Monday Morning Impact – April 11

IBM Announces Planned Acquisition of Bluewolf

IBM has announced plans to acquire Bluewolf Group LLC– one of Salesforce’s top partners and a widely recognized player in cloud consulting and implementation services. Upon completion of the transaction, Bluewolf will join with the existing design, analytics, and mobile capabilities of IBM Interactive Experience (iX) to drive towards a deeper consulting capability for clients adopting Salesforce solutions.

Bluewolf is one of Salesforce’s longest standing consulting partners, with 12 global offices and more than 500 employees in the United States, Europe and Australia. The company also cites more than 9,500 successful Salesforce projects for clients including Stanley Black & Decker, Sapa Building Systems and Vodafone Hutchinson Australia.

“There is no question that the consumer-grade experience has emerged as a fundamental element in modern business strategy,” said Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice president, IBM Global Business Services. “Meeting that expectation defines next-generation differentiation and competitive position, and with Bluewolf, we add expertise to scale that capability to the cloud-based capabilities of Salesforce.”

The planned acquisition is expected to close in the second quarter of 2016 and is subject to applicable regulatory review and customary closing conditions. Financial details were not disclosed.

Channel Impact
Bluewolf and IBM are positioned to extend IBM’s analytics, experience design and industry consulting capabilities with a formidable external consulting practice.

Industry Group Offers Professional Standards and Best Practices

A comprehensive collection of best practices to help technology industry companies achieve business and professional success has been rolled out by CompTIA, a technology industry trade association based in suburban Chicago.

The new CompTIA Channel Standards program, which was announced at the group’s recent annual member meeting, represent the next evolution of the organization’s “Trustmarks” program, and was developed in collaboration with IT professionals, industry thought leaders, and technology experts. They include an extensive library of principles and best practices for improving the relevance, quality and consistency of service delivery within the IT industry.

“We’re making these important tools available to everyone as a guide for process improvement and differentiation,” said Nancy Hammervik, senior vice president of industry relations at CompTIA. “By taking an ‘open book’ approach, CompTIA is empowering the IT channel with the knowledge and ability to see an immediate and positive change in their business that will spread throughout the industry and extend to the customers they serve.”

The first in a series of CompTIA Channel Standards is the IT Solution Provider Standard, which provides channel partners with a systematic guide to becoming a trusted IT advisor, outlining business practices for the core operational, management and delivery functions of an IT services firm. Included in the written documentation and training are a standards workbook providing an overview of best practices for each standard.

Throughout 2016, CompTIA will introduce additional Channel Standards focused on managed services, managed print services, cybersecurity and cloud computing. The standards are being made available to members and non-members free of charge.

Channel Impact
As the IT industry continues to evolve, initiatives such as this one will be instrumental in helping companies to grow and adjust.

Unisys Names Andy Stafford as Senior Vice President of Services

Unisys Corporation has announced the appointment of Andy Stafford as senior vice president of services. In his new role, Stafford will be focused primarily upon services supporting integrated solutions in security, cloud and infrastructure, applications and business process services.

Stafford brings a 30-year track record of delivering IT and business process services on a global scale. During his career, he has held a number of senior executive roles across the technology industry, led large global delivery teams and been a champion for leadership development.

Most recently, Stafford was a senior managing director at Accenture, where he led the firm’s Global Delivery Network for Technology. In that role, he headed a team of more than 100,000 professionals in more than 20 countries and served as a member of the global leadership team for Accenture’s technology business. Previously at Accenture, Stafford led the delivery centers in Asia Pacific and delivery teams globally.

Prior to Accenture, Stafford was the chief operating officer for Xchanging Procurement Services, as well as a chief technology officer at Virgin Group. He was also a partner in Deloitte Consulting’s technology practice and held leadership positions at Computacenter and Andersen Consulting.

He will report directly to president/CEO Peter Altabef.

Channel Impact
Stafford has an extensive background in his sector, and is well positioned for his new role.