Global IT services provider Cognizant is snapping up ServiceNow Elite channel partner Thirdera as part of a cunning plan to build one of the largest and most credentialed ServiceNow partners.
The acquisition is slated to close by January.
Cognizant wants to mix its team of 1,500 people focused on ServiceNow with 940 people from Thirdera into its ServiceNow business group, which Jason Wojahn, CEO and co-founder of Thirdera will run.
“We built Thirdera as the largest global pure-play partner to help customers achieve more value with ServiceNow,” he said. “And as we continue to explore the ‘third era,’ this digital transformation across the enterprise and across industries, it just became clearer and clearer to us that we needed more reach. We needed more scale,” Wojahn said.
It turned out that Cognizant had the same idea and needed more depth and ServiceNow focus.
“We come together in a complementary way. Our agendas are complementary. Our ambitions for getting more value out of ServiceNow and using ServiceNow as a catalyst to transform their enterprise are aligned. And our companies were extremely well aligned as well.”
Cognizant’s acquisition of Thirdera will result in what the company expects will be one of the world’s largest ServiceNow consultancies. What this does is create a more comprehensive practice for both of us,” he said.
Thirdera was not actively looking to become acquired, Wojahn. Instead, Cognizant approached his company during the Summer, and he said the two companies have engaged in on and off talks since then.
Cognizant and Thirdera did not have a history of partnering in the ServiceNow space and were not competitors, Wojahn said. He said there is minimal overlap in market regions and customers.
“So it’s a very complementary team, and should be very straightforward to bring together and harmonise,” he said. “And the ultimate point of the whole thing is to put ourselves in a position where we can inflect and achieve that kind of third-era effect across the broader portfolios of customers. And this is going to position us very well for that.”
