Shift Left goes global through acquisition by Planit

UK-based IT and quality engineering consultancy, Shift Left, has today announced its acquisition by Planit, an Australian-headquartered global leader in quality engineering and application testing services. The move sees Shift Left join the Tokyo-based NRI Group, employing 13,500 people around the world and with a market capitalisation of US$15.7bn. 

Following its acquisition of Shift Left, Planit is now contending for the second spot amongst specialist quality engineering service providers, worldwide. 

Commenting on the acquisition, Mike Weale, CEO of Planit, said “We are thrilled to welcome Shift Left to the Planit group and leverage their suite of services and strong customer base to expand our offerings throughout the UK and into Europe. We see these regions as key to executing our Vision 2030 strategy, and have aggressive plans for expansion. Thanks to this acquisition, the combined entity has now grown beyond 300 people in the UK.” 

The deal comes just four months after Planit’s acquisition of its primary competitor in the New Zealand market, Qual IT, and cybersecurity specialist, SEQA.

Shift Left was co-founded by Alan Upton and Dave Rigler 7 years ago in Yorkshire, and has since grown to service clients across the UK and Europe.  

“This is an incredible milestone for Shift Left and will launch the next stage of growth,” says Dave Rigler, co-founder of Shift Left. 

Addressing why the deal came about, Rigler said “We were listening to the needs of our customers, and we could clearly see the opportunity to expand our global reach and extend our service offerings. We also knew that achieving this on our own would be possible but would take significant time and investment. We needed to find a partner with a substantial global footprint and Planit was the logical choice.” 

“Not only did we have a historical relationship, we also knew Planit had the capability and capacity to move our business forward. We’ve seen Planit’s great work first-hand at clients like Specsavers, where they have over 100 quality specialists servicing their end-to-end quality needs,” said Rigler.

Speaking on the benefits for Shift Left’s employees, Mr Weale said “Shift Left employees will immediately benefit from increased learning and career opportunities across the combined entity. They can access our world leading training offering, take advantage of our global mobility program, and gain experience across our broad client-base. We also see this as a great benefit to our customers.” 

The Shift Left brand will remain in operation with its senior management continuing to lead the business, its employees, and client engagements.

Shift Left joins Planit locally in the United Kingdom and globally into the wider business footprint across Australia, India, New Zealand and the Philippines. The acquisition figure is confidential.

Shift Left was founded in 2015 to make business and technology better for its clients by moving quality earlier and throughout lifecycles of change. Headquartered in the North of England, Shift Left now provides services to clients across the United Kingdom and Northern Europe. Shift Left has more than 80 consultants who provide managerial, technical and thought leadership across a wide range of quality related services including quality engineering, quality assurance and application testing services.

More information: https://shiftleft.today/about-us

Planit is a global leader in quality engineering, quality assurance and application testing services, helping companies build better software. Headquartered in Sydney, Australia, Planit employs over 2000 employees across Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, India and the United Kingdom. Planit was founded in 1997 in Australia and has operated in the United Kingdom since 2015 when it established its Reading office, before subsequently opening in London and supporting clients remotely across the region. In 2021, Planit was acquired by Nomura Research Institute (NRI) Australia, part of NRI global, a member of the Nomura Group. 

More information: https://www.planittesting.com/about 

Founded in 1965, NRI is a leading global provider of consulting services and system solutions, including management consulting, system integration, and IT management and solutions for the financial, manufacturing, retail and service industries. Clients from all layers of these individual industries partner with NRI to tap NRI’s research expertise and innovative solutions across the organization to expand businesses, design corporate structures and create new business strategies. NRI has more than 16,000 employees in more than 100 offices globally including New York, London, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Australia. NRI reports annual sales above $4.9 billion. NRI is rated “A” by S&P Global Ratings Japan. In 2021, NRI acquired Planit as part of its Vision 2022 strategy, and have continued to expand its global presence by acquiring Qual IT and SEQA in New Zealand, and now Shift Left in the United Kingdom, as part of its Vision 2030 strategy. 

More information: https://www.nri.com/en/company