Glacier Consulting, an IBM infrastructure and services business, is setting its sights on significant growth following its acquisition by EOH, a leading enterprise applications and IT service provider in South Africa.

EOH bought the company in November last year in a strategic move designed to take EOH to new clients and increase its range of technology, outsourcing and consulting services.

“We, the shareholders and directors of Glacier Consulting, never intended to sell the business, nor was it on the market, but after various engagements and talks with EOH, we decided that the model presented by EOH could and would unlock further opportunities and create the ability and environment for Glacier to continue growing while allowing us to maintain the existing structure. We also viewed it as an opportunity to be part of a larger entity to tap into for guidance and support,” says Keith Lyon, MD of Glacier Consulting.

Glacier Consulting was formed in 2000 by Lyon and three other technical specialists who saw a need in the market for the provisioning of skilled and reliable resources in the Unix/midrange sector. The company broke into the IBM product market in July 2002, and attained IBM's tier one status within a year, before becoming a regular fixture at the annual IBM Partner Awards.

“EOH has about 2 500 customers. If we could tap into one percent of this client base on year, we would show phenomenal growth. There is also strength in numbers where, as part of a larger entity, we could tailor-make solutions to drive into new and existing customer accounts for the EOH group,” adds Lyon.

Glacier Consulting's management structure and current staff composition are unaffected by the acquisition. Integration is taking place in the alignment of back-office functions and processes.

“We have almost completed the financial integration, which has been the biggest milestone so far. We will be concentrating on getting to know the EOH business units better and looking at how to work with them to complement our business as well as theirs,” indicates Lyon.

“Our first priority is to maintain Glacier's current client base and afford them the same consistently high levels of service delivery. These clients have been with the company for a long time and are very important to EOH and Glacier's continued success. We would also like Glacier to expand its client base as well as its product base within the IBM stable. We strive to be the best at what we do and would like to see ourselves as IBM's premier business partner,” comments Rob Godlonton, Executive Director of Strategic Business at EOH.

EOH

EOH is a business and technology solutions provider creating lifelong partnerships by developing business and IT strategies, supplying and implementing solutions and managing enterprise-wide business systems and processes for medium to large clients.

EOH operates in the following three clusters of business units as a fully integrated business:

Technology – Through a number of subsidiary companies, EOH is able to sell, implement and support a range of world-class business applications, including ERP, CRM, business intelligence, advanced planning and scheduling, e-commerce and manufacturing execution systems.

Consulting – Concentrated under the EOH Consulting brand are business units offering services ranging from strategic and business process consulting, project services, change management, supply chain optimisation and education.

Outsourcing – EOH offers comprehensive maintenance and support of client's IT infrastructure and applications through the rendering of full IT outsourcing, application hosting and managed services. In addition, EOH offers full business process outsourcing (BPO) services.

EOH has a presence in all major centres in South Africa and operates in the rest of Africa.

Glacier Consulting has been awarded an 'A' rating in its recent Empowerdex Survey. In achieving this, Glacier has been awarded a Level Four Contributor status. "We are thrilled to have achieved this milestone.  Our customers can count every cent spent with us towards their own BEE spend," said Mariam Maier, Sales Director of Glacier Consulting. The Level Four status allows each customer to count 100% of their IT Procurement spend with Glacier Consulting towards their own BEE spend targets.

"We have worked hard to achieve this status. As a corporate citizen we feel it our responsibility to continuously improve our BBBEE contribution," Keith Lyon, MD of Glacier Consulting, said.  "Our management team is focussed on continuing the great work done to date."

The company is 25.1% black woman owned. Recent efforts to improve the company's employment equity, corporate social investment and enterprise development have also contributed to the success. The company also has a ISETT SETA accredited learnership programme which provides young graduates with an opportunity to obtain hands-on training and mentorship in a leading IT Services company.