Accenture acquires Workday and Salesforce practices from Sierra-Cedar

3 Feb 2020

Image: © Andrei/Stock.adobe.com

Once the deal is finalised, 275 professionals from Sierra-Cedar will join Accenture’s Workday, Salesforce and MuleSoft practices.

On Friday (31 January), Accenture announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire Workday, Salesforce and US MuleSoft practices from IT service management company Sierra-Cedar, in a bid to strengthen its position in the Workday ecosystem.

Accenture also aims to broaden its services to higher education and government organisations in the US that are seeking to transform their core software systems for human resources, finance, accounting and student services.

Sierra-Cedar offers consulting services and administrative support to help clients through major technological shifts and day-to-day business.

Once the deal is finalised, approximately 275 of its staff will join Accenture’s Workday, Salesforce and MuleSoft practices, which are focused on modernising complex core operational systems and processes for higher education and government clients.

Strengthening Accenture’s higher education offerings

Commenting on the acquisition, Ryan Gaetz, managing director of Accenture’s education and government-focused Workday practices, said: “We are focused on our clients’ priorities for more efficient, secure, transparent and customer service-oriented operations, and the practitioners joining Accenture have the industry and platform skills that are at the centre of such efforts.

“By bolstering our practice focused on Workday Student, financial management and human capital management, Accenture can help our clients achieve a greater set of outcomes.”

Jonathan Fry, managing director of Accenture’s global education practice, added: “Accenture is committed to investing in innovation that helps advance our ability to meet and exceed client demands and builds our talent base.

“This team brings deep client-centric skills and an array of expert capabilities that align with and significantly boost our offerings to higher education and government.”

Financial terms of the deal, which is set to close in early 2020 were not disclosed. In its 2019 fiscal year, Accenture invested nearly $1.2bn on 33 acquisitions globally. Since the start of 2020, Accenture has announced plans to acquire Symantec’s cybersecurity services and CRM firm Maihiro.

Kelly Earley was a journalist with Silicon Republic

editorial@siliconrepublic.com