Heads up Thomson Reuters could well be on the legal sector acquisition trail again as it today (5 September) announced that it has acquired long-term Elite partner OLAP Vision, a Toronto-based producer of budgeting and forecasting, profitability, and financial reporting products. OLAP powers the Xcelerate brand, which provides 3E, Enterprise and ProLaw users budgeting and forecasting and financial reporting solutions. The Elite business has worked closely with OLAP Vision since 2010.
Xcelerate Budgeting and Forecasting is a web and Microsoft Excel-based solution for the budgeting and forecasting of operating expenses, fee earner revenue, employee compensation, and capital expenditures. Xcelerate integrates with 3E, Enterprise, and ProLaw and quickly plugs into human resources and payroll systems to push global assumptions from a firm-wide level down to the individual fee earners and employees. Dashboards provide a single view into firm performance with drill-down capabilities and real-time alerts to help protect profits and plan with greater confidence.
The acquisition follows an announcement in April that the number of firms adopting Xcelerate Budgeting and Forecasting has now surpassed more than 100 worldwide. Aside from continued growth in North America, Xcelerate has seen a large uptick in sales across the Asia Pacific and EMEA regions, including a tripling of the number of customers in EMEA alone in 2017. Overall, the number of 3E and Xcelerate-bundled deals has increased more than 400% in the last three years.
More than 70% of clients that rely on Xcelerate to review their productivity and profitability are within the Am Law 200, with more than 30 firms belonging to the Am Law 100. Xcelerate also counts among its clients 7 top global law firms that generate annual revenues in excess of $1 billion.
The acquisition follows Thomson Reuters’ sale of a 55% stake in its finance and risk business for around $17bn, leaving its legal division as the top revenue generator. We forecast more acquisitions to come.