Accenture reinforces SAP leadership with Edenhouse buy

Accenture has swooped for Edenhouse, one of the highest profile specialist SAP services providers in the UK.

The privately owned company is a Platinum SAP partner, and has 220 employees providing end-to-end SAP services to clients including Warburtons, Newcastle University and Rochdale Borough Council. Edenhouse has yet to file financial results for fiscal 2020, but in the 12 months to March 2019, revenue was down 2% to £37.4m. The price of the acquisition has not been disclosed.

The move comes at an interesting point for the UK’s SAP installed base. The market has been in something of a holding pattern for the last couple of years as customers weighed up their options for their future roadmaps. The pace of adoption of the S/4 ERP system has been generally slow, which is something that the vendor is trying to address with the recent launch of its RISE framework.

A recent survey by the UK SAP user group found that just under half (49%) stated that the pandemic had forced them to slow their investment in new SAP skills. However, nearly two thirds (63%) said they were concerned about a lack of available skills to drive forward their projects in the coming years, which is good news for the SAP service provider community.

There has been a flurry of M&A activity in the SAP services partner ecosystem, as businesses look to add expertise and experience at speed. Last year, Deloitte bought 400-employee SAP consulting firm, whose clients included BP and Dyson, while big four rival EY snapped up Oxford-based AgilityWorks, which added 150 employees to its SAP advisory practice.

The Edenhouse deal reinforces Accenture’s status as the runaway leader in the SAP services sector in the UK, which more than twice the revenue of its closest challenger, TCS. A full breakdown of our ranking of the top 20 suppliers can be found here.