Ernst & Young, Australia (“EY Australia”) has acquired Future Friendly, a strategic design, product development, and digital solutions consulting studio. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
This is technology M&A deal number 225 that ChannelE2E and MSSP Alert have covered so far in 2023. See more than 2,000 technology M&A deals for 2023, 2022, 2021, and 2020 listed here.
Ernst & Young, founded in 1989, is headquartered in London, England. The company has 355,764 employees listed on LinkedIn. EY’s areas of expertise include advisory, assurance, tax, transactions, audit, mergers, M&A, financial services, accounting, professional services, law, technology, consulting, data, transformation, strategy, legal, digital transformation, legal, growth and managed services.
Future Friendly, founded in 2004, is based in Redfern, New South Wales, Australia. The company has 47 employees listed on LinkedIn. Future Friendly’s areas of expertise include product design, product development, design consulting, rapid prototyping, and service design.
Future Friendly will join the EY Australia team to lead a new business transformation offering, with Future Friendly co-founders Nick Gower and Jon Christensen joining the EY Australia partnership, the company said. The team will be based out of Sydney and Canberra, and will service clients across Oceania, according to EY.
Future Friendly provides a number of design and development solutions. Their combination of strategic design and product development allows them to work with clients to define new strategies and then design, build and launch new services that deliver measurable impact against agreed business, customer, and community outcomes, EY said in a prepared statement.
EY Acquires Future Friendly: Additional Commentary
Grant Peters, EY Financial Services Managing Partner, Oceania, commented:
“The addition of the Future Friendly team to our existing business transformation practice enhances our ability to bring our clients the deep industry knowledge and technical experience they need to address their biggest transformation challenges. The joining together of our two teams will create a compelling and innovative new offering in the market.”
Nick Gower, co-founder, Future Friendly, said:
“The design of everyday products and services has the power to change lives. After 17 years dedicated to delivering wellbeing at scale for communities through design, the next step for the Future Friendly team is a big but natural one. Joining EY will give us access to enormous capabilities in strategic and technology consulting, as well as deep industry insights. This puts us at the heart of the business conversations that will decide the future and positions us to design the products and services that will help shape all of our lives for the better.”
Anthony Robinson, EY Financial Services Consulting Leader, Oceania, added:
“I am excited to welcome the team from Future Friendly to our Oceania practice and, in particular, to our growing business transformation team. This is another great example of our ongoing commitment to providing leading innovation, customer experience and digital design support to our clients, and will significantly enhance our footprint in the region. Our strategic ambition is to grow the practice across Oceania, and the calibre of the team at Future Friendly will assist us in achieving this ambition, as we work together to build a better working world.”
EY’s Continued Growth
Ernst & Young (EY) has been active in the M&A market, acquiring multiple MSP, MSSP and IT consulting firms worldwide. Today’s announcement marks the eighth EY acquisition in the UK since April 2021, the company said. Last year, the EY organization unveiled plans to double the size of its UK and Ireland Consulting services over the next four years, backed by £75m of investment, the company said. Key EY acquisitions have also involved application, cybersecurity and managed services expertise, as well as sustainability and digital and customer experience expertise.
Some recent EY acquisitions ChannelE2E has tracked include:
- January 2023: EY acquired SAP solutions provider eBorn Consulting to expand its operations in India.
- December 2022: ifb SE, an international finance and risk transformation and compliance consultancy, headquartered in Grünwald, Germany.
- November 2022: Big data analytics firm Bridge Business Consulting of Australia.
- October 2022: ServiceNow workflow automation partner Red Moki of New Zealand.
- September 2022: Sustainability consultancy AFARA.
- August 2022: Government technology consultancy Cambria Solutions.
