SAP to Acquire Callidus Software Inc., Will Offer Comprehensive “Front Office” Suite

By STS Staff Writer On Jan 30, 2018

SAP to Callidus Software Inc., Will Comprehensive "Front Office" Suite

CallidusCloud’s Lead to Money Suite for Sales Combined with SAP’s Customer Engagement Suite Creates Leading CRM Solution Portfolio

SAP SE and Callidus Software Inc.announced that SAP America, Inc. has entered into an agreement to acquire CallidusCloud, the leader in cloud-based Lead to Money (Quote-to-Cash) solutions.

The acquisition gives SAP immediate leadership in the Lead to Money space that includes sales performance management (SPM) and configure-price-quote (CPQ). CallidusCloud offers a full suite of SPM and CPQ solutions, including sales enablement, sales analytics and customer engagement. The combination of SAP’s assets with CallidusCloud’s will deliver the most complete, end-to-end, fully cloud-based ‘Lead-to-Cash’ offering. CallidusCloud has been a partner of SAP for several years, based on a joint selling agreement.

CallidusCloud is a synergistic addition to SAP’s portfolio and significantly strengthens SAP’s position in the customer relationship management (CRM) space. CallidusCloud’s solutions are tailored to the specific needs of sales people on the ground and link sales-related information, such as pricing, incentives, and commissions, to enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. CallidusCloud as part of SAP will seamlessly link front and back offices, align sales, compensation and corporate goals, and ensure real-time data flow between the field and finance department.

“SAP is connecting the back office to the front office in this consumer-driven growth revolution.Our customers are focused on reinventing sales, service, marketing, and commerce. The addition of CallidusCloud aligns perfectly to SAP’s innovation strategy to transform the front office. SAP gives CallidusCloud the global scale to accelerate its already impressive growth. These two strong companies will be better together, help the world run better and improve people’s lives,” said Bill McDermott, CEO of SAP.

CallidusCloud CEO Leslie Stretch said, “We are super excited to join forces with SAP. This move gives customers precisely what they want, the market leading Sales Performance (SPM), Sales Execution (CPQ) and Sales Enablement clouds combined with SAP Hybris and S/4HANA. This is true Lead to Money, beyond CRM and beyond Quote-to-Cash. It’s the joined-up Front Office and Back Office Cloud everyone needs for 21st Century Business. In addition, the purchase price provides substantial value to our stockholders.”

SAP’s S/4HANA business suite in the cloud, SAP Hybris, and Gigya solutions already help businesses deliver new customer experiences, connecting the demand chain to the supply chain. SAP Hybris solutions help companies serve consumers in any channel, on any device. In addition, SAP Hybris’s revenue and billing solutions enable companies to monetize new business models. Gigya helps companies secure, protect, and service the consumer’s digital identity in the age of data protection and regulation.

CallidusCloud, combined with SAP’s solution portfolio, also will offer companies powerful tools to enhance sales execution and transform customer engagement. CallidusCloud’s portfolio will strengthen existing SAP sales solutions. The portfolio will be enriched with sales planning and forecasting, territory management, and pipeline management. SAP’s sales content management will benefit from easy access to contracts, collateral, and learning.

Additionally, with the Lead to Money suite, CallidusCloud is a leader in cloud-based Quote-to-Cash solutions. This area includes solutions for sales performance management (SPM), sales execution including configure-price-quote (CPQ) applications, sales enablement including learning applications, customer engagement and analytics. CallidusCloud SPM solutions give salespeople instantaneous knowledge of their compensation associated with particular product and pricing configurations and reduce errors in calculating sales commissions and compensation arrangements. CallidusCloud CPQ solutions enable salespeople to identify and configure product packages that have built-in rules for discounts and that can generate proposals for the customers on the spot and during the conversation with the customer. CallidusCloud CPQ solutions also can automatically generate contracts in real time while the salesperson is with the customer. Part of CallidusCloud offering is a sales-focused and mobile-native learning platform called “Litmos,” which shows solid growth.

SAP will follow a strategy of openness that will continue to support integration of CallidusCloud solutions with third-party installations.

Upon completion of the transaction, SAP expects to consolidate all CallidusCloud product assets within SAP Hybris solutions as part of SAP’s Cloud Business Group. The existing management team will continue to lead CallidusCloud. The SAP Cloud Platform is to be used for the technical integration of CallidusCloud solutions.