Lodestone invests in Australia

Lodestone announces the acquisition of Canberra’s leading SAP business consultancy, Phase III Solutions. The Australian capital is particularly interesting to service the local public authorities.

In announcing the acquisition, Lodestone partner Peter Ödman said: “With this acquisition, Lodestone will be building upon the successful commitment already made to Canberra by Phase III in terms of employing and investing in skills and staff development.”
All 12 staff of Phase III will remain with the new entity, but Lodestone has aggressive growth plans for the business. “We will be investing heavily in Canberra and building upon the solid base of current Phase III personnel and capability,” Ödman said. “We are committed to having the best people available to Canberra clients from within Canberra, supported by our international network where necessary.”

New Lodestone Director and former Phase III Managing Director Tim Rees said the Acquisition presented great opportunities for both clients and staff. “Lodestone has market leading capability and experience in delivering high-end SAP projects internationally for Fortune 500 companies. This, combined with Phase III’s extensive Federal Government experience and niche capability in SAP NetWeaver and ERP, will mean clients are getting the best solutions from the best consultants based locally. And our staff now have far broader career opportunities offering meaningful advancement internationally.”

Commenting on the acquisition from a client perspective, Matthew Wade, Director of SAP Finance and Human Resource Systems with the Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts, said it was a reflection of Canberra’s importance in the overall Australian consulting market: “It’s great to see a global player investing in the Canberra market and enhancing the consulting portfolio of one of our local SAP partners.”

Lodestone has a good record of acquiring local businesses to establish a presence in a market. The Sydney office was established in 2007 after Lodestone acquired Benelong Consultants, a leading Australian SAP business consultancy. Since the acquisition, Lodestone has grown the business significantly, almost doubling staff.