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Cognizant’s Buying SaaSfocus to Expand Digital Transformation Service Offerings

Cognizant is buying SaaSfocus to expand its end-to-end digital transformation services and Salesforce cloud capabilities in the growing markets of Australia and India, Cognizant said Aug. 23.

Financial terms of Cognizant’s agreement to acquire the privately-held consulting firm specializing in digital transformation weren’t disclosed. The purchase is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2018, subject to certain closing conditions, according to Cognizant.

SaaSfocus is one of the largest independent Salesforce Platinum consulting partners in the Asia-Pacific (APAC) region and has operations across Australia and India, according to Cognizant. The Salesforce Global Strategic partner has one of the largest rosters of Salesforce-certified consultants in the world, Cognizant said in its news release announcing the deal.

SaaSfocus customers include Samsung, as well as automakers Audi, Honda, Jaguar Land Rover, Lexus/Toyota and Renault, according to the SaaSfcous website.

Once the purchase is completed, more than 350 SaaSfocus consultants, with “deep domain expertise” in the auto, financial services, insurance and manufacturing sectors, will become part of Cognizant’s Salesforce practice, Cognizant said. 

Cognizant offers various Salesforce solutions and has a “proven track record of planning and delivering complex, multinational projects involving multiple systems, data integration and associated change management processes,” Cognizant said.

“This acquisition of a respected and successful Salesforce specialist underlines our commitment to helping clients in Australia and India digitally transform their businesses and reshape the way they interact with their customers,” Jayajyoti Sengupta, head of APAC at Cognizant, said in the news release.

He added: “Customer relationship and service management systems are at the core of our clients’ digital strategies. We look forward to welcoming the SaaSfocus team to Cognizant and combining our strengths to create new transformative digital solutions for our clients.”

Cognizant’s “global delivery footprint, digital expertise and unique culture of innovation and empowerment made it a natural fit for SaaSfocus,” Amit Choudhary, partner and Australia New Zealand CEO of SaaSfocus, said.

He added that combining Cognizant’s “global capabilities, deep domain expertise and digital solutions with SaaSfocus’s specialized Salesforce consulting competencies will help us accelerate our clients’ digital transformation journeys and create global opportunities for our employees.”

SaaSfocus was founded in 2009 and has implemented more than 1,500 Salesforce projects since then, according to Cognizant.

Cognizant indicated late last year that it saw Asia as a $1 billion market opportunity for the company in the next couple of years, noting it’s invested significantly in Australia and Japan, and was also looking into China.

North America continues to account for the vast majority of Teaneck, N.J.-based Cognizant’s revenue. But its revenue in other markers grew in the second quarter (ended June 30), with U.K. revenue increasing 7.7% to $309 million (up from $288 million in Q2 last year), other Europe revenue increasing 9.5% to $381 million (up from $291 million in Q2 last year) and revenue from countries outside Europe and North America growing 6.2% to $249 million (up from $240 million in Q2 last year).

Other companies recently acquired by Cognizant included privately-held Hedera Consulting, a company specializing in business advisory and data analytics services across several industry sectors. That purchase further expanded Cognizant’s consulting, business insight and digital transformation capabilities for clients in Belgium and the Netherlands, it said at the time.