Mindtree has acquired Bluefin to bolster its SAP cred

Mindtree has acquired Bluefin Solutions, an IT consultancy with particular expertise in SAP software, for an undisclosed sum. Krishnakumar Natarajan, chief executive and managing director of  Mindtree told BCN the move will help boost its European presence and its competencies around IoT, in-memory computing, and mobile.

Headquartered in the UK, Bluefin delivers a range of IT consultancy services with a specialisation in SAP technology, and Natarajan said the acquisition will bolster its reach in traditional European enterprises and public sector organisations, and create opportunities to bring its HANA cloud expertise to the US.

“SAP is not only a powerhouse of innovation, it is the commercial backbone of many of the largest global enterprises,” Natarajan said. “Mindtree and Bluefin can now offer unique integrated front-end, back-end and support services with unrivalled expertise on a global scale. This is essential to truly global organisations looking to use technology to digitize the entire value chain.

James Appleby, group chief executive of Bluefin Solutions told BCN that while its clients continue to look to it for expertise in many traditional areas where SAP has some tech leverage – BI, EPM, CRM, trade investment solutions – its clients are increasingly looking to take those platforms to the cloud, a strong growth area for the company.

“One of our most interesting client-observations is in the UK Public Sector, where the coincidental timing of government cut backs and the maturing of new technologies has been a disruptive force of innovation, particularly around citizen engagement, willingness to share and the opportunities offered by cloud,” he said.

“We certainly see an increased uptake of SaaS solutions in large enterprises with C4C really only taking off in the last 12 months in a meaningful way.  IaaS is now the default choice in many organisations for non-productive solutions and the decisions organisations are taking regarding HANA will increase the uptake of IaaS both as a platform for productive and non-productive use.”

He explained SAP’s HANA Enterprise Cloud had some teething problems at first, which wasn’t helped by the way the firm priced its consumption-based licensing, but that its PaaS – HANA Cloud Platform – remains massively underexploited in today’s market.

“Currently we are seeing it being used to extend SaaS applications but it is a powerful modern platform which could deliver much more for clients in terms of value,” he said.