Column5 Consulting Celebrates its 10th Anniversary
SCOTTSDALE, Arizona, April 14, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Founded in April 2005, this month marks 10 years since David Den Boer established Column5 Consulting, LLC. Column5 is now the world's leading-edge consulting firm dedicated to providing high-value services that help customers leverage the power of SAP's Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) suite, including SAP BPC and BI.
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The company began with a small group of key players from OutlookSoft, the predecessor to SAP Business Planning and Consolidation (BPC). Column5 quickly grew into a global team of over 100 experts who are uniquely qualified to properly design and deliver comprehensive systems, addressing a wide range of industry and process-specific requirements. There are now multiple teams within the organization specializing in Technical Services, Consulting, Center of Excellence, Program Management, and Training.
Den Boer explained, "I was fortunate to build some good relationships with early EPM clients. I always felt there was more value to drive, and given the objectives (and constraints) of working within the software vendor, the consulting team rarely had the time or resources to 'do it right'. I knew I would have to start my own firm to raise the bar for what EPM success looked like."
Just one year after its inception, Column5 had grown to 10 times its original size. 2007 saw even greater growth, as OutlookSoft was acquired by SAP, and Column5 became an SAP Gold Partner in 2008. This was the start of a strong partnership between the companies that has continued through the present. The growth has sustained, earning the company four consecutive Inc. 5000 Awards for America's Fastest-Growing Private Companies.
International expansion was always one of Den Boer's goals. 2009 was a major year as Column5 grew globally to open an office in the United Kingdom, servicing the European market. This office has continued to play an integral part in Column5's mission of delivering the best EPM services. 2011 was another important year, as an office opened in the Philippines. Having a full staff located in Manila allows Column5 to service clients 24 hours a day, with employees providing support to customers at any time. The company expanded their European partnerships by joining EPM International in 2014. Earlier this year Column5 welcomed another international office in Canada, and there are plans to continue the strategic expansion. "We are always seeking to better serve our global customers in markets where they are doing business around the world. We are currently covering EMEA, APJ, and the Americas, but hope to grow to better serve our exclusive clientele," said Den Boer.
2009 brought the inaugural EPM Summit held in Las Vegas. The event was a great success in bringing together SAP EPM professionals from around the world, and continued annually for three more years with best practice information reaching thousands of BPC users in total. After a two year hiatus, Column5 returned in 2015 with an improved EPM Education Series. This series does not only include the return of the EPM Leadership Summit at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, but also the addition of in-depth Mastering EPM Workshops and the online conference series at Column5.TV, the EPM Success Network. With the first online event being held in November 2014, and the in-person Workshops and Summit taking place in February 2015, Column5 has offered more EPM training and networking opportunities than ever before. Dates are already set for online events in May and July 2015, and the EPM Leadership Summit will return to Las Vegas next February.
A key goal of Column5 has been to spread critical information needed by customers to be successful with powerful and sophisticated software, such as BPC. In the tenth year of Column5's journey, the landscape of EPM tools and providers is still shifting. New SaaS EPM solutions promise faster time to value, and there are more solution providers than ever. Customer satisfaction surveys conducted by a leading industry analyst firm indicates additional opportunities exist for those customers placing a high priority on the most advanced EPM capabilities.
David Den Boer states, "Column5 has had a special relationship with EPM, and especially this product, from the earliest customer implementations of the solution now known as BPC. We feel a unique obligation to define what success looks like, and to bring the skills and practices to market to ensure every customer can achieve a high value EPM solution. Whether you look at our consulting services, our technical specialists, our training, our methodologies... everything we are and do is to further the goal of enabling the highest value, lowest risk EPM solutions available anywhere in the world."
Contact:
Jami Giovannini
480-779-6990 x791
jgiovannini@column5.com
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