IBM Broadens Analytics Portfolio With Acquisition of Varicent Software; Terms Not Disclosed

IBM IBM today announced a definitive agreement to acquire Varicent Software Incorporated, a leading provider of analytics software for compensation and sales performance management. Varicent is a privately held company, with headquarters in Toronto, Canada. Financial terms were not disclosed. Varicent software automates and analyzes the collection and reporting of sales data across finance, sales, human resources and IT departments to gain efficiencies, uncover trends and improve sales performance. The acquisition accelerates IBM's Smarter Analytics capabilities across line of business operations in all industries, and will be combined with IBM's existing software offerings that are delivered to clients through on-premise or cloud computing models. "The acquisition of Varicent advances IBM's efforts to drive analytics capabilities into the hands of front line employees to transform business operations and ultimately improve the bottom line," said Les Rechan, general manager, business analytics, IBM. "For the thousands of sales organizations still relying on silos of data, spreadsheets and e-mail to manage sales, there is an enormous opportunity to apply analytics to this vital area of business and uncover new, untapped growth opportunities."