Australian consultancies Mexia and System Partners join Deloitte and DXC
Two Australian consultancies, Mexia and System Partners, have been picked up by larger players, with Mexia being integrated into Deloitte Consulting, while System Partners has joined DXC Technology. Both deals were advised on by Equiteq.
The management consulting sector of the Australasian region saw a decline of merger and acquisition activity this year. Purchase levels fell 14% to 98 deals, however, while this compared poorly with markets such as the US and Europe, this was still an improvement on the collective ‘rest of the world’, which saw a decline of 29% to 91. Media and management consultancies proved popular across Australia and New Zealand, but technology remains perhaps the greatest draw for those chasing smaller firms. In line with this, two new deals have been completed for cloud and Salesforce consultancies in the region.
System Partners | DXC
Founded in 2008, System Partners is a Salesforce Platinum partner based in Australia and New Zealand. The firm delivers consulting services to enterprise businesses covering advisory, strategy mapping, end-to-end implementation services, tailored managed services and governance. These services are provided through a unique delivery and diagnostic process, which links business strategy, process, innovation and technology delivery to enhance client performance.
Created by the successful merger of consulting firm CSC and HP's spun-off Enterprise Services, DXC Technology was added to the S&P 500 in early 2017. The merged business also underwent a new branding initiative, including a new logo, in line with its changed name, and has been looking to kick off an expansion campaign since. Now the firm has completed a deal to purchase System Partners, strengthening its Salesforce offering in the process. With more than 100 Australia-based Salesforce certified experts, the addition of System Partners will also offer DXC a comprehensive portfolio across market leading SaaS platforms.
Having a deep Salesforce capability is strategically important for DXC in Australia and New Zealand, as it looks to aid existing customers and increase its relevance in the cloud environment. The move comes as more organisations are using Salesforce and considering CRM replacements across the region, something which System Partners can both lift DXC’s Salesforce capability for, and help to accelerate the growth of DXC’s global Salesforce practice.
Collectively remarking on the deal, DXC’s the three founders; Barret Cunningham, Maarten Baaij, and Sai Lavu said, “The partnership between DXC and System Partners opens up excellent growth and development opportunities for our clients and staff across ANZ and will allow our business to continue accelerating the scale and quality of our work. We are very thankful for the process and advice that Equiteq provided, and the position this places us in for the future. We look forward to leveraging DXC’s deep industry capabilities and helping our clients with their business and digital transformation.”
Commenting on the deal, Scott Bozic, System Partners CEO, said, “Today’s announcement is the start of another exciting chapter for System Partners… Joining the DXC family will provide us with strategic support and enhanced capabilities that will benefit our team, our partners and our clients.”
The sell-side of the deal was advised on by Equiteq, a professional services firm specialising in mergers and acquisitions in the ‘knowledge economy’ market. Pierre Briand, Managing Director of Equiteq Australia said, “It was a pleasure to work with System Partners during this exciting phase of their growth story. We believe the partnership between DXC Technology and System Partners is a good example of the rationales driving the deal activity in Australia and the Salesforce market in particular.”
Mexia | Deloitte
Big Four firm Deloitte has been making a concerted effort to improve its digital offering, following a merger of all operations across Asia Pacific into the single entity. As of the September 2018, the nearly 45,000 staff across Deloitte’s various regional operations in Asia and the Antipodes began to operate under the single Asia Pacific umbrella, with the firm soon purchasing Australian consultancy Cloudtrek to boost the firm’s web services capabilities.
Now, Deloitte has further strengthened its digital offering, with the purchase of Mexia. Established in 2008, Mexia was founded by CEO Dean Robertson in order to offer Microsoft integration consulting, cloud, infrastructure and managed service solutions. Its 50 deep-expertise specialists are equally spread across offices in both Melbourne and Brisbane, and the team will join now Deloitte Consulting’s Technology Advisory Platform Engineering practice, with Robertson and current COO Mathew Coleman to become Deloitte Consulting partners.
Commenting on the move, Deloitte CEO, Richard Deutsch, said, “We are about enabling our clients to successfully execute strategy, innovate, and meeting the needs of their customers and stakeholders. Deep specialisation needs to be at the core of any professional services offering and the value we need to provide. Mexia, and the additional capability the team will bring certainly fits this mould.”
Clifford Foster, Platform Engineering Leader and Deloitte Consulting Partner added, “The team from Mexia will add to an already substantial platform engineering and systems integration national practice, and expand our portfolio into the Microsoft Azure platform and offerings across systems integration, the ‘Internet of Things’ and what we call ‘data in motion’, identifying the value of data flowing between systems in real time.”
Meanwhile, Mexia CEO Dean Robertson said, “Joining a successful, growing and broad-based professional services leader like Deloitte is a great move for our business, and one that will present great opportunities for our people. Helping clients across multiple sectors to realise the value of cloud-based technology transformation is our bread and butter.”
Once more, Equiteq provided advice to the sell-side, and regarding Equiteq’s role in the transaction, Robertson said, “Equiteq has been instrumental in assisting Mexia, from preparation, to the management of the process, and right up to completion. I am very pleased to have had them assist in our next stage of growth.”
Pierre Briand, MD of Equiteq Australia concluded, “We have been behind Mexia every step of the way since preparing the business for new challenges. We wish Mexia and Deloitte great success to create a significant player in the Microsoft integration consulting sector in Australia.”
