that the demand-supply gap for Salesforce services talent has widened over the past two years and now stands at more than 20% for areas such as Lightning, Mulesoft, and Einstein Analytics. Also, Salesforce is getting pushed out by other vendors such as Oracle, SAP, and Pega and needed to have talent to help clients increase adoption, an area where service providers have been struggling. The acquisition strengthens the footprint of Salesforce’s professional services arm in North America especially in areas such as Einstein, Lightning, and Service cloud.
Catering to demand for industry-specific expertise – More than 70% of Acumen’s current portfolio is concentrated in three industries: federal; Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI); and, manufacturing. The acquisition boosts Salesforce’s industry-specific agenda, which it has been driving on the technology side with Vlocity and the launch of industry cloud offerings. The acquisition also will have significant positive impact on Salesforce’s ability to serve the federal services space, where Salesforce has been able to capitalize on multiple opportunities post-pandemic.
Getting a nimble service partner – The acquisition also highlights Salesforce’s recognition that it needs to get more involved from a services standpoint. Pure play and niche SIs, in general, are faster to react to vendors’ technology innovation, and they are more flexible in meeting clients’ demands. The need for nimble service partners is more pertinent for Salesforce today given the volume of innovation that they have been bringing to the market.

What are the key implications going forward?

The Acumen acquisition has implications for enterprises, service providers, and, of course, Salesforce itself:

For enterprises: According to our Salesforce Services research (see our report, Salesforce Services – Solving for the Missing Link) more than 80% of clients said their vendor’s professional services arm is their go-to partner in defining the adoption roadmap when it comes to emerging products such as Mulesoft and Lightning. There is a clear time lag in the service provider’s ability to deliver on to the tech vendor’s innovation. This acquisition is a step in the right direction as strengthened professional services gives Salesforce an ability to deliver innovation faster in specific industries.
For service providers: Once the dust settles, this acquisition will force service providers to demonstrate their ability to think ahead of Salesforce’s innovation curve and be at the top of their game as truly agile partners. Service providers should think beyond the core platform and invest proactively in the marketing and commerce cloud and cross-skill talent in Mulesoft and Tableau. They should further develop a structured program to build industry and functional expertise in the existing Salesforce talent.
For Salesforce: As a result of this acquisition, some large SIs may perceive Salesforce Professional Services as a competitor – which might not be totally untrue – but could work against Salesforce. Even today, large SI partners believe core platforms (sales and service cloud) are not growing as fast as they want, and so they have curtailed proactive spending. Thus, the onus falls back on Salesforce to allay these fears and continue expanding its partner network.

It’s early days yet; only time will tell how this acquisition will actually shake out. But I have no doubt it will provide food for thought for other big tech vendors as they work through their professional services strategies over the next year. If you want to share your thoughts on the acquisition or on Salesforce’s strategy, reach out to me at [email protected].

HealthEdge Acquires Complementary Product Vendor The Burgess Group | Blog

July 27, 2020

On July 21, 2020, HealthEdge announced its acquisition of The Burgess Group, which we recently recognized as a Major Contender on our Healthcare Payer Payment Integrity Solutions PEAK Matrix™ Assessment 2020.

Healthcare Payer Payment Integrity Solutions PEAK Matrix™

HealthEdge provides an integrated financial, administrative, and clinical software platform (the HealthRules suite), while The Burgess Group is a specialist in the payment integrity software space.

Here’s our take on this deal.

The strategic intent behind the deal

The healthcare payer industry is plagued with notoriously old infrastructure. While healthcare payers are working to increase data transparency, offer member-centric solutions, and adopt a value-based care model, they’re obstructed by high reliance on dated, disconnected, and non-interoperable systems. Cost management is another endemic issue impacting the payer industry. One of the key reasons for this financial distress is the high share of expenditure on administrative costs in the US healthcare system, driven by redundant processing and limited automation. To address these roadblocks, payers are increasingly leveraging a core-admin platform approach.

The interesting fact here is that medical costs account for 80-85 percent of the total payer cost, while only 15-20 percent are admin and IT costs. Payers leave a lot of value on the table when they manage these costs separately. Payment integrity is one of the principal tools to manage medical costs and, hence, is a key functionality that payers value in core-admin platforms. By adding The Burgess Group’s offerings to its own expertise, HealthEdge’s goal is to create an integrated claims processing, payment integrity, and adjudication platform that addresses both administrative and medical expenses.

