IBM’s Acquisition Spree Continues With Salesforce Star Waeg

IBM’s planned acquisition of Waeg will mark the company’s sixth purchase over the past several months in strategic moves to boost its Salesforce, hybrid cloud and AI capabilities.

IBM is deepening its expertise across the Salesforce platform in Europe with plans to acquire Salesforce consulting partner star Waeg as it continues to spend millions on beefing up its capabilities around Salesforce, hybrid cloud and artificial intelligence.

IBM’s planned acquisition of Waeg follows the company’s purchase this year of leading U.S. Salesforce consultancy specialist 7Summits. Over the past several months, IBM has also acquired Nordcloud, Taos, Expertus and SAP solution provider standout Truqua.

With the purchase of Waeg and 7Sumimts, IBM is targeting the worldwide CRM consulting and systems integration services market, which is expected to reach $21 billion by 2024, according to IT research firm IDC.

“Salesforce continues to play a critical role in companies’ digital transformations as they adapt to the conditions created by the pandemic,” said Mark Foster, senior vice president of IBM Services and Global Business Services, in a statement. “Trust is the new currency of customer and employment engagement, and every touchpoint is an opportunity to personalize the relationship. Waeg’s strength in Salesforce consulting services will be key to creating intelligent workflows that allow our clients to keep pace with changing customer and employee needs and expectations.”

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The news of the upcoming Waeg acquisition did not boost IBM’s stock, which sits at $144.81 per share Tuesday morning.

Founded in 2014, Waeg has offices across Europe including Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland and Portugal—providing a full spectrum of Salesforce consulting services from marketing automation and customer experience design to implementation to digital strategy advisory services. Waeg has over 400 Salesforce certifications and is a Salesforce specialist in manufacturing, health care, life sciences, B2B commerce and across all clouds.

Financial terms of the Waeg deal were not disclosed. The acquisition is expected to close this quarter.

Once the Waeg deal is closed, IBM is not only looking to deepen its capabilities in Salesforce, but in hybrid cloud and AI to help manage complex integrations and unify people, process and technology. The combination of IBM and Waeg’s Salesforce consulting capabilities and assets will help give IBM customers across Europe the capabilities to create streamlined, automated experiences on the Salesforce platform.

“Our partner ecosystem is an important growth channel for Salesforce, and IBM continues to expand their capabilities across the world, most recently with the addition of Waeg,” said Tyler Prince, Salesforce’s executive vice president of worldwide alliances and channels, in a statement.

Waeg will become part of IBM’s Salesforce business within IBM Global Business Services.