Infosys is a huge consulting organization based in India, which works with clients as they implement complex software integrations. Today, the company announced it was buying Simplus, a Salesforce integration consultant, for $250 million.
The company, which is based in Salt Lake City, Utah, launched in 2014 and has raised almost $50 million, according to Crunchbase data. It brings a wide range of Salesforce consulting, training and integration services along with general Salesforce expertise, which Infosys hopes to put to work.
The acquisition follows the purchase of Fluido, another Salesforce consulting shop, in 2018. The moves suggest that Infosys wants to build deeper expertise around Salesforce and make that a key piece of its consulting operations moving forward.
Brent Leary, a CRM industry veteran, who is owner at CRM Essentials, says that Simplus is well-positioned in the Salesforce ecosystem to capture lucrative cloud integration services, and it should help expand Infosys’s Salesforce consulting arm. “By acquiring Simplus, it allows Infosys to grab more market share, while extending Salesforce capabilities to offer existing clients,” Leary told TechCrunch.
Ravi Kumar, president at Infosys, sees it in similar terms. “Simplus will be a valuable addition to the Infosys family. Complementing our industry knowledge and existing Salesforce footprint with their strong presence in key markets, deep Salesforce consulting and advisory expertise will help accelerate the transformation journey of incumbent companies,” Kumar said in a statement.
Holger Mueller, an analyst at Constellation Research, says Simplus should especially help in the area of Quote-to-Cash, that period after the sale when quotes are shared, contracts are signed and cash is collected on the sale. “It creates the opportunity for Infosys to break out of the vendor services silos and connect its Salesforce services with its ERP services (SAP, Oracle),” he said.
The deal is expected to close in Infosys’s fiscal 2020 fourth quarter. Per usual, it is subject to standard regulatory approval.
Like so many organizations today, Infosys, the Indian consulting giant, is a company in transition. For years it has made a good living helping customers manage legacy tools, but CEO Vishal Sikka, who took over 21 months ago saw a shifting landscape and he began implementing new systems immediately. One of those changes involved developing a new artificial intelligence system they have… 
What he means by that is thinking beyond the boundaries of the defined process to look for something new — to think more like a startup. Sikka says his first nine months have been amazing, but very different from his experience working at SAP for 11 years. The company handles many different tasks, and one thing that bothered him was that people only seemed to work to the specifications… 
It’s been a whirlwind few months for Vishal Sikka. It began when he suddenly left his job as executive and head of products at SAP at the beginning of May and it has continued as he prepares to take the helm at Infosys on August 1st. When I spoke to him at the end of May, just ahead of the SAP Sapphire Conference, he seemed at peace with his decision to leave SAP in spite of the…