Another point worth noting is that Blackstone completed the acquisition of a majority stake in HealthEdge in April 2020, giving HealthEdge the financial muscle it required to make the right investments to expand its product offerings and compete with the other big players such as Cognizant (TriZetto), HM Health Solutions, Mphasis, and NASCO.

Unpacking the companies’ synergies

The acquisition offers several synergies.

HealthEdge Acquires Complementary Product Vendor The Burgess Group synergies

Things to watch out for

Ram Jagannath, global head of healthcare at Blackstone Growth and chairman of HealthEdge, has stated that the acquisition of Burgess is a great strategic fit for HealthEdge to enter the large, high-growth payment integrity market, helping address the estimated $1 trillion in wasteful spending in the US healthcare system.

We are positive about this deal, particularly for what it means to the market and current market demand. However, it remains to be seen how HealthEdge leverages this investment, while also mitigating the major concerns that enterprises cite around using platforms, including integration, interoperability, scalability, and user experience.

Platforms that can address medical costs while encouraging data-driven process efficiency are generating growing interest in the market. If HealthEdge can partner with payers to create tightly knit contracts with strong risk mitigation and guaranteed savings clauses, this comprehensive platform can unlock tremendous value for payers. We’ll be tracking this one closely.

Reach out to me at [email protected] with your thoughts on this acquisition or the market in general.

Microsoft Acquires Softomotive to Accelerate Its Dominance in RPA | Blog

May 28, 2020

Near the end of 2019, Microsoft added various RPA features to Flow, its automated workflow service, and rebranded it as Power Automate. It wasn’t surprising to see Microsoft getting into this space to embed RPA into its products such as Excel, PPT, Outlook, Teams, and SharePoint, and enable business users to automate tasks directly from these products. Now, with its acquisition of RPA software vendor Softomotive, it’s staking its claim in the US$1 billion RPA software market, accelerating its positioning in the RPA space, and offering greater depth and breadth of RPA capabilities to its customers.

This acquisition has come at a time when the demand for automation is being amplified due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and automation at scale is gaining pace. And it positions Microsoft as a serious contender for automation software needs as organizations are rethinking their automation strategies.

Here’s our take on the deal.

What Softomotive brings to Microsoft

Founded in 2005, Softomotive is a leading RPA software vendor with roots in desktop automation. Its popular desktop automation product, WinAutomation, helps automate tasks running on Windows-based applications and technologies. We positioned Softomotive as a Major Contender and a Star Performer in our 2019 RPA Products PEAK Matrix assessment for multiple reasons including:

Attended and unattended RPA for organizations of all sizes, through
- WinAutomation, Softomotive’s desktop automation product, used primarily for attended RPA use cases. Robots are typically installed and executed on a user’s desktop in attended mode. It doesn’t have centralized control, monitoring, or governance capabilities, and is primarily suitable for small and medium-sized businesses
- ProcessRobot, Softomotive’s enterprise RPA offering, delivers both attended (SideBot) and unattended (SoloBot) RPA capabilities along with centralized control, monitoring, and governance functionalities
- Robin, Softomotive’s open-source RPA language for programmers. Microsoft’s immense presence and installed base could help make it popular enough in the developer community to force several other vendors to adopt it. And it could become a new standard for RPA programming and help Microsoft establish its thought leadership in the market
A comprehensive set of RPA features built over the past 15 years will help Microsoft expand the scope of its automation use cases
- Drag-and-drop design studio with 300+ pre-built actions for developing automations
- Web-based centralized interface for controlling and monitoring robots and features such as scheduling, queuing, and dynamic load balancing based on SLAs and priorities
- Ability to multi-task/execute multiple automations in parallel on the same machine for higher resource utilization
- Role-based access, version comparison tool, visual exception recording for enhanced debugging, and automation lifecycle management capabilities for higher collaboration across development, testing, and production stages
Pre-built connectors and integrations for greater ease of use
- Softomotive has pre-built connectors with enterprise applications such as Java, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, Siebel, and mainframes, and support for major browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, and IE, making it easier to automate tasks that involve these applications
- Pre-built integrations with complementary capabilities such as cognitive/AI services from ABBYY, Google, IBM Watson, and Microsoft
An installed base of over 9,000 clients and recognition as a mainstream RPA player

