SAP snaps up Hybris in customer-relations coup Germany's SAP added to a blistering week for business technology acquisitions by agreeing to acquire Hybris, a Swiss e-commerce software company, in order to boost its competitiveness in customer-relationship management. SAP conceded it had paid a transaction multiple "consistent with other high-growth assets." Two sources close to the deal put the transaction value at a high triple digit million euro amount, or roughly $1bn. However, the two parties declined to confirm that figure. Hybris has more than 600 employees and had more than $100m estimated revenues in 2012. SAP's further push into e-commerce applications takes place after rival Salesforce.com passed the German company last year as the leading vendor of customer relationship management software, according to Gartner, the consultancy. SAP's lacklustre growth in this sector was a potential problem for the company as it views helping businesses to analyse consumer behaviour and to process vast quantities of customer data via the web and mobile devices as an important source of future growth. Jim Hagemann Snabe, SAP co-chief executive, said: "It's not about [playing] catch-up. It's about defining the next generation CRM. SAP plans to link Hybris to its Hana in-memory computing technology to help companies spot purchasing trends and target sales incentives in real-time. Bill McDermott, SAP's other chief executive, described the Hybris acquisition as a "game changer." "We are here to talk over the CRM marketplace," he added. Last year SAP paid $4.3bn for Ariba, a cloud-based business-to-business network that helps companies collaborate in areas such as sourcing, invoicing and payment. "With corporate cash at all-time highs, many vendors are willing to pay high premiums to acquire specific technologies and expertise in an increasingly dynamic and competitive CRM market environment," Joanne Correia, vice-president at Gartner, told clients in a recent report. SAP has long been considered a potential suitor for Hybris but the possibility of a quick transaction seemed to recede in March when Hybris completed a $30m funding round. On that occasion Meritech Capital Partners and Greylock Israel joined as shareholders alongside Hybris" main investor HGGC, a mid-market private equity firm based in California. Based in Zug, Switzerland, Hybris has grown rapidly in recently years and its customers include H&M, Starbucks and Nespresso. Ariel Luedi, Hybris" chief executive since 2004, is a former senior vice-president of European sales at Salesforce.com This week IBM and Salesforce.com made acquisitions totalling a combined $4.5bn to boost their cloud computing offering. The Hybris transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2013. Hybris will operate as an independent business unit of SAP and will retain its existing management team.