By Ogo Nwanyanwu, Research Director, SAPinsider
Bas Kamphuis Talks Growth Opportunity for Magnitude after insightsoftware Deal
insightsoftware, a provider of financial reporting and performance management solutions, recently closed the acquisition of
Magnitude, a global provider of operational reporting and continuous intelligence solutions. The financial terms were not disclosed. The two companies are coming together to support SAP ERP and Oracle ERP customers with an expanded portfolio of solutions capable of delivering modern business insight.
The acquisition of Magnitude by insightsoftware is particularly interesting for our SAPinsider finance community members, looking to support future consolidation of SAP ERP, non-SAP ERP, and financial systems source data on SAP S/4HANA to accelerate the shift to real-time business intelligence. In addition, Magnitude's data-driven financial reporting and analytics tools support accurate, consistent, and timely financial information through operational visibility as part of solution extensions in Central Finance for SAP S/4HANA.
Data from our State of the Market research on
SAP S4HANA Finance and Central Finance points to strong interest in the combined InsightSoftware and Magnitude product portfolio. Based on survey results, our finance community views the pressure to reduce the cost and complexity of financial processes (55% of respondents) and demand for improved planning and insight from finance (37% of respondents) as the core drivers impacting an organization's SAP S/4HANA Finance strategy. With SAP S/4HANA becoming increasingly important across our SAPinsider finance community, this acquisition widens the ability of insightsoftware to provide customers with finance automation solutions.
To explore the deal's impact in more depth, SAPinsider talked to Bas Kamphuis, Chief Growth Officer at Magnitude, about the insightsoftware transaction and the potential benefits for our community.
Magnitude and insightsoftware Financial Automation Synergies Drive Deal
Magnitude has been an SAP partner for over 30 years and one of SAP's largest independent software providers worldwide with SAP applications deployed in 120 countries. SAP resells the Magnitude SourceConnect suite of products, including the transaction, drill-down, sync-back, and harmonization solutions for SAP S/4HANA. Magnitude works closely with SAP Labs to ensure its solutions are SAP-certified and SAP S/4HANA ready.
The company's process analytics tools include Angles for SAP and Oracle, which utilize a context-aware, process-rich business data model with high-performance engines to collect operational information generated by ERP applications. The software is designed to deliver analytical results for business users without custom development.
Through the acquisition of Magnitude, insightsoftware can accelerate its enterprise market position in operational reporting by adding enhanced data analytics and integration products, for both SAP and Oracle ERP reporting solutions. Bas Kamphuis provides additional context on the deal, saying "insightsoftware has for years been a leader in allowing customers to generate insights from ERP data, especially companies in the mid-market segment. Magnitude really focused on Oracle and SAP enterprise deployments and connectivity at large." Kamphuis continues, "bringing these two organizations together provides a layer of abstraction between whatever ERP system you are running, into a platform where business users can derive insights. Our partners are very excited."
Operational insights are increasingly important for global organizations running complex business activities on multiple systems, with limited time or resources to navigate challenges. With access to insightsoftware solutions, Magnitude enterprise customers can leverage both vendors' financial applications. This access can support efficient connections to most ERP systems, along with prebuilt financial reports that customers can use immediately. Customers can also leverage industry-specific templates to translate complex ERP application data schemas and quickly load data for deeper analysis. The potential to unlock financial automation synergies between the two companies offers a firm foundation for the business combination.
Cultural "True North" of Financial Automation
A deal like this can prove difficult without the two companies sharing similar cultural identities and complementary views of delivering value for their customers. Kamphuis details the alignment of customer vision across the insightsoftware and Magnitude teams. "Our true north is abstracting proprietary complexity into an intuitively usable function by a business user. That's the cultural synergy between insightsoftware and Magnitude. We've always engineered with the business user in mind and worked backward from there, so our solutions are ready for business users with a minimal amount of training. Our solutions are very practical and deployable, offering an instant return on the value of the investment. That's our true north, and I expect that to stay our true north," says Kamphuis.
The combination of insightsoftware and Magnitude should support finance teams with greater flexibility in deploying BI solutions for their unique needs across the organization and the ability to transform those insights into action with enhanced technology. By providing financial professionals with advanced financial and data analysis tools, insightsoftware can enable business leaders to identify and realize financial and operational opportunities more efficiently.
When the deal closes, insightsoftware stands well-positioned to offer our SAPinsider community members enhanced financial automation capabilities and modern business insight, with an increased level of flexibility critical for the current dynamic business environment. "I think there is still a massive opportunity to insert more automation in the journey to SAP S4HANA," says Kamphuis.
The post-deal intellectual property and financial strength of insightsoftware, backed by Hg Capital and TA Associates, represents a significant opportunity to accelerate global growth with the support of Magnitude's technical expertise. Kamphuis described the potential upside of the deal for our SAPinsider members, noting, "with an SAP S4/HANA implementation, the combination of insightsoftware with Magnitude's IP represents a phenomenal relationship and opportunity with SAP to automate more. And to us, that is still the true north."
What Does This Mean for SAPinsiders?
- Consolidate data more efficiently across cloud deployments of SAP S4HANA. The financial reporting tools in Magnitude combined with insightsoftware’s financial solutions will help organizations speed up financial consolidation across ERP deployments, delivering a dynamic financial close process that is resilient and responsive to key financial events and deadlines.
- Business intelligence and analytics products are becoming increasingly vital for finance teams. New tools provide valuable insights into customer segmentation, product performance, sales pipeline analysis, and competitor intelligence. In addition, well-informed data-driven decisions can drive new opportunities that support the financial health of your organization.
- The regulatory environment remains a catalyst for a rapidly changing financial technology landscape. As a result, B2B financial software industry deals and partnerships are heating up to support demand for enhanced end-user experiences, as advances in digital and automation create unprecedented opportunities to gain efficiencies across finance functions. The pace of financial automation solution integrations continues, as this insightsoftware acquisition of Magnitude deal comes on the heels of recent industry partnership announcements, including BlackLine and Kyriba, Trintech and Planful, as well as Serrala and Hg.