What the acquisition means for the market

This acquisition validates the RPA space and reinforces the point that RPA will stick around for much longer than some have been predicting. It’s a big moment for the RPA market as a whole and could accelerate technology maturity, awareness, adoption, and development of RPA skills. It could drive or accelerate key market trends:

Consolidation/M&A activities – RPA is becoming a critical component of the enterprise software ecosystem for driving digital adoption and automation. In the last couple of years, we’ve seen multiple acquisitions such as Appian/Jidoka, Blue Prism/Thoughtonomy, Nintex/Foxtrot, and SAP/Contextor. These deals demonstrate that entry into this space isn’t very expensive, as there are many small RPA vendors with good offerings. This latest deal could encourage acquisition of RPA capabilities by other tech giants, BPM, and ERP companies in the coming months to offer a more holistic solution to their clients. On the flip side, just as UiPath did with its acquisitions of Step Shot and ProcessGold, there could be more instances of big RPA companies acquiring complementary capabilities to expand the scope of their solutions and increase their value propositions
Democratization of RPA – Microsoft products are used by most knowledge workers around the world. By making RPA another tool in its list of its Power products, Microsoft could accelerate the democratization of RPA and the concept of citizen developers. Because Microsoft Power Automate is available at much lower than the median pricing, other vendors will feel pressure to reduce their prices. To accelerate its adoption, it could also offer its RPA bundled with other Microsoft products without additional cost, making RPA more affordable and its business case more lucrative for organizations of all sizes. This move could accelerate RPA adoption among small and medium-sized businesses, where adoption has been growing at a relatively slower pace. Access to RPA as a plug-in directly from Microsoft’s products such as Excel, Outlook, Teams, Dynamics, and SharePoint would make it easy for business users to automate repetitive tasks. Instances of RPA being sold as a commodity are gaining momentum, and this could further accelerate that trend

What the acquisition means for other RPA vendors

With Microsoft going all-in on RPA with this acquisition, other RPA vendors will need to up their game to remain competitive. Microsoft will be able to deliver RPA that’s tightly and seamlessly integrated with its vast suite of business applications. To combat this move, other vendors will have to position themselves as specialists and best-of-breed providers of enterprise automation capabilities. Also, going forward, growth may elude pure-play RPA vendors; in order to thrive, they will have to either invest in other complementary areas such as AI and process mining, or be acquired. Note that today, most RPA players, including the big three, are offering complementary products in addition to RPA.

Additionally, Microsoft has deep integration, joint functionality development, and go-to-market partnerships with big RPA vendors including Automation Anywhere, Blue Prism, and UiPath. These partners also contribute to Microsoft’s revenue through collaborations, such as Azure, and it’s likely that those partnerships will continue, and clients will be given flexibility to choose, as co-opetition it is becoming quite common in the enterprise software space. For example, UiPath acquired a process mining vendor, ProcessGold, but has maintained its partnership with Minit. Similarly, Blue Prism announced an Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) solution called Decipher, but has maintained its partnership with ABBYY.

Other things to watch out for

It will be interesting to see how well Microsoft is able to leverage this investment. It could take the company up to a year to come up with its integrated RPA offering and embed Softomotive at a technical level across its suite of software products. In the meanwhile, Microsoft has made WinAutomation available for free to all of its Power Automate customers. However, it remains to be seen how Microsoft plans to leverage Softomotive’s ProcessRobot and Robin. Some say Microsoft gets it right the third time. Flow was Microsoft’s first attempt at RPA, Power Automate was its second, and Softomotive is its third. So, will the third time be the charm for Microsoft?

Going forward, Microsoft could follow on with more acquisitions in other automation areas such as Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVA), process mining, and analytics to further establish itself in the intelligent automation space. An indication of this possibility is Microsoft’s late 2019 launch of Power Virtual Agents, a chatbot/IVA offering that’s based on its Bot Framework. Might IVA be the next area where Microsoft could make an acquisition, perhaps of one of the 16 IVA software vendors we assessed as part of IVA Products PEAK Matrix?

