Deloitte Consulting acquires tech firm founded by an alumnus
The Australian arm of professional services firm Deloitte has acquired Sydney-based The Eclair Group, its fourth acquisition in Oceania this year.
The bolt-on of The Eclair Group adds a team of around 25 professionals to Deloitte’s Consulting division. They will be integrated into Deloitte’s Sydney office, and bolster the firm’s Robotic & Cognitive Automation practice, which is a service line within the Technology Consulting unit.
Founded in 2017, The Eclair Group specialises in helping businesses with process automation services. The company provides a cognitive platform – Eve – that guides clients through their automation journey, which typically revolve around Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) implementations.
The cloud-based platform helps clients identify automation opportunities, then with priotisation (quantification of benefits roll-out complexity) and with monitoring (real-time tracking of automation initiatives through a range of visualisations). Leveraging the tool, an asset management company managed to lower the number of faults in its maintenance process, while a financial services institution used Eve to automate some 90 processes with robotic process automation in the space of juts four weeks.
Two years after launching, The Eclair Group founder Alex Moynihan has now sold the firm to consulting firm, as a Director in Monitor Deloitte – the firm’s strategy consulting arm formed in 2012 after the global giant bout strategic consultancy boutique Monitor Deloitte.
“Deloitte is not only the industry leader in the robotic and cognitive automation space, but also represents the values and culture that we at Eclair have aspired to. We are all very excited to be joining the team at Deloitte,” said Moynihan, who has been appointed a partner.
Surging process automation demand
For Deloitte, the move enhances its ability to help clients plan and govern the delivery of process automation services, amid surging demand for such services. Technology is changing the nature of work, with robots increasingly able to take over routine tasks from people, freeing them up to spend time on more valued-adding tasks. Meanwhile, robots can perform the work more accurately and effective, helping organsitions drive up efficiency and internal/external satisfaction.
“Deloitte sees huge opportunity in the robotics and cognitive automation landscape,” said Kaylene O’Brien, Managing Partner of Deloitte Consulting. A report released by the firm earlier this year described 2020 as the “breakout year” for intelligent automation. Deloitte is not alone in its forecast – analyst firm Forrester believes the market will record double digit growth for three consecutive years, lifting its global market size to $3.8 billion by 2021.
Amberjit Endow, a partner in Deloitte’s Robotics & Cognitive Automation team, said: “The skills and capabilities of the Eclair team are highly regarded in the market and will further add to the depth and breadth of expertise Deloitte currently has in the process automation space.”
The purchase of The Eclair Group continues a rampant M&A campaign for Deloitte in Oceania. In Australia the firm bought data management consultancy NeoData (July), cloud player The Terrace Initiative, risk management firm Converging Data, and in New Zealand CloudinIT was integrated into Deloitte Digital.
