Deloitte ties up with Sage to target SME market

DELOITTE has become the latest Big Four player to make a concerted attempt at deeper market penetration in the SME space following a new “strategic partnership” with Sage.

The hook-up aims to help companies to become more agile through its combined cloud-based business tools.

Kevin Walsh, head of technology consulting for Deloitte, said: “Cloud is an important tool to help companies to grow and scale their businesses faster. This is particularly true in the finance function, where cloud technologies save time and effort and allow data to be accessed 24/7. Our partnership with Sage will help these ambitious businesses flourish in a competitive marketplace.”

Sage and Deloitte have worked together on deploying Sage X3, a business management offering that enables companies to collect, store, manage and interpret data from a wide array of business activities.

Santiago Solanas, global CMO of Sage, said: “Together, Deloitte and Sage will give small and medium businesses an affordable way to harness enterprise-class resources to help them compete and grow rapidly.

Deloitte’s move follows hot-on-the-heels of the recent launch of KPMG Enterprise, its strategic £40m investment to expand its service offerings to the growing network of 4.9 million privately-owned businesses across the UK.

But the Big Four firm attempts to wrest business from High Street practitioners, was doomed to fail according to a recent poll of Accountancy Age readers.

That was the majority view when asked if the Big Four firm “can compete with the high street for business”, with 77% of the 88 readers polled, answering no. Just over a fifth (23%) felt their move into the SME sector would succeed.

The poll was conducted after KPMG’s vow to disrupt and dominate the SME market by telling small businesses “you can pay us the same as your current accountant, but we’ll give you more”.