This week, E2open announced a definitive agreement to acquire Zyme. For readers of this blog that do not know Zyme, the company focuses on the management of channel data in the high-tech industry. The company is a CRM solution. The Zyme solution improves revenue management, warranty, and rebate processes. This source of channel data is very industry-specific to the high-tech market (high-tech works through distributors and is more focused on price erosion).
This is not a small acquisition for E2open. At 30-40% the size of E2open, this is a big bite. It is a larger acquisition than the prior purchases of Terra Technology, Steelwedge, or SCM-Icon.
The press release and websites are full of pretty rhetoric, but this old gal is worried. Why? The buyer for the Zyme products is different from the buyer of the E2open products. While many E2open’s legacy customers in the high-tech space have overlap with Zyme customers, the buyers are worlds apart. This is about much more than integration. The vision for the Zyme acquisition requires the rethinking of business processes beyond the siloed walls of the enterprise. This is happening at a time when there is employee turnover within the E2open organization from the Terra and Steelwedge acquisitions.