A History of Salesforce Partner Acquisitions

10 Acquisitions of Salesforce Partners in 2021

Over the first 6 months of 2021, there were 10+ Salesforce Consulting Partner acquisitions as the ecosystem continues to consolidate and global players jockey for position.

A breakdown of those acquisitions:

1. (Jan) IBM acquired 7Summits

Backed by Salesforce Ventures, 7Summits was an extremely well run Salesforce Consulting Partner with ~110 Certified Salesforce Consultants in the U.S. and a core competency around Community Cloud / Salesforce Customer 360. Founded in 2009, 7Summits was a Salesforce Partner that chose a specialization early in and developed a core competency in Salesforce Community Cloud. This was in the earlier days of Partner Communities and Customer Communities and predated the release of Lightning Web Components so the capabilities of the platform were more limited.

As the offering grew, 7Summits became Salesforce's go-to Partner on these Communities deals and was able to grow significantly on the back-end of their focused expertise.

2. (Feb) Accenture acquired Businet System

This acquisition was strategic for Accenture's Salesforce Practice on 3 fronts:

Geographically: Businet is HQ'd in Japan and the ASIAPAC Region is a fast growing market for Salesforce. Any access to talent, particularly with a Salesforce product specialization, in that region will prove to be a competitive advantage for the major, global Partners.

‍Specialization: Businet and their 40 Consultants are focused entirely on Commerce Cloud solutions. Alongside Marketing Cloud, this is one of the fastest growing Salesforce product areas.

‍Products: Businet has a proprietary order management system (OMS) for the retail and apparel industry. Beyond gaining Commerce Cloud knowledge, Accenture will get IP that could lead into more industry-focused product development efforts.

(Feb) Atos acquires Profit4SF

This is a straightforward deal for Atos, which is a 100,000 person Digital Transformation Consultancy, to boost their Salesforce competency across the Netherlands, where Profit4SF is a Platinum Partner, 30 Consultants. While 30 Consultants isn't a drop in the bucket for a company with 100K global Consultants, it's a continuation of Atos' strategy to develop a reputation and competency in the global Salesforce market.

3. (Feb) EPAM Systems acquires PolSource

EPAM is a generalist digital platform engineering & software development agency looking to begin building a competency in Salesforce. PolSource was an established, global Salesforce Partner that had been expanding aggressively over the past 5-6 years. They had raised a round of funding from Salesforce Ventures in June 2019, enabling them to grow to 350+ Certified Salesforce Consultants in a short period.

(March) Infostretch acquires Saggezza

This is a bit of an interesting one given that Saggezza had only launched their Salesforce Practice with the hiring of Jeff Pigatto in April 2020.

Infostretch is a 1,000 person generalist in digital transformation consulting and Saggezza had roughly 700 employees at the time of acquisition with a small, growing Salesforce Practice. It's worth noting that Infostretch raised a round of Private Equity Funding with participation from Goldman Sachs in September 2020, so this is the start of putting that capital to work.

4. (May) Booz Allen Hamilton acquired Liberty IT Solutions

This was a significant gain for Booz Allen's Salesforce Practice as they acquire 500+ Certified Salesforce Consultants and a core competency in Salesforce Public Sector projects, while also picking up some major Federal clients.

At a price tag of $725, this was still a hefty investment for Booz Allen. Salesforce has signaled a clear investment in the Public Sector, noted by the 2020 acquisition of Vlocity (now Salesforce Industries) and their own investment in Public Sector Salesforce Partner Acumen Solutions, which Salesforce bought in December 2020.

It's clear this is a focused area of growth for Salesforce and developing deep expertise and relationships is a strategic move for Booz Allen to cozy up to Salesforce.

5. (May) IBM acquired Waeg

Closely following IBM's 7Summits acquisition, Waeg is another strategy investment in IBM's push to expand more into multi-cloud digital strategy. While 7Summits brought expertise in CUstomer 360, Waeg is focused on Marketing Automation (Pardot) and Commerce while bringing a footprint in EMEA as a Platinum Partner for the region.

6. (June) OSF Digital goes on an acquisition spree

Salesforce Ventures has participated in all 3 rounds of funding for OSF Digital, dating back to 2018. In May 2021, OSF raised a $43m Venture Round and went on a spending spree, acquiring Adept Group, Relation1, and Werise.

OSF is a 1,000+ person digital transformation consultancy that began getting into Salesforce 10 years ago with a core focus on Commerce Cloud, a much needed competency for Salesforce.

These acquisitions were driven as much by Salesforce's vision and Regional needs as it was direct OSF strategy: Adept Group (generalist Salesforce Consulting Partner in New Zealand); Relation1 (smaller Canadian Partner with a Marketing Cloud competency); Werise (small Brazilian Consulting Partner giving a footprint in Latin America).

7. (June) Allant Group acquires Bubblebox

This one surprised us a bit given that Allant Group isn't a player in the Salesforce ecosystem and Bubblebox was a 25-person Salesforce Marketing Cloud Partner.

Marketing Cloud is one of the fastest growing product areas and also hardest to find skill sets, which should have made Bubblebox an attractive acquisition target for existing Salesforce Partners looking to boost their competency. Instead, Allant Group will use this as a way to enter the ecosystem - it will be interesting to see how they expand from here.