by Adam Pease
Last week, digital transaction management (DTM) provider Namirial announced that it was being purchased by European investment firm Ambienta. The deal occurs as many enterprises struggle to adapt to the new economic conditions caused by the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this blog, we outline some of the market trends that help explain the logic behind the deal, illustrating how providers and investors are trying to meet the challenges of working remotely.
Digital Transaction Management During the Coronavirus
In the months that have followed the global coronavirus contagion, the number of people who work remotely has shot up dramatically. And without a human coronavirus vaccine or effective coronavirus treatment, we can expect these employees to continue to work remotely from home. For Namirial and other providers in the digital transaction management market, this means there is a new desire amongst enterprises to find scalable solutions that enable virtual work.
Namirial’s digital transaction management solutions position it well for the remote work era.
Sustainable Investment in the Remote Work Era
Ambienta’s acquisition of Namirial makes sense given the current economic climate and the investment firm’s historical emphasis on sustainability. In the past, Ambienta has been focused on leveraging environmental trends by making acquisitions in renewable energy and similar sectors. Now, one of its leading areas of focus for sustainability is the move to digital business processes. In the remote work era brought on by global coronavirus transmission, it is more critical than ever for enterprises to find ways to transition their former business processes into an efficient and mobile remote work business model.
For sustainability investors like Ambienta, the shift to remote work opens new doors as enterprises realize they must rapidly transform on-premise infrastructure and legacy content management methods that rely heavily on paper into systems that can support remote, distributed knowledge workers.
Digital Business and Sustainability: Why Namirial?
Namirial was a natural choice for Ambienta, who wanted to acquire a provider with a proven track record in delivering digital transformation. Namirial’s product portfolio offers tools for enterprises to digitize the way they handle contracts and other business-critical documents. Before the pandemic, many organizations still relied on paper signatures and other paper-based content processes to achieve key business outcomes like closing deals. Now, these enterprises will be scrambling to adapt their legacy paper processes into digitally-enabled processes to eliminate bottlenecks. The urgent need to replace paper documents positions Namirial and providers like it well to compete in the post-pandemic market, and it explains why Ambienta made this acquisition.
More generally, many organizations in this market strive to reduce their resource footprint and transition to a sustainable business model. The choice can have resounding benefits for an enterprise’s brand, its bottom line, and the planet as a whole. For these reasons and others, we expect to see more acquisitions of digital transaction management companies like this in the near future.
Bottom Line
Ambienta’s acquisition of Namirial reveals the desirability of sustainable digitization solutions in this trying time. The digital transaction management market size is likely to expand as more providers recognize the value of these offerings during the coronavirus. Even with the end in sight, we can count on the fact that remote work will remain the new normal for many. In this market, providers that respond to the demand for digital solutions are well-positioned to succeed.