HCL’s Sankalp Acquisition: Reflections of a Dynamic Industry

October 9, 2019

In September, HCL Technologies announced its acquisition of the semiconductor engineering services firm Sankalp Semiconductor in an all-cash deal worth US$25 million, with Sankalp operating as a 100 percent subsidiary of HCL. While this is not a particularly large acquisition, it impacts a key market player, and it highlights a couple of key trends in the semiconductor engineering services market.

What the acquisition means for HCL

The acquisition impacts HCL in a few important ways:

Enhanced semiconductor engineering capabilities

The recent acquisition by HCL is a strategic move to cement its position in semiconductor chip engineering services by strengthening its existing digital design services and expanding into the analog and mixed-signal space.

Both HCL and Sankalp Semiconductor provide chip engineering services in the pre-silicon and post-silicon segments of the value chain (See Figure 1). But while HCL’s chip engineering expertise lies in digital design, Sankalp has strong capabilities in analog and mixed-signal circuit design as well.

And HCL will be gaining experience. Sankalp has more than 5,000 person-years of experience in semiconductor engineering services and covers the digital, analog, and mixed-signal domains through its 1,000+ engineers based in India and Canada. In analog and mixed-signal design alone, the company has more than 1,500 person-years of experience and has delivered more than 500 projects.

Increased revenue

Though HCL is a major player in engineering services, its acquisition of Sankalp Semiconductor, which reported revenues of ~US$20 million in FY2019, will be a nice boost to its semiconductor engineering services top line.

Increased market access

Sankalp will strengthen HCL’s play in specific market segments including automotive, consumer, IoT, medical electronics, networking, and wireless.

How the acquisition reflects industry trends

HCL’s acquisition of Sankalp is the latest in a series of acquisitions that have taken place in the semiconductor engineering services industry over the past few years. As shown in the graphic below, in 2015, Aricent acquired the Bengaluru-based semiconductor services firm SmartPlay Technologies Pvt Ltd before itself being acquired by Altran in 2017, which was – in turn – acquired by Capgemini in 2019. Cyient Europe Ltd acquired custom analog and mixed-signal circuits design company Ansem N.V, and L&TTS acquired Bengaluru-based Graphene Semiconductor.

All of these acquisitions reflect an important industry trend that has some specific consequences. There is an increasing focus on semiconductor engineering due to the rise of IoT and smart device applications, as well as a growing demand for greater computing power and device miniaturization.

This trend is driving several outcomes. First, it is forcing semiconductor companies to think about how to reduce time-to-market, as well as how to gain access to engineers with the right kinds of expertise. Many are turning to outsourcing to address these challenges. As a result, we expect outsourcing in this sector to grow at a rate of 10% over the next three years.

Second, it is forcing semiconductor engineering service providers to expand their portfolios to successfully address market needs. That challenge, coupled with the generally fragmented nature of the industry, is likely to result in ongoing merger and acquisition activity.

Ultimately, whether they choose to grow organically or inorganically, semiconductor engineering services firms will want to invest in their capabilities so they can grab a higher share of outsourcing from the ~US$ 470 billion semiconductor industry pie.

Capgemini-Altran Acquisition: Upping the Ante in Engineering Services | Blog

June 27, 2019

Back in December 2017, Altran’s acquisition of Aricent for US$2 billion was one of the biggest inorganic growth initiatives in the engineering services space. The acquisition helped Altran draw synergies across key verticals and strengthen its leadership position in the global engineering services space.

Fast forward just a short year and a half later to a much larger deal: Capgemini on June 24, 2019, announced its plan to acquire Altran for a cash consideration of ~US$4.1 billion and also assume Altran’s financial debt of ~US$1.6 billion, which is primarily attributable to its Aricent acquisition. The transaction is expected to close by the end of 2019.

Based on our calendar year 2018 estimates, the combined entity will hold over 10 percent of the global engineering services outsourcing market and will have nearly US$1.4 billion higher revenue than its nearest competitor.

