{"id":21249,"date":"2016-03-18T12:58:36","date_gmt":"2016-03-18T12:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.businesscloudnews.com\/?p=247242"},"modified":"2016-03-18T12:58:36","modified_gmt":"2016-03-18T12:58:36","slug":"ibm-acquires-optevia-to-strengthen-position-in-public-sector-crm-market","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/ibm-acquires-optevia-to-strengthen-position-in-public-sector-crm-market\/","title":{"rendered":"IBM acquires Optevia to strengthen position in public sector CRM market"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"cloud_\"<\/a>IBM claims the acquisition of Optevia will improve its position as a SaaS and digital consultant in the lucrative market. Optevia has a track record of working with UK Emergency Services, Central Government, Local Government and Social Enterprises, including the Ministry of Justice\u2019s National Taxing Team\u2019s rollout of Dynamics CRM.<\/p>\n

\u201cBy acquiring Optevia, IBM will be able to provide Public Sector clients and prospects with a range of unique, industry focused Microsoft Dynamics CRM based solutions,\u201d said Joanna Davinson, IBM\u2019s European Public Sector Leader. \u201cThis strategic acquisition will help strengthen IBM as a SaaS provider and Global Software Integrator.\u201d<\/p>\n

In Gartner\u2019s CRM Forecast Overview<\/a>, published last summer, the global CRM market was valued in the region of $23 billion, with around 50% of the market accounted for by the top 5 services providers. SaaS continued to demonstrate strong demand, with almost 47% of the revenue attributed to the service. According to Gartner,Salesforce.com is the market leader, with IBM claiming 4% of the CRM segment.<\/p>\n

While IBM already has an established position in the public sector market, the company has 98 current offerings on G-Cloud, the acquisition of Optevia signals its intentions of increasing its share of the public sector CRM segment.<\/p>\n

Alongside IBM, other players have been bolstering their position in the wider CRM market. Last year, Accenture acquired Tquila and Cloud Sherpas, both of which are Salesforce partners on G-Cloud. The acquisitions more than doubled the number of Accenture\u2019s Salesforce consultants in the UK.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have seen significant growth in SaaS as more companies adopt the cloud and digital strategies to collaborate better, drive greater operational efficiencies and accelerate the development of new products and services,\u201d said Emma McGuigan, UK and Ireland MD at Accenture Technology. \u201cOne key factor for our continued success in delivering Salesforce solutions depends on having the right skilled professionals to meet the growing demand. With Tquila on board we have the critical mass to more proactively target big opportunities both in the UK and Europe, which will extend our position in the region.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite Salesforce.com\u2019s current market-leading position there have been a number of calls-to-arms by competitors looking to challenge the CRM giant. Alongside IBM\u2019s announcement, Oracle has hinted at its intention to take on Salesforce.com. On Oracle\u2019s earnings call this week<\/a>, CTO Larry Ellison highlighted the company\u2019s positioning \u201cshould make it easy for Oracle to pass Salesforce.com and become the largest SaaS and PaaS cloud company in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IBM has announced the acquisition of systems integrator Optevia, which specializes in Microsoft Dynamics CRM solutions for the public sector, in a bid to strengthen its offering for the public sector market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":203,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3387,1989,799,1976,2113],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-crm","category-enterprise-it","category-ibm","category-news-analysis","category-public-sector"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/203"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21250,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21249\/revisions\/21250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icloud.pe\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}