Unit4 announces acquisition of Scanmarket

With Scanmarket, a privately-held company founded in 1999 and headquartered in Denmark, Unit4 will now be able to provide organizations with a unified Source-to-Pay journey, building on its existing ERP and Procure-to-Pay (P2P) offerings.

Scanmarket’s suite of solutions extends Unit4’s transactional procurement functionality (P2P), with the acquisition bringing additional capabilities in strategic procurement including sourcing, spend analytics, supplier management and contract lifecycle management. Customers include Emirates Flight Catering, NatWest, ISS Facility Services, MacMillan Cancer Support and Kärcher.

As the Office of the CFO has moved beyond the back office due to expansion in functional remit, increasing demands for analysis and planning, and the ability to drive greater business value, process automation and data-driven insights provide further control and understanding of company operations. This happens through a single lens, with a view to optimizing resources, delivering greater employee efficiency and satisfaction through intuitive, purpose-built technology, and driving performance optimization.

As well as supporting Unit4’s growth ambitions, this deal marks a significant investment in the company’s ERP solution, and will enable customers to gain deeper insight into their spend, to manage suppliers and contracts better and realise savings on procurement, with an enhanced customer experience.

Mike Ettling, CEO, Unit4, said: “We are delighted to have added Scanmarket to the Unit4 portfolio. Their market-leading global strategic procurement capabilities and cloud-based solutions are trusted by 324 customers, across more than 85 countries, and have received strong recognition from industry analysts, such as Gartner, Info-Tech Research Group and SpendMatters. As well as a great technology fit, both organisations are culturally similar in that we have developed our solutions with users and people at the centre of what we do, so we are excited to welcome the Scanmarket team to Unit4.”

Betina Nygaard, CEO of Scanmarket added: “Scanmarket is all about people so, when considering this deal, finding a buyer who is a cultural match was of the utmost importance. People centricity is also key to Unit4 and, not only that, the company shares our core values.

“Our team has been fundamental in getting us to where we are today, and Unit4 clearly recognizes the quality and skills of our colleagues. In addition, both companies are focused on digitalisation and, in the case of Scanmarket, centred on transforming the procurement function through best of breed source-to-contract capabilities while effectively managing governance, risk and compliance. The combination of Unit4 and Scanmarket will deliver a comprehensive Source-to-Pay solution and bring added value for midmarket and enterprise organisations across both upstream and downstream procurement.”

Patrick Reymann, IDC Research Director, Procurement and Enterprise Apps: “The Unit4 acquisition of Scanmarket fits perfectly with our hypothesis, consistently reinforced by IDC research data, that customers want procurement solutions as part of full suite ERP offerings.  The procurement application space is vibrant and growing, as buyers continually tell us they need help managing their spend data.  This combination will provide tremendous value to existing clients, and will give prospective buyers a strong reason to consider the combined Unit4 / Scanmarket offering going forward.”

The terms of the deal were not disclosed.