True to its promises business software provider Access Group is continuing to bulk up its SaaS assets, accelerating the pace through a series of acquisitions (see here). It has just added PeoplePlanner to its portfolio, paying £4.2m for the SaaS provider.
PeoplePlanner provides software for the home care, domiciliary and nursing agency sector, and for the facilities management market (security, manned guarding). It is workforce management software, used to manage and administer teams and place people in the right places at the right times. The acquisition has the potential to open up a rich stream of new business because it takes Access Group into new market areas. It claims there are over 6,500 domiciliary care providers currently within the UK and more than 4,000 nursing agencies. By combining it with its existing products, Access aims to offer a solution covering financials, HR, payroll and workforce management to larger SME customers whose business is based on billing staff services to their customers. PoeplePlanner will be integrated into the aCloud solution.
It could be a smart buy for Access Group. The move into workforce optimisation is working well for fellow British software provider Allocate Software (see here) and Allocate has been doing well in the healthcare sector. Access Group’s challenges are ensuring that the specialist nature of PeoplePlanner does not get swamped and that it can provide the resources to exploit the new opportunity.