Austrian-based software consulting business CNT Management Consulting Inc. has chosen Atlanta as its U.S. headquarters as it starts its expansion into North America.
The company is a business process consulting firm that specializes in assisting companies implement SAP SE, a German-based enterprise software, to manage business operations or customer support.
CNT initially planned on opening a U.S. office in 2020, but was postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. In February of this year, it opened its U.S. office in Buckhead.
It currently has seven full-time U.S. employees and looks to reach a staff of up to 30 within two years, said CNT Business Development Manager Bernd Baier. Most, if not all, of those hires will be Atlanta based. Alexander Paulus will serve as managing director of its U.S. entity. CNT also has offices in Brazil, Switzerland, Italy and Germany.
“The biggest driver for growth in our industry is the move to the cloud,” said Baier. “The technology exists, but it's much more of a commodity than it used to be, so now companies are focusing more and more on their business processes rather than on the technology.”
SAP is one of the largest software companies in the world along with International Business Machines Corp., Oracle Corp. and Microsoft Corp. The global SAP cloud platform market is currently estimated at $443 million, according to market research company Fact.MR.
SAP America Inc., a subsidiary of SAP, has one of its 17 U.S. office locations in Atlanta at the Alliance Center in Buckhead, making the city an access point for consultancy firms specializing in their software. Atlanta also provided CNT access to German pharmaceutical manufacturing company Boehringer Ingelheim, one of its biggest clients, which has a presence in Duluth.
Software consultancy firms with presences in Atlanta include Deloitte, Accenture plc and Cognizant Technology Solutions. In 2020, U.K.-based SAP and Amazon Web Services consultant Lemongrass Consulting announced plans to establish its U.S. headquarters in Atlanta following a $10 million raise.
Growth in the U.S. market is the most important strategic move, said Baier, because of its 350 million population in one homogeneous market. Conversely, the European Union has around 500 million people in 27 countries making it more complicated to look at it as a single market.
Founded in 1998 in Vienna, Austria, where it still maintains a global headquarters, CNT currently has 200 clients and 300 employees across the globe with 80 million euros ($83.53 million) in annual revenue, according to its website.
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that there were 50 countries in the European Union and that Boehringer Ingelheim had a presence in Alpharetta. It has been corrected to state there are 27 countries in the EU and Boehringer Ingelheim has a presence in Duluth.
