Perficient Expands Salesforce.com Service Offerings With Clear Task Acquisition

Continuing its aggressive expansion efforts into new markets, solution provider Perficient has acquired Clear Task, a San Francisco-based provider of consulting services for Salesforce.com cloud applications.

This is the second acquisition for Perficient this month: Earlier the company acquired TriTek, a move that expands Perficient's service capabilities in content management and business process management in the IBM market.

Perficient said it paid approximately $7.9 million for Clear Task, including $6.3 million in cash and $1.6 million in Perficient common stock. An additional consideration of up to $3.7 million is subject to "certain financial achievements and working capital provisions," Perficient said.

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St. Louis-based Perficient partners with IBM, Microsoft, EMC, Oracle and TIBCO, and offers systems integration, application development, training and other services around those vendors' software products.

While Perficient had a small team focused on Salesforce.com prior to buying Clear Task, the solution provider has sought a way to expand that business given that Salesforce.com is a major player in CRM, social networking and cloud computing technologies.

"For quite some time we've been working to find the right Salesforce consulting team to add to Perficient," said Jeffrey Davis, Perficient's CEO and president, in a statement. "In Clear Task, we've found a firm with an excellent reputation, and one that is well-run with impressive bill rates and margins. This transaction represents a key strategic investment we're making to expand our cloud offerings."

Clear Task has $8 million in annual services revenue, Perficient said, and provides services to more than 300 companies around Salesforce.com's Service Cloud, Sales Cloud, Chatter and Force.com products. Clear Task is a gold-level Saleforce.com Cloud Alliance Partner.

With the acquisition, Perficient now has cloud service capabilities built around products from IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Salesforce.com.

The acquisition brings nearly 50 consulting, technology, sales and support professionals to Perficient and expands Perficient's West Coast presence with a San Francisco office. It also brings in a number of new customers, including several Fortune 500 companies, and customers in the high-tech, clean energy and gaming industries.

Clear Task CEO Andrew O'Driscoll, and sales and services vice president Marc LeCours will join Perficient in "key leadership roles," the company said.

Last month, Perficient launched a mobile computing practice, noting that up to 70 percent of its customer projects have a mobile component.

PUBLISHED ON MAY 17, 2013