BrazilInfosys Consulting buys Finnish Salesforce partner Fluido Oy for €65 million
Fluido Oy, a Finland headquartered Salesforce consulting partner, has been snapped up by Infosys Consulting, the advisory arm of IT-giant Infosys for €65 million. The deal bolsters Infosys’s footprint in the Salesforce space and in the Nordics, adding offices in Finland, Denmark, Norway, Slovakia and Sweden.
Launched in 2009 in Espoo, Finland, Fluido Oy is a certified partner of Salesforce, specialised in consulting, development, integration and training services within the Salesforce ecosystem. The company has booked rapid growth since inception, growing to a team of over 230 professionals, serving client's global enterprises and large mid-sized businesses including KONE Corporation, YIT, Fonecta and Qliktech.
On Friday, Fluido Oy’s founder and CEO, Kai Mäkelä, who prior to his entrepreneurial move in fact worked for Salesforce, unveiled what he described as “the most significant announcement” in the firm’s history. “We are joining forces with Infosys to deliver outstanding customer experiences and innovation to international customers across Europe using Salesforce technology. Here begins an exciting journey that will complement our services in terms of depth, geography and scale.”
Speaking to several media outlets, Mäkelä outlined that the deal rationale hinges on three pillars. “With Infosys we will now be able to provide truly global scalable services while maintaining the close relationship with our customers.” Infosys has over 200,000 employees globally, and although an estimated 85% of those are based in India, where the IT services company is headquartered (Bengaluru), Infosys boasts a presence across the globe, allowing Fluido Oy to tap into a much broader geographic base. “As our customer engagements have grown substantially, to a regional/global level, taking our team, scale and delivery model to a next level has become very evident.”
Second, Mäkelä highlighted how Infosys’s “deep industry expertise and scale and breadth of its services portfolio” represents “an exciting opportunity for Fluido Oy customers.” The majority of Fluido Oy’s customers are active in the manufacturing, energy, retail and telecom sectors – industries in which Infosys has a significant track record, as well as Digital Centres of Excellence that are dedicated to driving offerings to the next level through innovation. “Infosys brings a broader set of capabilities.” The founder particularly cited digital and cloud as key examples of where synergies in expertise can ramp up Fluido Oy’s delivery capacity: “Powered by the digital wave, the opportunity for today’s enterprises is enormous.”
The area however which proved essential in striking the deal was the cultural fit combined with the opportunity to maintain Fluid Oy’s DNA. “Going forward we want to maintain our key values, which drive our daily behaviour and help us work and respect each other. When meeting with the Infosys team, I have learned that they shares the same passion on customers, people and continuous learning as we do.” To maintain Fluid Oy’s “unique culture and values”, Mäkelä has agreed with Infosys that the firm will retain its brand and autonomy in decision-making.
For Infosys, the move comes five months after it acquired Wongdoody, a US-based creative and consumer insights agency, and roughly a year after London-based digital design and customer experience firm Brilliant Basics was added to its outfit.
Functionally, the purchase strengthens Infosys’s position as a leading Salesforce enterprise cloud services provider, while regionally it deepens its presence in the Nordics market. “Fluido Oy is an important addition to the Infosys family, bringing a unique combination of market presence, deep Salesforce expertise, agile delivery and training, that combined with our existing capabilities will help companies reimagine and transform their businesses. This acquisition also aligns to our efforts to invest in local capabilities in the regions in which we operate,” said Ravi Kumar, President and Deputy COO at Infosys.
“With Infosys, we will see the Fluido team go to places we have not been before with new offerings, learning opportunities and market expansion.”
– Kai Mäkelä, CEO of Fluido Oy
Full ownership of Fluido Oy has been acquired, with the shares bought from the management team, private equity firm CapMan and Salesforce Ventures, which had a minority stake. Fluido Oy will be integrated into Infosys Consulting, the firm’s management consulting and IT consulting wing.
Mäkelä concluded by reflecting on how proud he is of Fluido Oy’s journey since inception. “We founded Fluido Oy in 2010 with a goal to become the #1 Salesforce partner in Finland. Looking back, this was Fluido 1.0. When we reached this goal, we set our sights for Fluido 2.0 – a leading Salesforce services provider with customers in all Nordic countries. In 2015 we reached the Platinum Consulting partnership level with Salesforce, and this created the path for where we stand today. Fluido 3.0 is the leading Salesforce partner in the Nordics and one of the fastest growing partners in the Salesforce ecosystem. Now, we are ready for Fluido 4.0 – the leading European customer success and Salesforce specialist operating globally to deliver outstanding digital customer experiences for international clients. With Infosys, we will see the Fluido team go to places we have not been before with new offerings, learning opportunities and market expansion.”
Earlier this month in the Nordic consulting industry, PwC Norway bought the Olso office of UK-based service design agency Livework, while strategy & operations consultancy Qvartz saw a team from analytics specialist BusinessMinds join its Copenhagen office, as part of a larger acquisition. Scandinavia’s consulting industry is estimated to be worth €2.8 billion, with digital and IT consulting the fastest growing segment.
