Argano has acquired Salesforce consultancy Oktana, expanding its artificial intelligence and data capabilities as the enterprise technology services firm builds out its global delivery operations.
Announced October 13, the acquisition adds 227 professionals and more than 1,100 Salesforce certifications to Argano’s business, strengthening its expertise across Salesforce Agentforce, Data Cloud, MuleSoft, and AI-enabled application development.
In an interview with Channel Insider, Argano President Sri Ayyeppen said the deal reflects a broader shift in enterprise IT consulting, as customers increasingly prioritize measurable business outcomes over traditional implementation timelines and billable hours.
Argano adds Salesforce AI expertise with Oktana acquisition
The deal marks Argano’s 15th acquisition since launching its latest growth initiative in April 2025 and its 31st since its founding in 2020.
Oktana brings 227 professionals with more than 1,100 Salesforce certifications, along with a predominantly Latin American nearshore delivery model. Approximately 75% of Oktana’s first-quarter 2026 revenue came from Data & AI services, according to Argano.
Ayyeppen said the acquisition addresses two priorities: expanding access to specialized AI expertise and building a more geographically distributed talent pool.
“We just need a global talent pool,” Ayyeppen said, pointing to the evolving delivery requirements of AI-driven enterprise operations. “Taking their capability with AI and data across all our customer base, including healthcare and high-tech, was a huge higher-order value proposition idea.”
For Argano, which already maintains significant operations in North America and India, Oktana adds nearshore delivery capacity and specialized Salesforce AI expertise. The deal also illustrates how enterprise solution providers are increasingly competing on their ability to combine AI, data integration, and global delivery capabilities rather than individual technology implementations.
AI pushes consulting firms beyond billable-hour models
The acquisition comes as traditional consulting models face pressure from AI technologies that can accelerate software development, automate workflows, and reduce implementation complexity.
Ayyeppen said Argano is moving away from evaluating projects primarily through staffing requirements and implementation timelines.
“How much I change from an effort-based understanding of like how long is it going to take, how many people it’s going to take, like how many hours is it going to take,” he said, describing the shift toward defining an intended outcome and working backward.
Ayyeppen said the consulting industry’s changing value proposition increasingly comes down to how effectively partners can integrate technology into everyday business operations.
“Are we taking latency out of a process that creates speed as an equation? Are we creating better adoption of these tools that these tools now suddenly become an inherent process of how you get your day-to-day work done?”
Ayyeppen also described a changing Salesforce environment in which organized enterprise data, agentic workflows, and conversational interfaces could reduce the need for some traditional application development.
For solution providers, that shift could change both how services are packaged and how their value is measured.
As AI reduces some traditional implementation work, partners may need to build more of their offerings around data readiness, workflow integration, governance, and ongoing optimization, with pricing and customer relationships increasingly tied to measurable business results.
Enterprise AI adoption raises the stakes for solution providers
Despite accelerating enterprise interest, Ayyeppen cautioned that translating AI experimentation into sustainable operational improvements remains difficult.
“The biggest AI challenge that we all face is like there’s so many great ideas, but it’s hard to make it stick,” he said.
He identified two priorities shaping enterprise AI investments: user adoption and what he calls “latency reduction,” or the time saved through more efficient processes.
Rather than attempting sweeping organizational transformations immediately, Ayyeppen favors deploying a few targeted AI capabilities, validating their effectiveness, and expanding from there.
He also said conversations increasingly involve multiple executive stakeholders, including CIOs, COOs, CFOs, and chief AI officers.
Those discussions begin with shared business objectives, such as improving forecasting, accelerating revenue growth, or increasing operating margins, before determining which technologies to implement.
For consulting partners, this means technical expertise alone may no longer be enough. Success increasingly requires executive alignment, cross-functional coordination, organizational change management, and credible measurements of return on investment.