Transparity has “no desire to pollute the business” with non-Microsoft revenues, its CEO stressed as he opened up on the rationale for its acquisition of Microsoft Dynamics specialist Xpedition.
Transparity’s purchase of Xpedition super-charges its Microsoft CRM and ERP business and propels its headcount to 360.
Previously one of five brands under the Touchstone Group, which ranked 166th in Oxygen 25 2025, Xpedition has around 80 staff to Transparity’s 280.
The deal comes a year after Transparity swapped out Beech Tree for Bowmark as its private-equity backer.
“The last piece of the puzzle”
Talking to IT Channel Oxygen, Transparity CEO Paul Bolt characterised Xpedition as “the last piece of the puzzle” for the pure-play Microsoft partner.
“We’ve been building our own [ERP and CRM] capability organically, but it’s not the kind of business that organically scales at pace – it’s open heart surgery for a business, and often it’s the last thing people want to tinker with,” he said.
“We’ve always said if we find the right partner, we’ll do it.”
Ranking 97th in Oxygen 250 2025, Transparity saw revenue swell 28% to £51.9m in its fiscal 2024 thanks to swift organic growth and the contribution of recent acquisitions Ballard Chalmars, DataShapa and DeltaScheme.
But Bolt revealed the Berkshire-based outfit has a rule when it comes to M&A.
“We buy on cultural fit first, then we look at the breadth and depth of their Microsoft skills set to see how predicated on Microsoft they are,” he said.
“The furthest we’ve ever rowed back is 94% Microsoft revenue and 6% other.
“I’ve no desire to pollute the business with a long tail of vendors and associated revenue.
“The VAR model is a perfectly good one, but pure-play Microsoft with deeply technical skills across the full cloud stack remains the strategy. We’re not going to be deviating from that.”
“Find me another one”
Bolt described the deal for Xpedition, which has 1,300 Dynamics 365 projects under its belt, as “off market”, saying the duo had been talking for “many months”.
Xpedition’s leadership team, including CEO Dean Carroll, will join Transparity as part of the deal.
“It’s a culture-plus-technology-plus-business-model-led piece of M&A rather than ‘let’s open a spreadsheet and see if this adds up’ piece of M&A,” he said.
Transparity holds all six Microsoft solution designations and 15 advanced specialisations.
Adding Dynamics 365 prowess to Transparity’s expertise in data, AI, Azure, Power Platform, Azure and cyber, the deal will cement Transparity’s position as the UK’s leading pure-play Microsoft partner, Bolt claimed.
“It gets us to 360 people. A 360-person pure-play Microsoft partner in the UK ecosystem? Find me another one,” Bolt said.
“You have Telefonica Tech and ANS in the midmarket, but we’re just pure-play public cloud and pure Microsoft and we think this creates unique value for customers, Microsoft and our employees.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
