In another move by big tech to jump on the moving and shaking of smaller innovators, IBM has today announced its intent to acquire Accelalpha, the global Oracle Cloud Applications consultancy.
Having nurtured an almost 40-year partnership with Oracle, this is a well-placed move from IBM, with joint customers aplenty. Big Blue hopes the acquisition will accelerate its capabilities in the supply chain, logistics, finance, EPM and CX-CPQ skills, helping clients’ Oracle cloud application adoption.
Headquartered in Bellevue, Washington, Accelalpha’s expertise focuses on the distribution, industrial and financial sectors across Oracle advisory, implementation and managed services. As an Oracle Cloud Excellence Certified Implementer, Accelalpha boasts the largest Oracle logistics practice globally and was the first Oracle partner to implement Oracle Fusion Financials.
In a wave of dollar splashing, it marks IBM’s fifth acquisition this year, following SiXworks, Hogan Lovells, SkyArch, HashiCorp and Pliant – and it’s a broad spread of specialties coming aboard the IBM cargo ship – reaching across cybersecurity, a legal firm, Japan-centric AWS consultants, an infrastructure and security lifecycle management provider for multi-cloud, and a network and IT infrastructure automation vendor.
Though this an exciting development for the Oracle consultancy, it is also a well-trodden strategy as, since its founding in 2009, Accelalpha has expanded through a combination of organic growth and other acquisitions, including Prolog Partners, Key Performance Ideas, LogistiChange and Frontera Consulting.
Upon close of the deal, set to take place in the fourth quarter 2024, the Accelalpha team of consultants across North America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and South America, are set to onboard at IBM, helping clients further modernize with Oracle Cloud Applications.
“Many enterprises depend on Oracle to run the workflows that are at the heart of their enterprise,” said Kelly Chambliss, senior vice president, IBM Consulting, Americas. “With our acquisition of Accelalpha, IBM will be even better positioned to help our clients deploy and manage Oracle solutions, including generative AI and cloud technology, for competitive advantage.”
Accelalpha’s consultants bring expertise across the Oracle Cloud Applications Suite including Oracle Supply Chain Management (SCM) and Logistics, Oracle Cloud Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Oracle Cloud Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), Oracle Cloud Customer Transformation (CX), and Oracle Configure, Price, Quote (CPQ).
Nat Ganesh, CEO, Accelalpha commented: “IBM’s client and employee-centric culture and long-established scale and reach in more than 175 countries is a great fit for the next stage of our growth.
“We’re thrilled to bring our expertise in Oracle Cloud solutions and targeted domain and industry knowledge to bear together with IBM’s strength in generative AI and hybrid cloud. With Accelalpha’s history of being a pioneer in Oracle Cloud and IBM’s deep-rooted dedication to innovation that matters, we can further accelerate value creation for our clients.”
It’s a joint flying of the Big Red flag from this IBM and Accelalpha partnership, but this is hardly your typical ‘red flag’ scenario – it’s surely good news for the customer cohort and a sign of more innovation to come from this now closer-knit trio.
