Mergers, Acquisitions, Partnerships in February 2023

Regulation for bank customers

Accenture has entered into an agreement to acquire SAP S/4 consulting firm SKS.

With the acquisition, Accenture will strengthen its competencies in the areas of technology, consulting and regulatory services while expanding its offering for specialty banks. Headquartered in Hochheim, Germany, the approximately 500-strong team will strengthen the Accenture Technology business unit in the future. Together with SKS, it will support financial institutions in the development, implementation and operation of SAP solutions. In addition, SKS has comprehensive consulting and service offerings in the area of regulatory and solutions for data analytics, data governance and data architecture, as well as proven IT solutions for risk management and compliance.

Christina Raab, managing director of Accenture in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, said, "With SKS Group's deep industry knowledge and technology expertise, we are in an even stronger position to help our banking clients modernize their legacy systems, manage risk and accelerate growth." The SKS Group acquisition is Accenture's latest in the banking sector and follows the acquisitions of Allgemeine Rechenzentrum GmbH (ARZ), BCS Consulting, Exton Consulting and Accenture Ventures' strategic investment in Imburse.

“With the expertise of the SKS Group, we help our banking customers modernize their legacy systems.“

Christina Raab,
Managing Director, Accenture

Competence and rebranding

SAP as well as IT projects for insurance, healthcare, industry and the energy sector are available under one brand umbrella.

Convista has been bundling its competencies together with Axxiome Health and Enowa under a common brand since the beginning of this year. The Cologne-based consultancy, which was founded in 1999, is accompanying this milestone in the company's history with a global rebranding. This includes a new logo, a new slogan and a new website. For more than 20 years, Convista has supported customers from the insurance, industry, healthcare and energy sectors with SAP and IT projects. Axxiome Health, as an expert in software and consulting in the areas of health insurance and health, has already been part of the Convista Group since 2019.

As part of the rebranding, Axxiome Health has been operating under the name Convista Health since January 2023. Pawel Midon, Managing Director Axxiome Health and Member of the Board Convista: "From now on, we can offer our customers even broader consulting and IT services from a single source. I have already received a lot of positive feedback from our customers about our new service portfolio. I am delighted to now be part of the Convista brand." Enowa has been part of the Convista Group since 2021 and offers a broad range of services for complex SAP and IT products for the industrial and insurance sectors.

Transformation in the CFO area

Workday, a provider of finance and human resources in the cloud, welcomes PAS Financial Advisory to its partner network.

PAS Financial Advisory specializes in digitalization and transformation in finance and accounting. Their consultants support CFOs and their teams from conception to solution implementation. In addition to ERP know-how, they possess in particular technical and process-related expert knowledge with which they can accompany Workday's customers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on their way to a modern finance and accounting system. The independent consulting firm was newly founded in 2022, but already has more than 100 employees. "The demand for ERP systems in the cloud and innovative alternatives - such as Workday Financial Management - has risen sharply in recent years," says Sebastian Braun, CEO of PAS.

"With Workday, our customers succeed in transforming existing processes, data, reporting and also the organization in such a way that the finance department becomes the value driver of the company." Christopher Knörr, Group Vice President DACH at Workday: "We are pleased to have PAS Financial Advisory on board as a partner with experienced consultants who will support our projects with their financial expertise as well as through professional project and change management. Together, we will support companies in their transformation to a digital, value-creating and employee-centric organization."

“We are pleased to have PAS Financial Advisory on board as a partner with experienced and dedicated consultants.“

Christopher Knörr,
Group Vice President DACH, Workday

CX expertise

Orbis, the internationally active software and business consulting company based in Saarbrücken, Germany, has acquired a majority stake of 60 percent in Contrimo. The Mannheim-based SAP partner Contrimo specializes in consulting and the implementation of SAP Customer Experience (CX) solutions for marketing, sales and service, as well as the development of customer-specific applications or enhancements based on the SAP Business Technology Platform. For Orbis, the majority shareholding is a strategically important building block for strengthening its SAP CX competencies. The CX experts from Orbis and Contrimo will operate together as a single team and provide all services from a single source.

Due to this expansion, sales activities for the event management software TEM developed by Contrimo can be further intensified. TEM, a cloud-native solution based on SAP BTP, integrates seamlessly with SAP applications. "Our investment in Contrimo brings us a great deal closer to our strategic goal of providing our customers with holistic support in the design, implementation and integration of SAP CX solutions," explains Dirk Müller, Head of Business Center SAP Sales at Orbis.

Transport logistics platform

Leogistics has spun out a company focused on the Myleo/dsc PaaS platform, beginning in 2023. 

Managing Director of the spin-off will be André Käber. Leoquantum is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Materna Group. The aim of the spin-off is to sharpen the profile of both organizations, Leoquantum and Leogistics. Leogistics will focus more on the consulting and service business in order to provide customers with even better support for their S/4 transformation. Myleo/dsc is an innovative Process-as-a-Service platform for plant and transport logistics that connects shippers, suppliers, logistics service providers and goods recipients. The product business and the associated services have outgrown the parent company Leogistics in the long term and are to stand on their own two feet from now on. The spin-off now focuses on the further development of the product and opens up the opportunity to position Myleo/dsc as an independent brand and solution for plant and transport logistics processes.

From left: Christiaan Carstens, Member of the Executive Board Leogistics; Stefan Risse, Managing Director Leogistics; André Käber, CEO Leoquantum; Christian Piehler, Head of Sales Leoquantum.

The spin-off step also opens up the possibility for Leogistics to move even closer to the parent company cbs. Particularly against the backdrop of the S/4 transformation, which is currently occupying many existing and potential customers, there is a great deal of proximity in terms of content. With this in mind, Rainer Wittwen and Stefan Risse from the management of cbs will become the new managing directors of Leogistics. They will be supported by Christiaan Carstens, who, as a member of the management team, will continue to manage the operational SAP business.