Heads up for ECM, BPM & BPO software executives globally
EMC acquires GRC company Archer Technologies
5 January 2010It was announced yesterday that EMC has a definitive agreement to purchase for a undisclosed amount Kansas-based Archer Technologies. Archer Technologies is a privately held governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) software vendor. Archer will remain in Kansas and operate as part of EMC’s security division, RSA. Archer makes automated, integrated GRC software for managing corporate policies and objectives for their life cycles. Its products automate, analyse and manage business risks, while helping corporate policies adhere to compliance requirements.
John Symon - Document Boss, earlier today made some interesting observations on the acquisition:
"The EMC acquisition highlights the importance of GRC for some ECM vendors as much of the technology overlaps. There is an increasing requirement for organisations to address their eDiscovery, Compliance and Enterprise Search (read BI and KM) requirements as well as improved business process and performance management It is all about managing risk for compliance, while at the same time gaining improved business process and operational efficiencies – all of which are the bedrock of the ECM value proposition. Also of equal importance for many players in our technology sector is that GRC is the key differentiator for the more traditional ECM providers that the new SharePoint companies do not address...eg Repository, eMail management, compliance, e-discovery, Records Management, etc
It is likely there will be additional acquisitions in this area, either by GRC companies on the periphery of ECM looking to add a document, content or business process management component, or of established ECM vendors looking to broaden their capabilities in the governance risk and compliance arena, as demonstrated by this latest acquisition”
Gartner has since established a Magic Quadrant for GRC and, in their latest 2009 report indicate that “The market for EGRC platforms is shifting from a focus on regulatory compliance to a focus on enterprise risk management. Vendors also are adding support for audit and legal professionals, particularly audit management, policy management, and content.
EMC made quite a few acquisitions in 2009; buying:
- SourceLabs,
- FastScale Technology,
- Data Domain,
- Configuresoft
- Varonis Systems.
Does EMC intend to acquire any more companies from the GRC space and add them to their RSA security division? We will have to wait and see what happens. Document Boss has been witnessing increased M&A activity in our technology sector in recent months indicating a busy 2010. After the shock and readjustments of 2008/2009 the view now seems to be business must move on and there is a heightened level of activity and hopefully a more considered and successful approach applied when acquiring than in the past.
Comments
Refreshing to hear that view. So often I hear consolidation and shrinkage of the market place in the same sentence. Document Boss has been close to this sector for over ten years and there are more players than ever. The top of the pyramid has thinned out but that opens up a space for new stars to emerge.
I wrote a blog sometime last year about the typical analysts view of this sector and so often they get it wrong due to a key-hole vision of just the public companies. There are quite a few CEO's that would be amazed at the true number of players you will find in each sub section of the ECM, BPM and BPO technology sectors.
Also the sector does not stand still it is continually evolving and moving. That's what makes it fun and keeps us all on our toes :-)
Mark Edwards,
CEO
Document Boss
I agree that acquisitions will continue in 2010 and beyond at a far faster rate than in the past. However, this industry consolidation does not mean that the industry is shrinking; in fact all of our data shows that the industry is actually expanding with more companies involved. One of the new attributes of the M&A activities is that we are seeing companies outside the traditional ECM and BPM spaces acquiring companies within the sector.
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