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itelligence, Inc. Acquires U.S. Technology Consultancy Aster Group

Strategically purchases established North American leader to expand key global opportunities in SAP® Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) market

Cincinnati – Nov 1, 2013 – itelligence, Inc. today announced its 100% acquisition of Aster Group, a business technology consultancy specializing in dedicated Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) and Business Intelligence solutions. Headquartered in Concord, N.C., Aster Group is a premiere North American provider of SAP® Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC) applications and one of the most experienced EPM-focused solution providers of all SAP partners.

“Aster Group has a great brand name and has been growing very well, particularly because of their success in implementing SAP BPC applications for multiple industry segments,” said Steve Niesman, president and CEO, itelligence North America. “The focused acquisition of Aster will immediately enable itelligence to strengthen its competitive market position in the SAP EPM space through an expanded, dedicated global practice that joins our complementary capabilities and increases our high growth cross-selling opportunities.”
Norbert Rotter, CFO, itelligence AG, added: “With this strategic acquisition, we are further strengthening our business in the US and expanding our market presence both regionally and globally
in strong performing SAP areas. By adding Aster Group‘s significant BPC experience and footprint, itelligence’s full SAP value proposition really comes together for CFOs, CIOs and all customers through end-to-end business visibility, from integrated planning to execution and consolidated reporting.”

itelligence provides global scale and reach through country-specific localization enabled by full service SAP solution delivery capabilities, including BPC, in 5 world regions and more than 22 countries. itelligence’s comprehensive offerings will deliver BPC Cloud packages that bundle software, maintenance, implementation, hosting and ongoing application management as a subscription-based managed cloud service.
“itelligence‘s and Aster‘s cultures are both client-centric, and solution focused,“ said Rick Cobb, President and CEO, Aster Group. “By joining the itelligence family, we complement our experienced EPM professionals to offer a holistic end-to-end solution around SAP BPC.“

By offering pre-packaged, fixed scope and cost, BPC consolidation and planning rapid deployment solutions, itelligence will enable midmarket enterprises with ready-to-run solutions, while accelerating projects with reduced cost and risk for larger enterprises. Aster Group developed an SAP capital planning starter kit for BPC and recently announced a BPC Starter Kit for the Oil and Gas industry. Additional BPC starter kits are planned for other key industries.

“The acquisition of Aster Group enables us to expand our end-to-end capabilities to sell into the Office of the CFO through an integrated approach featuring GRC, predictive analytics, cloud, mobility and other critical solutions,” said Mark Mueller, chief innovation officer, itelligence North America. “CIOs and CFOs can turn to a single partner to help their organization with their SAP transactions and analytics systems.”

itelligence, Inc.’s purchase of Aster Group, Inc. is effective November 1, 2013.
Don Holbrook from CHILDS Advisory Partners represented itelligence, Inc. in this transaction

About Aster Group

Aster Group is a leader in Enterprise Performance Management and long-term selling and consulting partner for SAP Business Planning & Consolidation (BPC). Aster Group has more than 300 clients and has built more than 500 applications throughout the United States and Canada. By utilizing a combination of functional business experience, product expertise, and industry best practices, Aster Group enables clients to maximize the business value of their solution. Aster Group’s services include: SAP BPC implementation services (NetWeaver and Microsoft SQL), upgrades, help desk, remote administration, online and onsite training courses, health check assessments, technical services, and end-to-end Business Intelligence.

About itelligence

itelligence, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of itelligence AG, an international full-service solution and consulting company with a global presence in 22 countries. itelligence provides a broad range of consulting and customer support services to further maximize SAP solutions, including implementations, business intelligence, application management services and hosting. itelligence is anSAP gold channel partner authorized to resell SAP Business All-in-One and SAP BusinessObjects® solutions, an SAP global services and SAP global hosting partner, and an SAP-certified global provider of application management services. itelligence also holds global quality accreditation by SAP Active Quality Management organization for demonstrating clear quality standards and processes.