Acorio, a pure-play ServiceNow consultancy from Boston, Massachusetts, has acquired BusinessForward, a management consulting firm for IT, HR, and other corporate clients based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Founded in 2006, BusinessForward consults on Enterprise Service Management (ESM) and Human Capital Management (HCM) investments for a number of Fortune 500 companies. The deal will bolster Acorio’s business transformation advisory practice, according to the company.
Ellen Daley, CEO, Acorio, commented on the deal:
“We are thrilled to merge forces with BusinessForward and boost our advisory capabilities. The ServiceNow journey has accelerated over the past six months, and we are seeing our clients demanding new kinds of transformational engagements. As a result, Acorio has made significant investments on the critical requirements of a transformational consultancy: people, process and technology. The BusinessForward team reflects another significant advance in our ability to drive tangible business outcomes for our global C-level clients.”
Founded in 2013, Acorio is currently the largest pure-play ServiceNow consultancy in the world, the company claims. In addition to its headquarters in Boston, Acorio has nine regional hubs across the United States as well as an international presence in the Netherlands, Australia, and Spain.
The company was recently rated as one of the top 346 workplaces in the U.S. by Inc. Magazine, and was named one of the fastest-growing companies in Massachusetts by the Boston Business Journal.
ServiceNow Partner Ecosystem Shifts
The acquisition underscores a significant pivot sweeping through the ServiceNow Partner ecosystem, according to Acorio. A study from the company earlier this year showed that service management has expanded beyond its traditional roots in IT to other parts of the organization.
The company found that most respondents to the survey implemented two or more ServiceNow applications, and 12 percent have implemented at least four platform elements. These new usages span diverse company functions like Human Resources, Legal, and Customer Service.
Those findings mirror ServiceNow's business strategy. The company has been pushing hard beyond IT departments toward SecOps, HR, finance and more.
ServiceNow Partners: Mergers and Acquisitions
Meanwhile, ChannelE2E has tracked a number of ServiceNow-related deals in recent months.
Buyers are typically grabbing talent and customer accounts amid a shortage of skilled ServiceNow technicians and partners worldwide. The talent shortage prompted CEO John Donahoe to declare 2019 the Year of ServiceNow Certified Professionals. But rather than waiting for training to mitigate the skills shortage, partners are buying up talent through various mergers and acquisitions.
Among the ServerNow partner mergers and acquisitions that ChannelE2E has tracked in 2019
- June 2019: Fully Managed acquires Lime Collar Group, accelerating the company’s strategy to offer MSP and co-managed ITSM to midmarket customers.
- April 2019: RLJ Equity Partners acquired Virteva and merged it with Crossfuze. The combined MSP, called Crossfuze, has 100 ServiceNow consultants and developers, and 600 employees globally.
- April 2019: In a move that may foreshadow future deals, Cask Technologies split into two businesses — one focused on ServiceNow consulting.
- April 2019: GrowthOps acquired ServiceNow partner Entrago for IT service management (ITSM) expansion across Australia and Asia-Pacific region.
- February 2019: Enterprise Vision Technologies acquired Zefflin Systems.
- January 2019: CDW acquired Scalar Decisions Inc.
To check out the complete and growing number of ServiceNow acquisitions, you can visit our updated list here.
