In a move designed to further diversify its offerings across industry sectors, Deloitte has acquired South African youth-led innovation consultancy SpringAge with effect from 1 August, 2016.
Founded in 2012 by female entrepreneurs Neliswa Fente and Raelene Rorke Clarke, SpringAge finds solutions to South African issues and assists organisations to better serve their markets. SpringAge has worked with clients such as Microsoft4Afrika, South African Breweries, Woolworths, Pepsico, and Vodacom.
SpringAge’s approach entails bringing together Springers, who are made up of young professionals, entrepreneurs and community leaders with insights and experience relevant to specific challenges. It then facilitates an innovation process called a SpringBREAK, where solutions are developed using innovative methodologies.
“What makes SpringAge a compelling value proposition is the fact that its professional network consists of millennials who are really focused around finding different ways of addressing the challenges faced by business today. Driven by the two dynamic owners, SpringAge is a logical fit for Deloitte,” says Thiru Pillay, MD of Deloitte Consulting for Africa.
Neliswa Fente, Co-Founder of SpringAge, says the growth shown by the company in the four years since it was founded is indicative of the critical need for fresh solutions in the South African market.
“Each Springer is carefully recruited based on his or her unique expertise and space of influence which they bring into the collaborative SpringBREAK process to ensure dynamic, bold solutions are born” says co-founder Raelene Rorke Clarke.
SpringAge will be integrated into the existing business of Deloitte Consulting and will form part of the Deloitte Greenhouse Africa innovation hub in Johannesburg run under the guidance of Dirk Kotze, Head of Corporate Growth and Development at Deloitte Consulting.