Accenture Acquires Edenhouse, the independent SAP partner.

The acquisition is intended to enhance Accenture’s ability to support clients in their digital transformation. It will also scale Accenture’s provision in the UK for accelerated demand for SAP cloud-based solutions.

Edenhouse, which is based in the UK, was founded in 2008 and specialises in the sale, implementation, support, and hosting of SAP products and services to mid-sized businesses. They have a team of 220 employees who have broad technical knowledge. They have comprehensive experience of industry and lines of business and in SAP on-premise and cloud solutions. They are an SAP Platinum Partner and recently won the SAP EMEA North Award for Partner Excellence for Top SME Cloud Performer.

The terms of the acquisition were not made public, but Edenhouse reported turnover of £43M in its last complete financial year at the end of March 2020.

Edenhouse professionals will now join forces with Accenture’s SAP Business Group for the UK, which is part of Accenture Intelligent Platform Services (IPS). IPS was created three years ago to bring together the UK&I’s platform capabilities and represents roughly one-third of UK and Ireland revenue, according to TechMarketView.  John Erik Ellingsen, Accenture’s IPS lead for UK and Ireland at Accenture, said: “The global pandemic has increased demand for SAP’s cloud-based solutions and the additional skills we now have access to will enable us to rapidly meet the needs of our clients”.

Edenhouse CEO Paul Solomon, commenting on the acquisition, said: “Together, Accenture and Edenhouse are a great fit. Being part of Accenture will provide amazing opportunities for our staff and our clients. We have similar shared values, including putting business outcomes at the heart of everything we do to deliver 360° value for clients and leveraging our deep relationships with SAP. We’re excited to be able to bring the combination of our people, technology and industry excellence to take digital transformation to the next level for our clients.”

Accenture’s Business Group Lead for the UK and Ireland Mukul Dixit added: “By teaming with Edenhouse we will broaden the depth of our SAP capabilities to serve our large and mid-sized clients on their next phase of growth and transformation, and cement our leadership position in the UK market. I’m excited by the possibilities that this acquisition opens up for our clients through our combined SAP expertise coupled with Accenture’s deep industry knowledge, end-to-end transformational capabilities and global reach.”

Since September 2020 when IgniteSAP last commented on Accenture’s restructuring they have continued a campaign of Acquisitions which includes:

SAP partner SALT Solutions, N3: an inside sales automation company, the cloud migration and consulting firm Zag, Myrtle Consulting Group, the Canadian IT consulting and technology firm Avenai, Enibos: an AWS consulting firm, OptusLine (who deal with AI and IT services in the health sector), 5G operations experts Arca, AI and machine learning specialists End-to-End Analytics, Olikka: a systems integrator for Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, Real Protect: an MSSP focussed on Latin America, cloud application developers Wolox, Imaginea: a software and professional services company, Businet System, the management consulting firm Future State and Infinity Works: an Amazon Web Services and data cloud partner.

This very long list of acquisitions includes seven in 2021 and we are only halfway through February at the time of writing. Accenture was subject to criticism from some commentators last year for making so many acquisitions while simultaneously making substantial cuts to its workforce: ostensibly due to the pandemic and associated slowdown in the economy. The UK workforce was reduced by 900 in July last year and this acquisition now effectively expands it by 220. These new Accenture team members have a specialism in cloud solutions and so this demonstrates the strategy by which Accenture has decided to respond to new market conditions and expand new areas of business.