SMS pays $6.7m for Oracle specialist

Technology integrator SMS Management and Technology has made good on its promise to purchase companies for growth, snapping up Oracle specialist Bright Blue Solutions for $6.7 million.

Bright Blue Solutions does consulting in Oracle's Siebel Customer Relationship Management and Siebel Analytics products.

The purchase will increase SMS's staff numbers by 37 in NSW and Victoria, and will add $9 million in revenues per year. The business was to be integrated over the next three months. At the end of December 2009, SMS had 1193 staff.

One third of the purchase price was to be paid on completion of the deal, with two thirds to be paid over the following two years depending on performance.

SMS chief executive Tom Stianos said the company had been keen to add the Oracle capabilities for two years.

"With the market for CRM and salesforce automation forecast to grow by 9 per cent per annum to 2010 [according to IT analyst firm Gartner] we are confident that this new practice will prosper as part of the broader SMS enterprise," he said in a statement.

"It creates a clear alternative implementation partner for business critical CRM and BI projects outside of the multinational consultancies and offshore providers," Bright Blue managing director Lachlan Hanly said. Hanly will remain to head up the CRM practice.

SMS has acquired a number of smaller firms over the past several years, including Tibco specialist Aipex and data management consultancy Pelion in 2009.

The company also announced today that its chief financial officer (CFO) Steven Kelly was leaving the company. SMS spokesperson Matthew Kaufman said that the CFO had been poached by a billion-dollar listed company that was not in the technology industry. SMS's back office transformation had been completed, and Kelly had decided to move on to further his career, according to Kaufman.