Deloitte Consulting bolsters SAP practice with Keytree acquisition
Deloitte has acquired Keytree, a UK-headquartered international technology consultancy with around 400 employees. The joining of forces creates one of the UK’s largest SAP consulting players and boosts the firm’s SAP practice in four other countries.
Founded in 2006 by the trio of Dan McNamara, Tim Kyle and Anthony Aughterson in London, Keytree is a technology consultancy and managed services firm that specialises in SAP products and solutions. The firm helps its clients with SAP implementations, designing and building apps, moving infrastructures to the cloud and digitising operations, as well as outsourced business processes.
In the SAP space, Keytree focuses on four main domains – SAP S/4HANA, SAP Customer Experience, SAP SuccessFactors and SAP Cloud Platform. The firm also has a suite of own solutions, including Matrix Booking (a cloud-based resource booking engine for companies in the hotel, hospitality, rental and mobility sectors), KIT (an assisted selling solution for retailers) and Fielder (a solution for field engineers in the utilities sector).
Keytree is currently working on projects in over 30 countries, for the likes of BP, Cadent, Dyson, Greater London Authority, Heineken, Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Serco, Shell, Transport for London, TUI and Veolia.
Having operated independently for fourteen years, Keytree has now decided to join one of the globe’s major consulting firms: Deloitte. According to co-founders Dan McNamara (chief executive) and Tim Kyle (managing director), the move will bolster the firm’s service portfolio to the benefit of its clients, while enabling its employees to work on larger, higher-impact projects.
McNamara: “Combining our business and people with the brilliant team at Deloitte and fusing the firm’s rigorous technology and data expertise with our own will ensure that we are able to operate and innovate at an even larger global scale and be in the best position possible to support our clients when they need us most.”
Kyle added, “By working together, we will be in a position to deliver solutions for our customers that will overcome significant business challenges, drive digital innovation and continue our commitment to positively impact the communities in which we operate.”
SAP powerhouse
For Deloitte, the deal consolidates its positions as one of the globe’s leading SAP consultancies – the firm has to the tune of 25,000 professionals working on a daily basis with clients on their SAP endeavours. Meanwhile, for the firm’s UK practice, the joining of forces creates “UK’s largest SAP practice”, according to Anne-Marie Malley, who leads Deloitte Consulting in the UK.
As part of the integration, Keytree will be integrated into the SAP service line within the Technology division of Deloitte Consulting. All of Keytree’s professionals will join Deloitte in the UK, with smaller teams joining Deloitte’s practices in India, Spain, Australia and Canada.
Commenting on the deal, Rob Cullen, Head of Deloitte Consulting’s Enterprise Technology practice, said: “Bringing together Keytree’s market leading capabilities in SAP with our own will give clients an unrivalled breadth and depth of expertise. This will significantly boost the ways that we can transform our clients’ digital core operations and the experience of their customers and employees as they continue to adapt to new ways of working.”
While Deloitte currently is navigating a challenging period amid the Covid-19 crisis, Richard Houston, the chief executive of Deloitte UK, said that the acquisition is part of Deloitte’s strategy to invest in areas of expertise that are in high-demand from clients and in services that help the firm future-proof its business model.
“Being digitally-connected has never been more important. Organisations of every size need to find new ways to thrive post Covid-19 and digital transformation programmes will be right at the heart of this. Bringing together our scale and Keytree’s expertise and entrepreneurial spirit will help our clients to ensure these critical programmes support their long-term success.”
Upon closing, the deal will become Deloitte’s first in the UK since it snapped intellectual property consultancy ClearViewIP and human resources and reward specialist Stitch Communications in June last year. However, globally, it is the firm’s seventh acquisition this year, having previously absorbed firms in Asia, Canada and Australia, most of which focus on technology consulting services.
