ST. LOUIS – Business and technology consulting firm Oakwood Systems Group, Inc. has acquired the software application development division of SSE, Inc. According to the companies, the purchase creates the basis for a new strategic relationship between the former competitors. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
“The new people from SSE add a wealth of talent and capability to our application development team while its application development center model strengthens the foundation of our application managed services offering that we will now be able to market more broadly,” said Charles Windsor, Oakwood president and chief executive officer.
SSE president Elizabeth Elliott Niedringhaus said the divestiture of the software development arm will enable her company to focus on accelerating the growth of its learning and network services divisions to meet market demand.
“It’s a win-win transaction,” Niedringhaus said. “The piece that Oakwood acquired fits their operation perfectly and opens the door to significant co-marketing opportunities since we will no longer be competing for application development work. While it is certainly not easy saying goodbye to great people – many of whom have been with us 10 or more years, the fact that Oakwood’s culture is similar to ours made the decision easier.”
In addition to personnel, SSE application development clients, tools and frameworks are being integrated into Oakwood. “The client relationships SSE has built over the past 25 years add tremendous value,” said Windsor. “SSE’s commitment to client partnership and quality of delivery has been as critical to its success as it continues to be to ours. Their clients have been very receptive to the transition.”
St. Louis-based SSE is a 25-year-old company that helps clients improve business and employee performance through a combination of consulting and outsourced managed services. Its award-winning learning services division transforms enterprises with experiential training solutions that produce quantifiable results, particularly in the realms of compliance, process improvement and security training. Its fast-growing business and computer network managed services division helps small companies keep critical systems up and running by proactively preventing IT problems and network outages to protect against data loss.
Oakwood is a 28-year-old business and technology consulting firm headquartered in Creve Coeur that ranks among the fastest-growing private companies in the region. A Microsoft Gold-Certified and Managed Partner, Oakwood’s offerings address the full IT lifecycle from infrastructure to application to user experience. Specific solutions include application and web development; mobile application development; SharePoint solutions; business intelligence; business system integration; e-commerce solutions; unified communications; and IT services management.
“We are understandably excited to welcome the SSE people to the Oakwood team,” Windsor added. “The acquisition and our new strategic relationship with SSE will help us make 2009 a record year and position us to exceed our targets for 2010.”