Accenture acquires Tquila to expand Salesforce service capabilities

Accenture wants to strengthen its Salesforce.com skill set after working with 250 end users to deliver Salesforce.com solutions in the past year

Management consultancy and outsourcing firm Accenture has acquired Salesforce.com specialist Tquila as it looks to strengthen its ability to provide Salesforce services and cloud implementations.

The firm already has more than 5,000 Salesforce.com consultants globally, with at least 1,900 of these consultants being certified. It said that in the past year it has worked with more than 250 end user organisations to deliver enterprise solutions based on Salesforce.com - and this has given it reason to expand its Salesforce capabilities.

"We have seen significant growth in SaaS as more companies adopt the cloud and digital strategies to collaborate better, drive greater operational efficiencies and accelerate the development of new products and services," said Emma McGuigan, managing director, Accenture Technology, UK and Ireland.

"One key factor for our continued success in delivering Salesforce solutions depends on having the right skilled professionals to meet the growing demand. With Tquila on board, we have the critical mass to more proactively target big opportunities both in the UK and Europe, which will extend our position in the region," she claimed.

Tquila was founded in 2010 and specialises in delivering cloud solutions from the Salesforce1 platform. It is a privately held company that is headquartered in London.

As well as offering services such as consulting and implementation, it also provides custom application development, governance and support.

According to Tquila it has about 150 UK-based staff, and they will join Accenture's Emerging Platforms business within Accenture Technology. Accenture said that it will add "100 Salesforce-skilled staff from Tquila", and that this would more than double the number of Accenture Salesforce skilled people in the UK to about 185 skilled consultants. It claimed that this would make it one of the largest Salesforce capabilities in the UK.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed. Accenture has not revealed when the acquisition is likely to be completed, or when the Tquila staff are likely to make the move across to Accenture offices.