Global giants IBM and NRI absorb Australian tech consultancies

27 March 2024 Consultancy.com.au

Australian IT consulting success stories SxiQ and Planit have now been absorbed into their global parents, respectively global powerhouse IBM and NRI.

Global consultancies IBM and NRI have now integrated two of their recent Australian purchases; SxiQ and Planit, both which were picked up in 2021.

Tokyo-headquartered NRI (Nomura Research Institute) reportedly paid $300 million for the software testing company Planit, adding around 1,500 consultants across Australia, New Zealand, and the Philippines, while global tech giant IBM acquired cloud transformation specialist SXiQ later the same year.

Global giants IBM and NRI absorb Australian tech consultancies

NRI: Planit 

Now, according to their respective LinkedIn pages, both of the Australian-founded consultancies have been fully integrated into their global buyers, although each of their websites is still active under their present brands with the existing parental tagline.

NRI’s other local subsidiaries – Group 10, Pragma and Velrada – have also maintained their identities, although their former owner ASG was rebranded under the NRI banner last year after being acquired back in 2016.

“NRI businesses, including major acquisition Planit, now have consolidated, scalable and standardised functions that are integrated and optimised for future growth and efficiency,” the firm stated, thanking support partner Oracle Consulting. “A unique and strategic engagement, this is also one of our biggest projects undertaken, where collaboration was key as people worked across multiple companies, multiple lines of business, and multiple locations around the world.”

NRI has also been busy stacking its consulting leadership bench with a number of recent appointments, including former Capgemini senior director and Accenture sales lead Linda Polese as a business development executive; Simon Walsh (ex-Oracle, Telstra Purple and IBM) as general manager of sales; Brad Marshall from Deloitte as Salesforce GM; and SAP’s former Asia Pacific head of innovation advisory and architecture Brian Orloff as principal consultant.

IBM: SxiQ

IBM meanwhile acquired Melbourne-headquartered SxiQ as part of the tech giant’s strategic tilt toward hybrid cloud and AI services. While the financial terms were not disclosed, the SxiQ deal added around 100 professionals to IBM’s ranks in both Australia and New Zealand, of which Nicholas Flood was appointed CEO at the start of the year.

Former Bain & Company partner David Ellis meanwhile recently took over as IBM Consulting regional managing partner.

“We’ve been running as a stand-alone business under the IBM umbrella, but not anymore,” SxiQ stated. Over the last few months, we’ve been working with IBM on an integration to bring the two businesses together. We’re excited to announce that we are now fully integrated into IBM’s Hybrid Cloud Services and instead of operating as two entities, we have brought the power of SXiQ and IBM together to help deliver faster, smarter, and better cloud transformations.”