ECS acquires UK DevOps consultancy Forest Technologies

ECS, a UK IT services firm, has acquired Forest Technologies, a London-based DevOps consultancy. No acquisition terms were disclosed.

Forest Technologies, founded in 2003, is a DevOps consultancy that provides business automation solutions to clients and partners, which includes AWS, Docker, and Automic. According to the firm, it has seen revenues grow five-fold in the last four years.

As part of the acquisition, Forest CEO Andy Cureton will join ECS as managing director of its new Digital Practice department. Forest’s 22 employees will be joining ECS too.

“Specialist DevOps skills are hard to find, especially in these types of organisations. This drives demand for third-party support. But there are very few DevOps specialists with the experience of delivering these kinds of transformation projects for large enterprises,” said Cureton. “Choice has always been limited to a global, expensive consulting firm or a niche player that doesn’t typically work as a direct supplier.”

The focus for the company moving forward will be expanding its enterprise customers, which includes FTSE 100 companies, in areas like the UK and Asia Pacific, it said.

“This acquisition adds important DevOps and Continuous Delivery capabilities to our highly prized advisory and IT transformation services, giving us a full complement of experience, skill and expertise to help our customers build competitive advantage,” said Paul Thomson (pictured), group chief executive of ECS.

“There is strong demand for DevOps from large enterprises. Our plan is to rapidly scale this new practice to reach a turnover of £5m+ by the end of 2017.”