Unit4 acquires prevero, 160 employees move to new entity

Provider of enterprise applications for service organisation, Unit4, has acquired prevero, which deals in solutions for Corporate Performance Management (CPM) and Business Intelligence (BI).

These offerings are expected to complement Unit4’s self-driving business solutions - through capabilities such as, predictive analytics, modelling and simulations, and ubiquitous access to information via in-memory technology.

The additional solutions will be available both standalone and integrated into Unit4’s People Platform technology foundation.

Stephan Sieber, CEO of Unit4, noted this development was particularly relevant to the needs of services organisations. He said: "The combination of Unit4 and prevero delivers the best performance management and the best services resource planning, designed with the latest technology to simplify user experience and maximise productivity."

Added Alexander Springer, prevero's co-founder and CEO: "The combination of the two companies will deliver a market leading offering for strategic finance and other business functions, with the infrastructure and scale required for international expansion."

Human Resources interviewed Kara Walsh, chief human capital officer, Unit4 to identify how the acquisition is expected to influence manpower and headcount.

Q. What do the next 100 days imply for employees of Unit4 and prevero?

Over the next few months Unit4 and prevero will merge to tightly integrate the companies’ technologies and resources to better fulfil our customers’ needs.

We are putting in place enablement programmes to ensure that employees especially the sales, R&D, professional service and customer support teams, are trained on the prevero solutions and are fully equipped to respond to customer demand.

In the short-term, we will further refine our integrated roadmap to strengthen our combined CPM and BI offering, and expand and enable our joint sales forces.

Q. In the longer term, what are some of the initiatives you have in the pipeline to evade synergy problems and ensure the workforce remains engaged?

First and foremost, our acquisition strategy is focused on growth. We have undertaken in-depth industry research and comprehensive due diligence leading to the acquisition. One aspect of this was to ensure that there is a cultural synergy so that the workforces can integrate without any roadblocks.

prevero will become our flagship CPM offering for the office of the CFO, business managers and other CxO offices. Our new, larger Centre of Excellence will focus on prevero and on existing Unit4 BI/CPM products, driving product innovation, product management and standalone product sales, facilitating cross-sell into the Unit4 base and to net new customers.

As mentioned above, we are investing in training programmes so that the workforce on both sides of the acquisition is fully equipped to leverage the new solutions. This will not only allow greater business success but also allow room for personal development as the company grows.

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To ensure business continuity, the entire prevero executive team will remain with Unit4. The two founders, Alex Springer and Matthias Thurner, will become sales and product leads respectively for the combined global offering.

Given the fact that this is a growth acquisition, synergies will be primarily on the sales and R&D side, where we will put significant investments to realise our growth ambitions.

Q. Does this acquisition have any headcount implications at either Unit4 or prevero?

We immediately grow our headcount by the 160 people joining Unit4 from prevero and since this is a strategic acquisition focused on growth and seizing the huge opportunity that exists in the market for performance management solutions, we expect growth after this.

During the integration we will further explore the best ways to integrate the businesses and improve our operations.

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