Rizing, a Wipro Company, is a US-based global SAP consultancy with offices in 16 countries, serving Fortune 500 and small and medium enterprises with specialized skills in consumer industries, enterprise asset management, and human capital management. In 2021, Rizing acquired attune Consulting, a global technology and SAP consulting firm focused on the fashion industry. By 2023, attune will complete the transformation into Rizing and adopt its brand name.

The acquisition has augmented the capabilities of the two global boutique SAP consultancy firms accelerating global expansion and growth into new markets with tailored solutions that extend to both the fashion and retail sectors. Sanjeev Walgampaya, Senior VP in the Asia Pacific region at attune, explains the significance of this acquisition for attune and Rizing.

Can you take us through the journey and evolution of attune?

attune’s roots go back to 1999 as a technology enabler for a large apparel manufacturing company that was one of the early adopters of SAP® Apparel and Footwear Solution (AFS) globally. In 2006, we transitioned into a separate entity, eventually going global and becoming attune Consulting.

As the only SAP partner focused on the fashion industry, our aim since inception was to be niche because we always felt we could differentiate ourselves based on skill, competency, and domain knowledge. Today, attune is a premier SAP consulting company, and we’re preferred over competitors because we held our focus even during hard times.

That shows intense commitment to what we are doing. Having worked closely with SAP for over 20 years, when SAP was developing SAP® Fashion Management Solution (FMS), a vertical solution that unites retail, wholesale, and manufacturing businesses back in 2013, they invited attune to co-develop and co-innovate the solution. We have also had a close collaboration with the SAP teams on the product development of SAP’s latest fashion solution – SAP S/4HANA® for Fashion and Vertical Business (FVB).

Today, attune is a global company with reach across North America, Europe and the Asia Pacific, with over 600 people in the team globally; Sri Lanka being our largest hub having 300 consultants, a hundred in India and the rest across Europe and the US. From a fashion industry standpoint, there are three verticals – retail, wholesale, and manufacturing. We cover that entire verticality across all three regions. Highend brands to sportswear brands and some of the top supply chain manufacturers make up our growing client portfolio.

Why do clients come to attune? What problems are you trying to help your clients solve?

In short, we would like to call ourselves the trusted advisors to our clients, which sometimes means telling them things they most often do not want to hear. Our edge is the ability to understand how markets and competitors work so we can create solutions that matter to customers, giving them insights into how SAP technology will help build competitiveness in a rapidly evolving digital world. Many companies are still not digitally enabled and lack endto-end connectivity to the backend and their supply chains, so we fill those gaps.

The fashion industry is intense, with customers not just trying to halve production time but bring it down by eight-tenths, crunch lead times and slash costs. On top of that, they are compelled by evolving consumer behaviours and demands to adopt sustainability and reduce pollution, which only adds to costs. While some companies focus on reducing costs, others are increasing spending on various initiatives because they are concerned about consumer expectations around pollution and sustainability. The fashion industry is dynamic and changing all the time. We need to be on top of the game, ensuring that the systems we build enable our customers to navigate through diverse and sometimes conflicting needs and thrive. That is what we do best.

How will the acquisition benefit both companies?

We look at this acquisition as our next chapter of growth. attune is globally known for its expertise in the fashion industry, and Rizing is known in the market for its retail expertise. With the acquisition, attune will be able to acquire new capabilities in the Consumer Industries (CI) space on top of our historically strong base in fashion. As we merge into Rizing, we will be able to expand our client portfolio and create opportunities to extend our geographic reach into new markets.

Our combined strength will create superior advantages for the new organization as well as our customers. Rizing has exclusively focused on consumer retail, so now we will add the whole fashion dimension to Rizing.

Rizing CI has been primarily operating in the US and Canada, and now we are taking the Rizing brand to Europe and Asia, where attune has a strong presence. The combined companies create an SAP part ner with the global reach, scale, and capabilities to support Consumer Industries, and solidify our position as the foremost SAP partner for Retail and Fashion.

What are the attributes of your culture?

I think culture is the crux of our whole DNA. We have people who have been with us for 20 years, and people stay in an organization because of people, so building that people-focused culture was crucial. We remain steadfast in our core belief that the most successful results are achieved through dedicated employees who share our values and uphold our commitment to excellence, which has unified us globally. Along with this, core values like integrity and making an impact have always been important to attune, and this has remained unchanged as we’ve grown.

What can your people and all those looking to build careers in SAP look forward to after the Rizing acquisition?

There will be more opportunities to advance their careers and broaden their domain knowledge across other verticals. As trusted advisors to our customers, our employees have benefited greatly from having a seat at the table and will continue to do so. This allows them to guide and have an impact on how customers define their business processes, which will now happen at a larger scale, across new markets and region.

Many people joining us care about making a real impact, so working for a tech-driven company that is helping the world solve business problems at scale is a fantastic opportunity to be part of something bigger than themselves. This is something that has always been there but is now on a global scale. In this line of work, there is no limitation in terms of the contribution you can make.