Sopra Steria enters Intelligent Automation alliance with Symphony Ventures

24 July 2018 Consultancy.uk

Consulting firm Sopra Steria has announced a strategic partnership with Symphony Ventures to accelerate Intelligent Automation in the private and public sectors. The organisations hope that the alliance will help them to offer the market a unique blend of IA best practice in consultancy and implementation.

Innovative new technologies are revolutionising business processes of companies of all shapes and sizes. Advanced use of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) – a simple form of rules-based automation, which can be used to improve the quality, speed and efficiency of client-facing functions – is expected to double by 2020, while the next major trend, Intelligent Automation (IA), is set to provide information management software and services to businesses, helping set new standards of efficiency and productivity. In anticipation of this burgeoning market, global consultancies Sopra Steria and Symphonie Ventures have announced a new alliance aimed at addressing the growing needs of their clients, with regards to the use of IA to support the needs of customers across enterprise and the public and private sectors.

Symphony has clients in more than 24 countries in every major industry, and works with a roster of leading software providers including UiPath, Blue Prism, Thoughtonomy, NICE Systems, eNate, ABBYY and Celaton. In response to changing market trends, the company is continuing to expand its digital ecosystem of tools to offer expanded solutions for clients. Symphony has headquarters in London and offices in the US, Poland, Latin America and India. Sopra Steria is trusted by leading private and public-sector organisations to deliver successful transformation programmes that address their most complex and critical business challenges. Sopra Steria, meanwhile, enables clients to make the best use of digital technology, leveraging nearly 42,000 employees in more than 20 countries, and generating revenue of €3.8 billion in 2017.

As specialist consultants in IA and RPA, Symphony Ventures is expected to boost Sopra Steria’s growth in these areas and to rapidly develop new and exciting solutions, enabling customers to re-imagine business operations. Working together, Sopra Steria and Symphony hope to offer IA with the power to transform business process capabilities at an enterprise level and unlock value across the entire organisation, tapping into the booming demand for transformation consulting relating to innovative technologies. Together, Sopra Steria and Symphony aim to offer clients a clear and scalable manner in which to integrate IA into the business operation, with a rapid Return On Investment. The terms of the strategic alliance are still being finalised, but both parties are set to enter the market in a joint project as of the second half of 2018.

John Torrie, CEO at Sopra Steria UK, said, "This alliance signals our investment in IA and accelerates our transformation to become a consulting led business. Symphony Ventures is the perfect strategic ally for us. It has an outstanding reputation in the market and a proven high-end consulting capability. Clients are looking for rapid, assured automation to drive change, re-imagine customer services and transform business models. Together, Sopra Steria and Symphony will offer the insight, innovation and capability needed to deliver outstanding outcomes and get rapid results.”

David Poole, Co-founder and CEO at Symphony Ventures, added, “This is a major strategic alliance for Symphony and a key step in the future growth of our business. Sopra Steria’s strong Business Process Services heritage and extensive client base represents a huge opportunity for us. IA has seen explosive growth over the last four years and with Cognitive, AI and Machine Learning capabilities rapidly emerging, we see the combination of these technologies turning the BPS industry on its head. We are truly excited about the power of this new alliance.”