Trustad and BiTA join forces – “One plus one should equal three”

Two similarly sized companies with complementary offerings are joining forces. The goal is to become stronger together, broaden their offering and create new opportunities for growth – with Tomas Andersson, one of Trustad’s founders, becoming CEO of the new group, and Cinode providing a shared digital foundation for sales and skills management.

Trustad and BiTA Service Management have worked together for many years. Now, their relationship is taking the next step as the two companies join forces.

The companies are roughly the same size and complement each other well. Trustad has focused on consulting and advisory services, primarily for private-sector clients, while BiTA combines consulting and advisory services with an established training business and has historically focused on the public sector. Together, they cover the full journey – from skills and training to advisory services and implementation.

– We believe one plus one can become three – that together we can create more value than we could separately, says Tomas Andersson.

From a long-standing partnership to a merger

Tomas has worked as a consultant and built consulting companies for more than 20 years. He founded Trustad in 2018 together with three other co-owners. The name is a play on “trusted advisor”, reflecting the role the company aims to play: providing independent advice at the intersection of business needs and IT delivery. Today, Trustad has 14 employees, all with at least 20 years of experience.

The relationship with BiTA goes back even further. The companies have collaborated for several years on training in ITIL and IT service management. About a year ago, discussions about joining forces became more concrete. The process has involved owners and key people from both companies, with Tomas and Ulf taking operational responsibility for bringing the deal together.

An important part of the process was making sure the companies were a good fit – not only in terms of size, but also when it comes to values, ways of working and ambitions.

– If we don’t believe that we will become better and stronger by joining forces, then we shouldn’t do it. We believe there is significant potential here, says Tomas.

BiTA brings, among other things, its training business and network. Since its launch, the company has trained more than 25,000 people, creating a broad network of contacts across the market. The company also owns Service Support Institute (SSI), which runs networks and events within service and support.

For Trustad, the merger also means access to a larger sales organization and a broader customer base.

Two brands – one group

The merger has primarily been driven by Tomas and Ulf Myrberg, founder and CEO of BiTA, who will become chairman of the new group on October 1. The two companies will become subsidiaries under a shared parent company, while both brands will remain.

– We are established enough as brands that we don’t need to start from scratch, says Tomas.

A joint conference in October will be one of the first major opportunities for employees from both companies to meet and work together. One of the ambitions is to identify synergies between the companies’ offerings, for example by combining consulting services and training.

Stockholm and the wider Mälardalen region will remain the geographical base, while Gothenburg is identified as an area with potential for growth through employees with strong local networks.

A shared skills foundation from day one

When two consulting companies join forces, creating a shared view of skills, experience and availability also becomes important.

Here, the companies already have a common foundation in Cinode. Trustad has used the platform for several years, while BiTA recently joined.

For Tomas, digitalizing sales and skills management has always been a natural part of running a consulting business. When he founded his first company in 2004, he was already thinking about how to work smarter with consultants’ CVs and experience.

Later, when he came across Cinode, the difference became clear.

– It’s like night and day compared with working in Word templates, says Tomas.

Today, Trustad uses Cinode for everything from matching consultants to quickly finding the right experience when a customer request comes in. The company has also connected Cinode with Claude to streamline parts of the process.

It’s not just about finding the right consultant. References, skills matrices and previous experience are also easier to access and use when the information is structured and available in one place.

AI should free up time for what requires experience

AI is also changing how consulting companies can work with their internal processes. At Trustad, AI has already become a tool in the day-to-day business, while Tomas sees a market where customer needs are still taking shape.

For him, the main value is reducing the time spent on administrative tasks and creating more time for customer dialogue.

At the same time, he emphasizes that technology is only part of the solution.

– A platform can create better conditions for matching and sales, but someone still needs to own the process, understand the customer’s needs and actually make the contact. For a consulting company, it is therefore about combining technology with processes and clear ownership, says Tomas.

Greater capacity for the next phase

Both Trustad and BiTA currently have highly senior consulting teams. Over time, the larger combined organization may also create opportunities to build out the organization with additional levels of experience.

The first few months after the merger will primarily focus on organization, sales, marketing, and getting to know each other’s businesses and customers.

Then the ambition is clear.

– We want to grow. We will have greater capacity to work more proactively and can broaden our offering, says Tomas.

With two established brands, complementary customer bases and a shared digital foundation, Trustad and BiTA are now entering their next phase – with the ambition to create more together than either company could have achieved on its own.