With the recent acquisition of SAP Partner ifb, EY will be better equipped to handle finance digital transformation projects.
As one of the largest professional services firms in the world, EY provides assurance, tax, transaction, and advisory services to help its clients navigate through an ever-changing marketplace. In the financial services industry specifically, EY advises some of the world’s leading banks, insurance companies, and asset managers. Today, its team of financial services professionals across the globe continues to help clients drive growth, manage risk, and improve their performance.
In terms of realizing transformation through SAP solutions, EY teams help enterprises accelerate strategic, industry-specific, cloud-based, and value-driven modernizations. These include improving operational efficiencies, creating new customer experiences, and developing new business models. As a result, enterprises can unlock the true potential of their digital transformations and create long-term shareholder value by leveraging SAP technologies.
Last year, EY launched a suite of products and services called EY Accelerate in order to aid businesses in their transition to become intelligent enterprises. The offering utilizes the EY Intelligent Delivery Platform to provide clients with a set of services, assets, and solutions tailored to their specific cloud-based goals and objectives. The combination of EY Accelerate and RISE with SAP enables companies to make use of EY’s expertise in cloud strategy implementation to speed up their digital transformation.
Bolstering SAP Practice with Acquisitions
EY has also been acquiring SAP partners in order to increase its footprint in the enterprise software market. The move comes as EY looks to take advantage of the growing trend of enterprises moving away from traditional on-premise software to cloud solutions. By acquiring SAP partners, EY will be able to offer its clients a more comprehensive suite of enterprise software solutions.
In April, EY decided to acquire Client Solutions, an Irish business IT provider, through a share purchase agreement. Client Solutions’ expertise in the IT consulting field has been deemed a great addition to the qualifications already held by EY teams. Services in the IT sector such as software development, SAP implementation, service management, and intelligent automation are included in Client Solutions’ portfolio.
This month, the global consulting firm also announced the acquisition of ifb, a Grünwald, Bayern-based consulting company specializing in finance, risk, and compliance transformation. The newly acquired German business will now be known as EY ifb. This acquisition is part of EY’s ongoing strategy to expand its presence in the European market and further solidify its position as a leading provider of consulting services worldwide.
Commenting on the latest announcement, SAP Head of Banking Falk Rieker and SAP Head of Insurance Toni Tomic said in a joint statement:
“We are glad to see that ifb is becoming part of the EY family. EY and ifb have both been strategic, long-term partners of SAP for many years. We strongly believe that the synergies of ifb and EY will lead to major advantages for SAP customers. EY and ifb already bring industry cloud innovation, best practices, methodologies, and leading consulting experience to the table. SAP is very much looking forward to continuing our innovation roadmap with EY and accelerating our growth in the industry cloud for Financial Services.”
Accelerating Enterprises’ Finance Digital Transformation
The acquisition is a strategic move that is anticipated to significantly enhance EY’s finance and risk transformation and compliance capabilities. This will create greater opportunities for EY to provide even more comprehensive and valuable support to its clients. The added depth and breadth of EY’s offerings in these areas will be a major advantage in helping clients meet the challenges of an ever-changing marketplace.
SAP Partner ifb has been offering cutting-edge services for accounting, controlling, regulation, risk management, and compliance for over 30 years. EY will get access to over 400 ifb employees and partners throughout Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Poland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, the United States, Canada, and Colombia. Furthermore, EY teams will be better able to provide transformation services, especially in SAP transformation projects, thanks to ifb’s extensive experience and knowledge in the SAP domain and architecture.
EY EMEIA Financial Services Regional Managing Partner Omar Ali stated that there has never been a more pressing need for financial services companies to innovate their operations. He noted that when it comes to transformation services, clients want to work with EY teams because of the access to EY Alliance partners like SAP.
“The EY and ifb organizations have built a relationship over the years doing just that, and now we are delighted to be welcoming Christian Moser and Claus Stegmann and the ifb teams to EY, so that we can continue to do this for more clients around the globe. They will join growing teams – our European Financial Services technology consulting businesses grew by circa 40% in the past year and I have no doubt they will help EY teams to continue providing the services our clients need,” Ali shared.
