New and exciting opportunities are on the horizon for Chicago-based Zivra. In 2019, the technology consulting company acquired Akyzen, which provides complementary optimized IT solutions. Akyzen’s strategy of aligning itself as a technology advisor aligns well with Zivra’s current strategy, says Arthur Alvarez, director of sales and alliances at Zivra.
“Joining forces with Akyzen helps us expand our Infrastructure and security offerings,” he explains. “Their broad experience with provisioning of cloud environments and migrating on-premise infrastructure to the public cloud propelled them to become a well-respected consulting practice known for automation and innovation.”
Akyzen has also played in the IT workforce solution space. “This aligned well with our customer’s request to help them identify temporary and permanent staff resources for their DevSecOps [development security operations] needs,” Alvarez says. “It just made sense to acquire them and grow our offerings.”
Founded in 2013, as DevOps began gaining traction within the IT organization of large companies, Zivra’s goal is to help enterprises develop and implement their IT transformation strategy. The services it provides are DevSecOps strategy and implementations, agile transformations, cloud strategy and migrations, infrastructure automation, IT software solutions and services, and technical education and training. Zivra was included in Inc. magazine’s annual list of America’s Fastest-Growing Private Companies in 2018, and named 2019 Americas Partner of the Year by CloudBees for the third year in a row.
Zivra had an existing relationship with Akyzen leaders, and the two companies had held several discussions around partnering in the industry. Those conversations led to a more serious conclusion: acquisition. The good relationship among the two companies’ leaders facilitated the negotiations and due diligence.
Prior to the acquisition, the Zivra team automated technology delivery and helped clients to transition into modern technologies that create value and position them for greater business success. “With this managed service acquisition, we will be in a better place to optimize effective infrastructure for our clients and have a broader reach to clients looking for DevSecOps and infrastructure transformation solutions,” Alvarez explains. “We will continue to deliver modern technology solutions to ensure efficient software development and immutable infrastructure for businesses.”
With the acquisition of Akyzen, there are exciting initiatives in store for Zivra. One is to supplement the current DevSecOps offerings with new security optimization services and provide a strategic plan to keep data protected while meeting compliance requirements. Another is to identify ways to better align IT security with existing policies.
“The new reality is that data breaches are inevitable. Businesses will need to put a solid plan in place to protect their valuable data and reputation. We can now assess an organization’s risk and establish an incident prevention plan for the entire security lifecycle.”
“The new reality is that data breaches are inevitable,” Alvarez says. “Businesses will need to put a solid plan in place to protect their valuable data and reputation. We can now assess an organization’s risk and establish an incident prevention plan for the entire security lifecycle.
“From a continued growth perspective,” he adds, “we will continue to build out our practice and expand to other areas of the United States and Latin America, including Mexico, Argentina, and soon other countries to meet demand.”
This October, Zivra will be heading to Santiago, Chile, for a half-day DevSecOps En Chile networking event, hosted alongside CloudBees, Sonatype, and GitHub, three leaders in the DevSecOps solution space. The companies and other IT practitioners will present and discuss best practices for making successful DevSecOps transformations and scaling them across a company. This event follows a similar successful event hosted by the same four partners in Mexico City earlier this summer.
