EOH Abantu, the labour broking company within the JSE-listed EOH Holdings, has made its first acquisition, giving it at least 50 SAP contractors in a market where skills are in short supply.
EOH Abantu MD Johan van Jaarsveld says the acquisition of ePrime Consulting, for an undisclosed sum, is only the first in a series of planned acquisitions by the company.
EOH Abantu - initially called EOH Interim Talent - was formed in February to fulfil EOH's need for contract staff, as well as to provide contract workers to the group's customers. Previously, EOH was using contract houses to supply resources.
"By nature, we as a group of companies have a very strong footprint in the ERP space, so logically we said that is an area that we need to focus on," says Van Jaarsveld.
"In terms of the top end of the market, there's the Oracle side and the SAP side. We have found that the SAP side, in terms of the market, is a lot more open from a supply and a demand side in terms of contracting positions, where in the Oracle side at the moment there are a lot more permanent people working in that type of space.
"So we said we are going to take the first step into the ERP space by looking for an acquisition in the SAP contracting space."
Van Jaarsveld says ePrime CEO Eben de Jong had been providing resources to EOH for the past six or seven years, so he understood the EOH business and EOH understood his business.
"It was a good cultural fit, so it was actually a quick and an easy acquisition for us at the end of the day, mainly because all those things that you want to test in a normal acquisition have been tested over many years."
He says EOH Abantu plans to expand by making an acquisition in each of its focus areas - ERP, development/application, corporate performance management, and generic IT skills - and then grow them organically.
The company has also said previously that some of its resource pool would come from within the EOH Academy, sourced internally and externally. It controls a portfolio spanning across EOH's various consultancy areas, including financial consultants, project managers and IT managers.
Related story:
IT skills shortage choking SA business
Share