1 Includes Everest Group estimates

The acquisition reinforces the fact that the global services industry views engineering services as an avenue to offset the low headroom for growth in the IT and business process services. While players such as HCL Technologies and Tata Consultancy Services have primarily followed the organic route to drive growth in this space (both the companies have a spot in the list of global top 10 engineering services companies,) Capgemini has become the largest engineering services company with this mammoth acquisition.

The acquisition also highlights how service providers are increasingly reckoning with the need to develop capabilities to cater to the Information Technology – Operational Technology (IT-OT) integration needs of today’s connected world. An IT-OT play helps service providers demonstrate capabilities across multiple value elements and capture a larger share of enterprise spend.

What this acquisition means for Capgemini

Altran reported year-on-year growth of 27.1 percent for calendar year 2018, and its organic growth stood at 8 percent. Capgemini will certainly benefit from Altran’s robust portfolio growth. But it stands to gain more benefits:

Top spot in the engineering services industry: The combined entity will be the undisputed leader in engineering services, with over US$4 billion in engineering services revenue, and ~54,000 professionals
Enhanced capabilities across key verticals: With Altran’s stronghold in the automotive, aerospace, electronics & semiconductors, medical devices, and software products spaces, and Capgemini’s strength in sectors including manufacturing and energy and utilities, the combined entity will have a leadership position across the majority of engineering verticals
Asset and infrastructure dividend: Altran has developed numerous labs, solutions, innovation centers, etc., that will add rich depth and breadth to Capgemini’s capabilities
Enhanced value proposition: Capgemini will not only be able to cross-sell its enhanced IT-OT value proposition to Altran’s existing, top R&D-spend clients – including six of the top 10 Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) and all of the top five automotive Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) –– but also to its own engineering-heavy verticals
Enhanced nearshore delivery capabilities: Altran has a sizeable delivery presence in Eastern Europe, which is a hub for high-quality engineering talent, and a significant delivery presence is viewed as a differentiator in the engineering services space
Access to Altran’s hand-picked portfolio of companies: Capgemini will be able to enhance its capabilities in niche areas including design and cyber security through Altran’s previous acquisitions of companies like Frog Design and Information Risk Management (IRM.)

What it means for Altran

In its mid-2018 “The High Road, Altran 2022” plan, Altran presented the key objectives it aimed to achieve by 2022:

Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 6.5-7 percent (organic) during 2017-2022
25,000 engineers in near/offshore locations, including India, up from 16,000 in 2018
Momentum in high-growth segments such as ISVs, electronics, automotive, and medical devices
Leadership in North America, while pursuing selective growth in the APAC region
Complete integration of Aricent by 2020

With Capgemini coming into the picture, the growth plan for Altran will likely be redefined. Nonetheless, assessing how Capgemini impacts the objectives Altran’s leadership laid down is still worthwhile.

While Altran has been managing steady growth on its own (8 percent year-over-year organic growth in calendar year 2018,) integration with Capgemini will help generate greater exposure to clients and accelerated market growth in North America. It will also accelerate Altran’s delivery expansion in offshore locations.

As a downside, Altran will be integrating with Capgemini – which could come into play as soon as early 2020 – while it continues to attain full synergy with Aricent. This multi-faceted integration will require meticulous planning and execution to ensure success. It may result in increased attrition among the talent Altran acquired from Aricent.

Cues for the broader engineering services outsourcing industry

This acquisition further enhances the dominance of Europe-headquartered firms on the leaderboard of the global engineering services industry. Further, once the acquisition is complete, Capgemini – as the largest engineering services provider – will have developed a sizeable offshore delivery presence and will be capable of going to market with an optimum combination of four key factors: capabilities, scale, client proximity, and cost-effectiveness. Offshore-heritage service providers will need to step up their game to continuously invest in building and enhancing capabilities for new and emerging areas.

We expect the inorganic growth wave to continue in this space. While it is unlikely that we will soon see another acquisition of this scale, we expect both large and mid-sized players to explore smaller acquisitions that address their unique objectives. While large service providers will flex their financial muscle to gain market share and niche capabilities, mid-sized service providers will look to build adjacent capabilities. And when this happens, both the providers and their clients will win.

