Two M&As, Two Growth Strategies
What is in store for successful Drupal companies? How are you charting your growth trajectory beyond a few years? How are you plotting to grow digital muscle? Or are you a digital experience giant trying to wear Drupal shoes?
In a post-pandemic recession-prone era, when every digital-transient-companies frantically search for the Digital Transformation mantra to reinvent itself, Drupal companies are hotcakes. Digital Asset Management is a serious business that needs expertise in various fields, making capacity enhancements all the more critical.
The increased demands from legacy digital migrant companies for trustworthy digital experiences call for more friendly or even hostile take-overs and acquisitions, equal foot mergers, and the intense evolution of digital-native startups into megalith corporations.
In mid-September, notable CX transformation company, Material announced that they had acquired Srijan Technologies, an acclaimed global digital engineering firm with offices across India, APAC, Europe, and the US. A few days later, Four Kitchens, a distributed web design agency with roots in Austin, acquired Manati, a Costa Rica-based digital agency.
These two M&As have created two different experiences by taking diagonally opposite pathways. While Material+Srijan is one of the most significant acquisitions in the Drupal world, Four Kitchens+Manati has held up the power of distributed and federated management structure, giving Four Kitchens an advantage over many of its rivals.
All four companies work in the digital realm, with different focus areas. Material is a global strategy, insights, design, and technology partner with a unique customer-centric approach. The acquisition of Srijan further enhances Material’s approach by offering more profound abilities in digital experience and data platforms, cloud engineering, and modern data engineering. The combined size of these two companies will become 2000+ in headcount.
It is pertinent to quote from the press release in connection with the acquisition.
Over the past two decades, Srijan has built a reputation for solving complex technology problems for some of the world’s leading brands, made possible by their deep technology expertise and strategic partnerships with top tier technology partners. Srijan is one of the world’s leading Drupal service providers, with over 600 digital and data engineers in India. Srijan’s founder and CEO Rahul Dewan serves on the board of the Drupal Association. Srijan was named winner of the Acquia Top Growth Partner Award for 2021, has partnerships with Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Apigee, a services relationship with VMWare, and holds partnerships with several other leading technology platforms powering digital experience solutions.
The company brings advanced engineering capabilities and best-in-class agile software development practices to Global 2000 clients across Media, Financial Services, CPG, Telecom, and Technology. For 6 years in a row Srijan has been recognized as a Great Places To Work™ and has also been recognized among the Top 50 Tech Companies in India by Deloitte.
Manati is a fully remote, 21-person digital agency with deep ties to the Drupal community. Four Kitchens will incorporate the firm’s co-founders along with its team of web developers, UX designers, and project managers, growing to 65 Web Chefs. With the addition of Manatí, Four Kitchens expands their ability to create more inclusive experiences through multilingual projects and increased flexibility for short-notice and urgent client requests.
The acquisition of Manatí is the culmination of an eight-year collaboration and friendship between the firms. With similar client rosters that specialize in education and social impact, Four Kitchens and Manatí also share a connection through their values, vision, and mission,
says the press release.
Four Kitchens created the Emulsify Design System, an open-source style guide and component library tool. Emulsify facilitates faster, more accessible content creation and website development.
In 2021, Four Kitchens merged with Advomatic, expanding its presence among organizations specializing in nonprofit advocacy and education. In addition, the agency has also incorporated Advomatic’s program for providing long-term, strategic website support and improvements, which is called Continuous Care.
The impact of these M&As differs. Material, a digital agency, became a formidable Drupal company through this acquisition. Srijan, a company that had grown breathtakingly fast through its all round Drupal expertise, including headless and low-code no-code solutions, gave the former a considerable edge by not only bringing in expertise, but experience and business too. It is a win-win for both companies.
On the other hand, Four Kitchens, a humble Drupal company, enhanced their digital capability by taking over Manati, a martech business, thereby growing the former’s digital muscle. As the teams combine, Manatí’s projects in Central and South America will be phased out to focus on the organization’s clients in the U.S. and Canada. Both M&As will be beneficial for the larger Drupal market.
Acquia taking over Widen had paved the way for the future of mega digital offerings. The trend is continuing. It might bring in more flavoured DXP variants based on Drupal.
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