PwC acquires UK-based Salesforce consulting firm cDecisions

Adding to its reputation as a top Salesforce partner, PwC has unveiled a conditional agreement to acquire UK-based Salesforce consultancy, cDecisions. The deal, which is expected to formally conclude at the turn of the year, will further expand PwC’s capabilities to help clients with digital and customer transformation using the CRM software.

Salesforce is the world's largest provider of CRM software and enterprise cloud ecosystems. The Salesforce Customer Success Platform is aimed at aiding businesses to grow into more streamlined, effective and efficient organisations across sales, service and marketing. According to numerous sources, it is the leading customer relationship system for corporates and mid-sized firms.

Earlier this month, Salesforce unveiled the list of consulting firms it believes have done the best job implementing and supporting its products and solutions at companies across the globe. Seventeen ‘Salesforce Consulting Partner Innovation Awards’ were granted by the ERP-giant, with PwC walking away with two gongs. The firm took home the Retail prize for their work with fashion store GAP, and the Travel & Transportation award for their work with United, the world’s third most profitable airline.

Now, PwC, which according to recent Gartner statistics is the world’s largest consultancy, has gained further ground in the Salesforce CRM space, with the acquisition of cDecisions. Founded in 2009, the Bournemouth-based Salesforce consultancy specialise in delivering bespoke CRM implementation advice to a number of mid-sized clients, alongside major national and multinational companies aiming at growing their CRM use. Some of the most prominent names the firm have worked with include Johnson & Johnson, Sharps, CAPITA, GM, L’Oréal, Cambridge Bioscience, Essilor, among others.

The deal follows PwC’s 2016 purchase of cloud specialists Outbox. The acquisition, which also concluded for an undisclosed fee, saw PwC hoover up the integrator Outbox Group, along with 250 staff who transferred to the Big Four firm’s pay roll, in order to boost their European CRM, marketing automation and IT maintenance services. Following the arrival of Outbox in the network, PwC has achieved exceptional growth over the past year.

Global force

PwC’s global workforce presently consists of a network of firms in 158 countries, and over 236,000 people, including more than 600 certified Salesforce employees. That tally makes PwC one of the fastest growing Salesforce Global Consulting Partners, something the addition of the cDecisions team of around 20 professionals will also boost. The cDecisions team will sit within the UK arm of PwC’s Salesforce operations, alongside 350 other specialists. Co-CEOs Joel Versluys and Nigel Runnalls will meanwhile join PwC as directors.

Marco Amitrano, UK consulting leader at PwC, said, “We’re seeing rising demand from our clients around digital and customer transformation and Salesforce is one of the the key technology platforms enabling these programmes. cDecisions adds deep financial services industry expertise to our existing team, and expands on our previous investments in this area, to create the right balance of technical and business understanding to accelerate results for our clients.”

cDecisions co-CEO Joel Versluys said of the deal, “We’ve grown rapidly in the past few years in a highly competitive Salesforce market, with particular success in the insurance and retail banking sectors. Looking to the future, we’re excited about the new opportunities that joining PwC will bring, not only in terms of scale but also the chance to get involved early in wider business transformation projects to help organisations meet the demands of the new customer landscape.”