New Vendor Acquisition Strategies in the Enterprise Applications Field
P.J. Jakovljevic - April 26, 2006

Analysis of SSA Global's Latest Acquisitions

Although its consolidation appetite is not diminishing by any means, SSA Global seems to be showing signs of more deliberation and even restraint, rather than jumping the gun to indiscriminately gain market share. Once seemingly insatiable, SSA Global now admits that growth by acquisition is no longer as straightforward and cheap as it used to be in the early 2000s, due to the increased costs of install base acquisition. Namely, while the vendor has paid on average $37,000 (USD) per customer for its 13,000 acquired customers, recently Oracle apparently paid about $2 million for each acquired Retek customer. Thus, while acquisitions at the right price will continue, SSA Global is shifting its focus towards providing extended solutions rather than acquiring peer enterprise resource planning (ERP) products...