Avanade, the $2 billion-plus Microsoft solution provider powerhouse, No. 31 on the 2021 CRN SP500, has acquired Quantiq, one of the top Microsoft Dynamics systems integrators in the world.
The London-headquartered Quantiq – which has 300 employees- has won the prestigious Microsoft Business Applications Inner Circle award for five consecutive years.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Avanade – a joint venture of Accenture and Microsoft with 50,000 employees focused on the Microsoft IT services market- said the acquisition “significantly” extends its Dynamics 365 capabilities and builds on its existing cloud based Microsoft Business Application offerings.
Quantiq is a Microsoft Dynamics “crown jewel” and widely regarded as an industry leader in the fast growing Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software as a service market, said Martin Wolf, president of martinwolf M&A Advisors of Scottsdale, Arizona, which acted as an advisor to Quantiq on the transaction.
“Quantiq is winning and punching well above its weight, more than any other Microsoft Dynamics partner in the world,” said Wolf. “Dynamics is the fastest growing part of Microsoft and it ties into the cloud with Azure. Avanade now has a significant Dynamics outsourcing capability. They can deliver all over the world and can go into corporate accounts with a lot of Microsoft Dynamics swag. They are getting top Microsoft Dynamics specialist resources.”https://be3fcd5fd2e4978902a646d0427473b0.safeframe.googlesyndication.com/safeframe/1-0-38/html/container.html
Quantiq, in fact, bills itself as the only Microsoft partner in the United Kingdom that can sell, implement and support the full Dynamics stack in the cloud, hybrid-cloud and on premise.
Wolf credited Quantiq founder, Chairman and CEO Stuart Fenton – a one-time top executive for CDW and Insight – for transforming the Microsoft Dynamics solution provider into a formidable recurring revenue services superstar with stellar professional services.
“Stuart was able to bridge the chasm from the VAR business where people are treated as expenses to the services business where employees are treated as assets,” said Wolf. “In today’s world where everybody can get a better job you need to make sure you have lower turnover, higher employee satisfaction and higher customer satisfaction. If you look at the net promoter score of Quantiq it is off the charts. Stuart has done a terrific job in building up the culture of the company so people want to go to the company and stay there. That is unique. That is Quantiq’s secret sauce.”
Fenton’s experience moving Quantiq from a Dynamics reseller to a services superstar is a timely lesson given CDW’s $2.5 billion acquisition of services powerhouse Sirius Computer Solutions, said Wolf. That deal provides CDW with 2,600 employees including 1,500 technologists. It also adds $400 million to CDW’s services portfolio and improve CDW gross margins by 110 basis points.
“What you saw with CDW’s acquisition of Sirius is they are buying assets, the people are the assets,” exclaimed Wolf. “Not everybody can bridge that chasm and Stuart Fenton did that with Quantiq.”
That ability to cross the services chasm requires a “dexterity of leadership that not everybody has,” said Wolf. “That is going to be more relevant in the next 12 to 24 months as more companies try to cross the chasm from the VAR model where you manage expenses to the services model where you lead people. It’s a completely different perspective. Many CEOs of product-centric companies have a very difficult journey into services because it is much more people intensive.”RELATED TOPICS:
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