SAP acquires Callidus Software

SAP has completed its acquisition of Callidus Software, a provider of “lead-to-money” applications, including sales performance management and configure-price-quote.

These applications, marketed under the brand CallidusCloud, will provide SAP and its customers a differentiated, cloud-based customer relationship management solution.

SAP says the acquisition will place it in a leading position to compete in the $46 billion CRM market.

SAP plans to consolidate CallidusCloud product assets within the SAP Hybris cloud portfolio, which is part of SAP's Cloud Business Group.

Each outstanding share of Callidus Software common stock has been converted into the right to receive $36 per share in cash.

Callidus Software has notified the NASDAQ Stock Market of the completion of the acquisition and expects trading of its common stock to be suspended pending delisting.

For the fiscal year 2017, CallidusCloud reported revenue of $253 million, with subscription revenue of $198 million growing at 31 per cent.

SAP will provide an updated 2018 outlook including CallidusCloud in its first quarter 2018 earnings release.

The acquisition of CallidusCloud completes SAP's design of a new front office that extends beyond legacy CRM to an intelligent customer experience suite consisting of:

• CallidusCloud solutions, which give companies tools to inspire and empower sales professionals to follow leads to cash, compensation and career success
• Gigya solutions, which help businesses adopting a digital approach to marketing, sales and service to initiate and build trusted relationships with online customers by appropriately managing and collecting customer data
• SAP Hybris marketing solutions, which take a data-rich approach to helping marketers engage consumers throughout the buyer's journey
• SAP Hybris service solutions, which focus on retention and ensuring businesses can keep customers by predicting how best to serve them
• SAP Hybris omnichannel commerce and revenue capabilities, which empower businesses to engage consumers in any channel and on any device, immediately converting transactions to revenue and growth

Rob Enslin, president, SAP cloud business group, says: “By connecting the front office to the back office and linking it to a digital core system, we are redefining CRM.

“With SAP Hybris solutions, we already have one of the most powerful customer experience suites on the market.

“By enhancing our CRM with CallidusCloud, we are delivering on our strategy to provide an end-to-end intelligent customer experience suite.

“When you integrate the front office into SAP S/4 HANA with SAP Cloud Platform, this is how CEOs are looking to run an intelligent digital business.”

Leslie Stretch, CEO, Callidus, says: “Winning in digital business means delivering the best possible customer experience.

“Enterprises will only succeed if they can bring data and intelligence to the sales teams.

“Then, they will be able to consider marketing insights for sales orders or gain access to production and inventory information in real time, allowing them to set customer expectations on individual configurations and delivery dates.

“SAP's own experience as a customer of CallidusCloud resulted in up to 50 percent improvement in sales productivity, and our partnership has led to numerous prebuilt integrations to SAP systems.

“Together, we are ideally positioned to deliver quickly on our joint offering to support digital transformation of the sales function.”