Bluewolf ramping up expansion plans after IBM acquisition

Cloud consultancy capitalising on confidence gained since it became part of Big Blue earlier this year

Cloud consultancy firm Bluewolf is looking to "double down" on growing its UK office as part of a wider European expansion.

The consultant was swallowed by IBM in May and Vera Loftis, managing director at Bluewolf, said this has meant the company can speed up its growth plans.

"We have offices in the US, the UK, Paris, Prague, and Australia," she said. "I think we will see that dramatically changing with the IBM acquisition. They are looking to expand to a lot of offices in Europe."

Loftis said the company is conducting market research on possible offices, but that the focus is on expanding in the UK, Spain, Germany, France, the Nordics and Benelux.

There are currently 50 employees in the UK office and Loftis said the aim to grow the workforce to make sure the UK remains Bluewolf's UK headquarters.

"We are doubling down on our workforce expansion immediately and over the next few years," she added.

Bluewolf was founded in 2001 and was the first Salesforce strategic partner. The consultancy has remained heavily focused on Salesforce since its inception, with Loftis claiming that the firm was "birthed out of Salesforce."

Loftis said its relationship with Salesforce was a big reason for IBM buying the consultant.

"IBM has always wanted to be a part of this space," she added. "They don't want to change anything, because it knows we have a massive Salesforce presence already."

According to Loftis, the IBM acquisition has opened up a "plethora of resources and opportunities" for Bluewolf.

"The goal has always been to be the number one Salesforce partner. That mission statement doesn't go away, I just think [the acquisition] makes it more achievable in a faster timeframe," she said.

Quocirca founder Clive Longbottom said that since IBM's acquisition of SoftLayer in 2013, the firm has moved "pretty much everything they possibly can" to a cloud approach. He said the acquisition of Bluewolf fits in well with this approach.

"They want to be able to go to their customers and help them move from on-premise models to running it all in the cloud. I think this acquisition seems to fit in quite nicely," he said.

"IBM has always tried to deal with Salesforce in the best way it possibly can. IBM needs to make sure it can do heavy, meaningful, full business process integration into the Salesforce cloud and it may be that Bluewolf has that sort of capability."