Cognizant Looks To Bulk Up Its SAP Strength With Utegration Acquisition

‘Utegration has been in the industry for some time. It specializes in utilities, including power and distribution, and in SAP. It uses SAP to provide utilities with advanced billing, monitoring, and customer experience. And it has a lot of FERC [Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] and accounting domain knowledge,’ says Rob Vatter, Cognizant’s executive vice president of enterprise platform services.

Global IT solution provider Cognizant has struck a deal to acquire Utegration, a solution provider specializing in SAP services and products with a focus on energy and utilities companies.

With the acquisition, which is expected to close by year-end, Cognizant has the opportunity to expand its reach into the fast-growing utilities industry market for SAP, said Rob Vatter (pictured), executive vice president of enterprise platform services at Teaneck, N.J.-based Cognizant.

Cognizant, No. 7 on CRN’s 202 Solution Provider 500, already works with such vendors as SAP, Workday, Salesforce and Oracle in its enterprise platform services business, Vatter told CRN.

[Related: Cognizant Fires Head Of Americas Business For ‘Behavior Inconsistent With Company Policy’]

Houston, Texas-based Utegration will be a big part of Cognizant’s plans to continue to quickly grow its SAP business, Vatter said.

“Utegration has been in the industry for some time,” he said. “It specializes in utilities, including power and distribution, and in SAP. It uses SAP to provide utilities with advanced billing, monitoring, and customer experience. And it has a lot of FERC [Federal Energy Regulatory Commission] and accounting domain knowledge.”

Utegration brings Cognizant about 350 employees in the U.S. and India with utility industry domain strength and depth, Vatter said.

“The utility business is one of the fastest growing not only for Cognizant, but for the entire IT industry,” he said. “There are lots of reasons for that. We’re seeing the introduction of new power sources and new distribution services, a lot as a result of increased use of renewables. So this is a significant growth opportunity for us.”

Cognizant and Utegration have partnered in the past and Cognizant has had some employees join Utegration and vice versa, Vatter said.

“Utilities is a very small industry,” he said. “Everybody knows everybody.”

Cognizant declined to discuss the dollar value of the acquisition. Utegration currently has a couple of private equity investors holding stakes in the company.

Utegration is Cognizant’s third acquisition in two months. Cognizant in November acquired AustinCSI as a way to expand its digital transformation capabilities. Earlier that month, Cognizant unveiled plans to acquire the professional services and application management practices of Dallas-based Workday channel partner OneSource Virtual.

Cognizant made at least 20 acquisitions between 2019 and 2021.

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