Salesforce specialist 4C to increase Middle East headcount by a third
Salesforce specialist 4C will increase its Middle East headcount by a third in the coming year following an investment by Salesforce Ventures.
The Belgian-headquartered digital consultancy and Salesforce Platinum partner 4C intends to increase its Middle East headcount by one third over the coming twelve months – on the back of triple-digit regional growth last year, a doubling of its office space in the UAE, and a local workforce which has already tripled in size. Altogether, the firm has a current headcount of more than 280 spread across ten offices in the EMEA.
The planned local talent increase is part of a firm-wide push which will see the creation of 100 new jobs across its locations in Belgium, France, the UK and latest addition Denmark (with the acquisition of Danish Salesforce partner 3C Consult in August), and follows an investment from Salesforce Ventures, the strategic investment arm of the world’s leading CRM (customer relation management) software provider Salesforce.
“This new investment will enable 4C to realise its global growth plans by enhancing our existing capabilities with advanced cloud platforms and tools, and bolstering our highly talented team to deliver these,” said 4C founder and Group CEO Johan Van Genechten. As well as opening up opportunities to participate in a broader range of exciting global projects, it will allow us to create industry and solution-specific IP to power the success of our customers, which is always our primary driving goal.”Salesforce Vice President of Alliances and Channels for the EMEA, Leon Mangan added; “Since joining the Salesforce ecosystem, 4C has continually helped our customers innovate and grow through adopting and developing innovative Salesforce technologies. Today’s announcement only further enhances 4C’s reputation as a leading Salesforce partner, and we look forward to supporting their global growth over the coming years.”
According to 4C, the increase in local headcount will coincide with the expansion of its emerging practices Quote-to-Cash, B2B Commerce and Contract Lifecycle Management – the latter of which it states it will be the first to offer in the region. Further, 4C will look to establish new partnerships with software firms Introhive and Mulesoft (acquired this year by Salesforce for $6.5 billion) in the Middle East, and extend its relationship with DocuSign.
Founded by Van Genechten in 1997, 4C bills itself as EMEA’s largest independent Salesforce Platinum partner, and has since its inception delivered over 1,500 projects – including more than 1,000 Salesforce contracts for clients such as Aston Martin, FujiFilm, Deutsche Bank, AXA, and leading Middle Eastern property developer EMAAR – the latter for which 4C implemented Salesforce’s Sales Cloud to unify EMAAR’s CRM platform across all of its branches.
In the Middle East, as elsewhere, 4C must compete against the might of the Salesforce heavyweights such as Deloitte, PwC and Accenture – in what Salesforce describes will be a $859 billion ecosystem by 2022 (projected new Salesforce-led business revenues worldwide) while creating 3.3 million new jobs. Other global players include Cognizant, which recently picked up APAC Salesforce specialist SaaSfocus, Capgemini, and Infosys, which in September bought Salesforce consultancy Fluido for $76 million.