The Hackett Group Acquires Aecus Limited, Award-Winning European Outsourcing & Robotic Process Automation Consultancy

May 9, 2017
4 Min Read

Acquisition Expands The Hackett Group’s Digital Transformation Capabilities

MIAMI & LONDON, May 9, 2017 – The Hackett Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: HCKT) today announced that it has acquired Aecus Limited, an award-winning European consultancy that helps clients optimize business process outsourcing (BPO), IT outsourcing (ITO) and robotic process automation (RPA) through benchmarking and implementation consulting.

“Companies are quickly realizing that embracing digital transformation is key to improving corporate efficiency and effectiveness. The Aecus acquisition is expected to significantly enhance our ability to support clients’ efforts in RPA, which is a critical element,” said The Hackett Group Vice-Chairman & COO David N. Dungan. “There’s tremendous synergy between our two organizations. Like The Hackett Group, Aecus relies on a foundation of benchmarking, enabling it to take a uniquely empirical and objective approach to the issue of how best to handle outsourcing relationships. They consult end-to-end across the outsourcing lifecycle, from feasibility analysis to scoping to transition, optimization and renegotiation. Their expertise enables them to understand the potential impact of RPA on long-term outsourcing relationships, as well as to advise more broadly on RPA strategy and implementation across the enterprise.”

The Hackett Group’s 2017 Key Issues research found that the large majority of companies believe that digital business transformation will fundamentally change the way they deliver services in finance, procurement, HR, IT, and other business services areas. But few have a formal digital strategy in place or the right talent. Adoption levels for digital technology are in most cases low at present, but are expected to grow dramatically in the near future. In finance, for example, we found that only 3 percent of companies have achieved mainstream adoption of robotic process automation today. But mainstream adoption of RPA is expected to grow by a factor of nearly 10x in the next two to three years.

At the foundation of Aecus’ value offering is more than 15 years of quantitative market data on BPO and ITO agreements. This data is expected to be highly complementary to The Hackett Group’s broad expertise in global business services, and The Hackett Group’s data and insights regarding best practices to drive process-level efficiency and also regional labor rates.

According to David Ketchin, Managing Director of The Hackett Group’s European Practice, “We are delighted to welcome the respected Aecus team into our practice. This enhances the value that we can deliver to our clients at any stage of the outsourcing lifecycle. Hands-on experience of the impact of Robotic Process Automation on any business process is valuable in a sourcing deal but also in any captive business process.”

Aecus Managing Director Rick Simmonds commented, “We are really excited by this – joining The Hackett Group represents a fantastic move forward for Aecus. The strength of The Hackett Group’s brand combined with the breadth of complementary services will enable us to serve our clients even more effectively and will provide our people with greater professional opportunities.”

 

About The Hackett Group, Inc.

The Hackett Group (NASDAQ: HCKT) is an intellectual property-based strategic consultancy and leading enterprise benchmarking and best practices digital transformation firm to global companies, offering digital transformation including robotic process automation and enterprise cloud application implementation. Services include business transformation, enterprise analytics, working capital management and global business services. The Hackett Group also provides dedicated expertise in business strategy, operations, finance, human capital management, strategic sourcing, procurement and information technology, including its award-winning Oracle and SAP practices.

The Hackett Group has completed more than 17,850 benchmarking studies studies with major corporations and government agencies, including 93% of the Dow Jones Industrials, 90% of the Fortune 100, 80% of the DAX 30 and 57% of the FTSE 100. These studies drive its Best Practice Intelligence Center™ which includes the firm’s benchmarking metrics, best practices repository and best practice configuration guides and process flows, which enable The Hackett Group’s clients and partners to achieve world-class performance.

 

About Aecus

Aecus is an award-winning European consulting firm which helps clients get great results from outsourcing, offshoring, shared services and RPA. Aecus was established in 2003, initially branded as ALS. Aecus delivers great results for clients by bringing deep domain expertise supported by the best current market data. Aecus consultants are experienced specialists who help clients avoid pitfalls and maximize benefits, developing sourcing arrangements which leverage the best the market has to offer.

In April 2017, Aecus was awarded the prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise: International Trade for outstanding short-term growth in overseas sales over the last three years.

 

This release contains “forward looking” looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933 as amended and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. Statements, including without limitation, words such as “expects”, “anticipates”, “intends”, “plans”, “believes”, “seeks”, estimates” or other similar phrases or variations of such words or similar expressions indicating, present or future anticipated or expected occurrences or outcomes are intended to identify such forward looking statements. Forward looking statement are not statements of historical fact and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other facts that may cause Hackett’s actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from the results, performance or achievements express or implied by the forward looking statements. Factors that may impact such forward looking statements include without limitation, the ability of The Hackett Group and AECUS to integrate their operations, the ability of The Hackett Group to market the integrated services pertaining robotic process automation and more generalized consulting services against competition from other consulting and professional/trade associations/companies who may have or develop in the future, similar offerings, the commercial viability of such service offerings and changes in expectations regarding robotic process automation and general consulting services, the ability of The Hackett Group to attract skilled employees, changes in collections of accounts receivable, risk of competition, price and margin trends, changes in general economic conditions and interests rates as well as other risk detailed in The Hackett Group’s reports filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission. The Hackett Group undertakes no duty to update this release or any forward looking statements contained herein.