COSA merges with TILOS to create European leader in BPM and SES markets

Released by: Dominik Eger

Email: deger@cosa.de

Keywords: BPM, Business Process Management, Workflow, Document Management

Update Date: 8/31/2005 4:55:00 AM

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Descrption:
Pulheim, 28th March. COSA has merged with the South African software company TILOS to form one of Europe`s leading companies in its market space The merged entity will trade under the name COSA, in effect leveraging the German and Dutch company`s well established international footprint.

Tilos software solutions occupy the smart enterprise suite (SES) niche, as Gartner Group has defined it, together with the business process management (BPM) space. COSA also markets its offerings in the BPM space and its software is wholly complementary to that of Tilos: Together Tilos and COSA will become the only European vendor with BPM and SES offerings on the two major mainstream technological platforms of Java/J2EE and .NET.

COSA`s software has already been rated by Gartner as being among the leading products in the world, earning it a spot in the Challengers quadrant in the 2004 BPM Maqic Quadrant. The company has been in business for a decade and has its offices in Germany and Holland with more than 65 clients in Germany, Holland, Belgium and other European countries.

"Our strategy all along has been to grow Tilos on the South African market and then to take it international, and to work with an appropriate overseas IT company in our market space to maximize our opportunities for expansion," says Tilos executive director Sybille McCloghrie. "Our merger with COSA is exactly in line with this strategy."

Now that COSA/Tilos will become the only European vendor with BPM/SES offerings on both .NET and Java/J2EE, it will allow existing and prospective customers to choose on which platform they want to deploy their software. The combined company will at first be jointly managed out of Johannesburg and Cologne, with an overall structure to be concluded at a later date.

"This strategic merger has positioned us for growth," adds McCloghrie. "Through it we double our people, double our turnover, and open doors into the European market, where we will exploit our existing channel in full, as we are now operational in many countries."

Dietmar Ley, CEO of COSA, says: "Becoming a multi-continental player with a comprehensive offering in the BPM, ECM (enterprise content management) and SES fields creates the first non US competition with this broad scope. The relative advantage to current players is that we are the first to have this functional scope combined with both technological platforms. Further, the merging of the two companies will be an easy and productive one, based on the openness and cooperation already demonstrated by both management teams."

The Tilos/COSA merger has been supported by Ethos Private Equity, a long-term investor and shareholder in Tilos.