Deloitte, Epylon Join Forces on School Buying Solution

By William Welsh, Staff Writer


AUG. 22 ? Deloitte Consulting of New York and Epylon Corp. of San Francisco have formed a strategic alliance that includes Deloitte Consulting taking a minority stake in the company. The two companies will work together to market Epylon's electronic procurement solutions to the K-12 market.


"The alliance will bring together two of the most powerful e-business solution providers in the education market, leveraging Deloitte Consulting's market eminence with Epylon's compelling procurement solutions and experienced management team," said Doug Taylor, director of global public sector Deloitte Consulting.


Deloitte Consulting seeks to enhance educational institutions' use of Epylon's system by providing a number of value-added services that would help schools assess their business processes, implement change management programs and integrate Epylon's solution into schools' existing purchasing and financial systems.


Deloitte Consulting and Epylon will collaborate on related business development, marketing, product development, technical integration and training. The firms announced plans to collaborate in other public sector markets in addition to education.


The K-12 education segment is composed of nearly 100,000 public schools in 16,000 school districts, in addition to about 28,000 private schools. The K-12 market is valued at $80 billion annually, according to Deloitte Consulting and Epylon.


In addition to Deloitte Consulting, privately held Epylon has strategic alliances with Andersen Consulting, of Chicago, and e-commerce software provider Ariba Inc. of Mountain View, Calif. Approximately 1,200 schools districts, representing more than $7 billion in annual spending, are registered with Epylon.


Deloitte Consulting is a part of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, which had annual sales of $10.6 billion in 1999, according to Hoover's Online of Austin, Texas.