Technology multinational Cognizant announced this week that it will be acquiring global consultancy Collaborative Solutions in an expansion of its Workday services. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2020, subject to regulatory clearance.

Collaborative Solutions is one of the world's largest Workday consultancies and provides a range of finance and HR advisory and implementation services. It operates in North America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific, and has about 1,000 employees worldwide. According to figures from growth companies analyst firm Growjo, it has an estimated annual revenue of US$140 million.

Greg Hyttenrauch, President, Digital Systems and Technology, Cognizant, commented that the acquisition of Collaborative Solutions would expand Cognizant's reach in the cloud market, especially given its leading position in the Workday space. "Running core applications in the cloud has never been more important," he said.

Carroll Ross, CEO of Collaborative Solutions, said: "We look forward to joining Cognizant, a Fortune 200 company that shares our passion for both client and employee success."

This is the fourth cloud-related acquisition Cognizant has announced this year. In March, Cognizant had signed a deal to acquire digital marketing consultancy and Salesforce Lev; in February, it bought over the French operations of Salesforce-specialized digital consultancy EI-Technologies; and also in February, it acquired Code Zero Consulting, a privately-held provider of consulting and implementation services for cloud-based Configure-Price-Quote and billing solutions.