Private equity-backed ERP reseller Sapphire Systems is on a mission to “Accenturise” the mid-market space following a series of acquisitions in 2021.
Based in London but with operations across the UK and US, SAP and Infor partner Sapphire Systems are backed by Horizon Capital and made four acquisitions in 2021.
Three of its four acquisitions last year focused on consolidating its leadership with SAP across the UK and US, including its UK acquisitions of Business ByDesign outfit InCloud Solutions, enterprise performance management firm Opal Wave and US -based ERP provider Pioneer B1.
But Sapphire Systems ’acquisition of ITOM Solution at the beginning of the year brought a new partnership with ServiceNow that expanded its IT operations management activities for the first time.
Speaking to CRN, Sapphire Systems CEO Vince DeLuca and chief strategist Chris Gabriel said Sapphire Systems plans to do in the mid-market and mid-enterprise space what Accenture has already done in the large enterprise sector.
Accenture has made a staggering number of acquisitions over the past few years in a bid to strengthen its digital platform’s capabilities around ERP, CRM, HR and IT operations.
One of its biggest acquisitions in the UK was for SAP specialist Edenhouse Solutions last year which added 220 staff to its business.
Gabriel said Sapphire aims to achieve something similar in the mid-market and mid-enterprise segments, including its expansion into IT operations management where ServiceNow is the first of many new additions planned next that few years.
“If you look at what Accenture has done over the past two to three years, they’ve gained a lot of different operational capabilities in the enterprise space. We’re“ accenturising ”that mid-market to mid-enterprise and that our journey is in the last 12 months, ”he said.
“We chose not to for now, but we can pivot out of the core we already have and expand into HR operations and customer operations using CRM, which we can target over the next three to five years.”
After making four acquisitions last year, DeLuca said the M&A will also feature this year with a focus on the U.S. market.
The company currently serves approximately 1,000 customers divided into the UK and US.
“We think there is an opportunity in the US to improve our proposal in the cloud and ERP framework in which we operate,” he said.
“We’re looking at assets there to potentially consolidate and get better size and capabilities in that space.”
Future acquisitions could also center on SAP’s S/4HANA Cloud, which DeLuca said is a strategic priority for SAP.
“We’re also seeing some niche capabilities that we can wrap in the digital operating platform provider space. One is in the UI/UX space where we can really control workflows from the user back to the organization, and then we need a little more stability in being able to see and interpret data in different ways, so there will also be attention to that space. “
Meanwhile, Gabriel and DeLuca also said Sapphire will continue to migrate customers from its own cloud platform and onto an AWS public cloud platform.
Gabriel said Sapphire has been running its own cloud platform for several years, but now believes the public cloud is “clear where the world is going”.
The move will allow Sapphire to free itself “from the treadmill of infrastructure upgrades” needed to maintain its own platform.
Approximately 25 percent of Sapphire’s customers are already on the AWS platform, of which most are based in the US.
“We’re in a transformation program right now where we’re hopefully moving the majority of our customers and being pretty hyperscale focused,” he said.
“We’re getting to the point where we’re close to 100 per cent hyperscale to be delivered in the UK and most of all AWS will do that.”
.