Addition of business process outsourcing provider Alliente intended to beef up spend management specialist's service capabilities
Sunnyvale, CA — January 7, 2004 — Spend management specialist Ariba has agreed to acquire Alliente, a privately held procurement business process outsourcing (BPO) provider, in a move to expand Ariba's capabilities in the emerging market for managed procurement services, a subset of the multi-billion dollar BPO market.
The acquisition will give Ariba the capability to directly provide its customers with outsourced enterprise spend management services, something that Ariba said it has frequently been asked about in the past.
The deal also moves Ariba into a segment of the market currently served by such providers such as Ketera Technologies and ICG Commerce.
Under terms of the agreement, Ariba will acquire all outstanding shares of Alliente. The transaction is expected to close later this month, subject to customary closing conditions.
All the original Alliente founders are joining Ariba, and its current employee base will be retained by Ariba as well, according to Ariba.
Bob Calderoni, president and CEO of Ariba, said that the acquisition will broaden Ariba's service capabilities by enabling the provider to integrate Alliente's managed services model with its own spend management solutions, allowing Ariba customers to select from a broader menu of solutions.
"Ariba customers are recognizing the immense value to be gained in deploying an enterprise-wide spend management strategy, and they also want options in the way they approach the process," Calderoni said.
Greg Spray, chief operations officer of Alliente, described the acquisition as "a natural fit" for his company. "Early in our history we standardized on the Ariba platform to provide application hosting, transaction processing and a variety of category-specific managed services for our customers," Spray said.
Founded in February 2000 and headquartered in Colorado Springs, Colo., Alliente said it has enabled more than 400 supplier catalogs worldwide for Fortune 500 companies. Crosspoint Venture Partners was the company's primary investor, with additional investment from Lucent Technologies and BearingPoint.
