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Sage snaps up retail management company Brightpearl for £225 million

December 21, 2021
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Software giant Sage has announced it will acquire Brightpearl, which makes an operating system for retail management, for £225 million.

The deal for Brightpearl offers Sage an extra set of services to bundle with its existing accounting, financial, HR, and payroll tools for small- and medium-sized businesses.

The SaaS model used by Brightpearl also fits in easily, helping Sage expand its relationships with existing customers in the retail space.

Sage Brightpearl deal

Sage already owned 17% of Brightpearl and the acquisition will be funded by cash.

According to Sage, Brightpearl is expected to generate £20 million in revenue for 2021, up around 50% compared to the previous year, and will break even.

The ultimate goal for the combined companies is to offer a suite of tools encompassing financial management, inventory planning, sales, supplier relations, CRM, fulfilment and warehousing, and logistics in one place.

“Sage’s purpose is to knock down barriers so everyone can thrive,” says CEO Steve Hare.” Together, Sage and Brightpearl will remove the barriers that hold back retailers and wholesalers, streamlining their systems and enabling them to focus on growth.”

“We are thrilled to be joining Sage,” says Brightpearl CEO Derek O’Carroll. “Bringing our two teams together will combine the retail strength of Brightpearl and the scale, brand and financial expertise of Sage, enabling us to offer customers the most innovative financial and retail operating solutions so they can grow fearlessly, save time and deliver outstanding experiences.”

The deal is expected to close in January 2022.

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TechRadar – All the latest technology news

December 16, 2021
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Salesforce has announced that it has acquired the data storytelling company and Tableau partner Narrative Science for an undisclosed sum.

For those unfamiliar, Narrative Science's journey started a decade ago with the simple mission “to help everyone understand and act on data through the power of data storytelling”.

In addition to being some of the best in the industry, the company's natural language capabilities automate the analysis, build and communication of insights from data in a modern, narrative format that's easier for people to understand.

By integrating Narrative Science with Tableau, Salesforce aims to scale this capability across its entire ecosystem and help customers deliver data insights to even more people in the form of easy-to-understand stories.

Narrative data storytelling

Salesforce's acquisition of Narrative Science comes at a time when data has never been more important with many companies accelerating their digital transformation efforts due to the pandemic.

In an increasingly digital-first world, more data is being created than ever before. According to a recent IDC Study, over 64 zettabytes of data were generated in 2020 and global data creation and replication is set to grow by 23 percent through 2025. While organizations now have more data, analytic capabilities like those offered by Narrative Sciences and Tableau, allow them to find and use insights from their data to drive the success of their business.

In a new blog post, Tableau president and CEO Mark Nelson points out that one of the easiest ways for organizations to become data driven is to incorporate narrative data storytelling. According to Gartner, data stories “will be the most widespread way of consuming analytics” by 2025 and “75% of stories will be automatically generated using augmented analytics techniques”.

Salesforce will be able to reach millions of more people who are underserved with data and help close the data literacy gap by bringing Narrative Science and its award-winning AI to Tableau.

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