Dassault Systèmes Acquires Medidata to Ride the Platform Wave in Life Sciences | Blog

June 14, 2019

When news first hit in late April 2019 of speculation around Medidata Solutions being acquired by Dassault Systèmes – a France-based software company that develops 3D design, 3D digital mock-up, and product lifecycle management software – Medidata’s stock value went soaring. The deal immediately made sense. The fact that Dassault Systèmes was looking to ramp up its offerings for life sciences companies made Medidata, which we recently recognized as a Leader and Star Performer in our PEAK Matrix™ for Clinical Trials Products 2019, an attractive acquisition prospect.

Fast forward to June 2019 and the deal is done. The all-cash transaction is valued at US$5.8 billion and represents Dassault Systèmes’ largest acquisition to date. It will finance the deal with a €1 billion loan, a €3 billion bridge-to-loan facility, and available cash. It’s the first time the French company has resorted to external funding, which only accentuates how much it prizes Medidata as an asset.

The strategic intent behind the deal

Dassault Systèmes began focusing on the life sciences market a few years ago with the vision to improve the penetration of digital technologies in the industry. Its last life sciences-focused acquisition was that of Accelrys in 2014, which helped Dassault Systèmes establish BIOVIA, its brand for biological, chemical, and materials modeling and simulation, research, and open collaborative discovery.

With the acquisition of Medidata Solutions, Dassault Systèmes makes a statement that it is serious about achieving this vision. The acquisition will make life sciences Dassault Systèmes’ second largest industry focus, after transportation and mobility. Medidata grew at a CAGR of 17 percent during 2015-2018, driven by its dominance in electronic data capture through its flagship product, Rave.

Dassault Systèmes prides itself on its 3DEXPERIENCE platform, which is meant to enhance digital collaboration in complex sectors like aerospace, infrastructure, and mobility. Dassault Systèmes now looks to extend these benefits to life sciences. By adding Medidata’s clinical and commercial offerings to its own 3D experience expertise, Dassault Systèmes aims to create a platform that offers complete digital continuity to the life sciences industry, addressing complex challenges such as personalized medicine and patient-centric experiences.

Unpacking the companies’ synergies

Synergy area	Dassault Systèmes	Medidata Solutions
Value proposition	Design, modeling, and visualization software, with leading capabilities for the aerospace, defense, and consumer goods industries. Dassault Systèmes now aims to bolster its life sciences division	Life sciences clinical and commercial software pure-play, with deep domain expertise and strong consulting pedigree
Coverage of the life sciences value chain	Drug discovery, manufacturing, and supply chain	Clinical and commercial operations
Key technology offerings	Design, modeling, simulation, and virtualization software	Data capture, real world evidence, advanced analytics, AI-driven insights, and operations management
Customers	Customers are mostly in the aerospace, defense, and consumer goods industries Sizable number of European life sciences clients, including medical devices firms such as Medtronic, FEops, Novo Nordisk, and Kavo Dental	1,300 life sciences companies, three quarters of which are in America. This includes most of the Big Pharma and CRO firms

Product coverage across the value chain

Key opportunities

Dassault Systèmes is sitting on a lot of cash. This will give Medidata the financial muscle it needs to make the right investments in talent and technology to compete with the big players like Oracle Health Sciences and Accenture.

The integration of capabilities could lead to the creation of a unique end-to-end platform for life sciences across the entire value chain. Medidata has clinical and commercial capabilities, and Dassault Systèmes has offerings for drug discovery, manufacturing, and supply chain.

Potential risks

It’s not clear how the integration of Medidata’s products with the broader 3DEXPERIENCE platform will take place. It could be a challenge linking Medidata’s clinical trials and commercial operations solutions with Dassault Systèmes’ design and visualization offerings.

Dassault Systèmes’ has diversified offerings across several industries. In the long run, this may dilute Medidata’s brand image as a leader and focused player for clinical trials technology.

Closing thoughts

The life sciences industry needs aggressive digitalization to realize efficiency gains and reduce the lengthy timelines between drug conceptualization and drugs reaching the market. We’ve seen technology vendors coming up with integrated solutions for clinical trials to help enhance trial efficiency. While the need for a platform is evident, technical debt and change management issues hinder this platform-centric vision. This is a high growth market, which is likely to attract more interest in the coming 18-24 months. More SaaS companies will need to pivot to the platform conversation to scale and remain relevant. We will be tracking this space closely.

Tag: Mergers & Acquisition