Sopra Steria is a
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
-based consulting, digital services, and
software development
Software development is the process of conceiving, specifying, designing, programming, documenting, testing, and bug fixing involved in creating and maintaining applications, frameworks, or other software components. Software development invol ...
company. Sopra Steria has a new consulting wing under the “Next” brand. It employs 3,400 consultants across Europe, including 1,900 in the group’s native France. After adding the shares held directly in registered form by current and former Group employees, these proportions amount to nearl
10% of the share capitaland 13% of voting rights, thereby making employees the Group’s second-largest shareholder.
History
Sopra was created in 1968, followed closely by the 1969 founding of Steria. SODERI (Information Research and Development Company) holds 51%, the BNP Group holds 29.5% and the Indochina Group holds 19.5%.
By 1971, Sopra signed its first large global banking managed services agreement, which led to the first banking platform the following year. Steria computerized
Agence France-Presse
Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency.
AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C ...
in 1973 by creating a text processing system that enables real-time information transmission. After acquiring Sitintel in 1974, the group developed
Minitel
The Minitel was a videotex online service accessible through telephone lines, and was the world's most successful online service prior to the World Wide Web. It was invented in Cesson-Sévigné, near Rennes in Brittany, France.
The service w ...
and eventually received its first major national project with the French Ministry of the Interior in 1986.
Steria's automation project for the RER A in Paris made it valuable enough to be registered on the Second Market of the Paris stock exchange (now the NYSE Euronext Paris) by 1990. Sopra set up its subsidiary,
Axway Software
Axway Software is a French-American publicly held information technology company that provides software tools for enterprise software, enterprise application integration, business activity monitoring, business analytics, mobile application devel ...
, in 2001, through which the company expanded into the Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) market.
In 2014, Sopra and Steria officially merged into the Sopra Steria Group in August. On 31 December 2014, the legal merger of the two groups was complete. After the merger, Sopra Steria acquired CX-partners in 2019 and Fidor Solutions in 2020.
Sopra
Sopra was seated in
Annecy, France. The company had a revenue of €1.349 billion (2013) and 16,290 (Dec. 2013) employees. It was founded in January 1968 by
Pierre Pasquier, François Odin and Léo Gantelet.
[Histoire – Les deux derniers grands capitaines de l’industrie des services informatiques encore à la barre de leur entreprise](_blank)
nr. 218, p.1026-1028, iLogiciels & Services
Olivier Hensgen, 23 maart 2009, La Tribune
''La Tribune'' () is a French weekly financial newspaper founded in 1985 by Bruno Bertez. Its main competitor is the French newspaper '' Les Échos'', which is currently owned by LVMH.
From 1993 to 2007, ''La Tribune'' was part of LVMH. In 2010 ...
In March 2014, Sopra Group was renamed Sopra. In April 2014, Sopra announced a merger with Steria in an attempt to become the European leader in computer services.
[Sopra announces merger with Steria](_blank)
/ref> Sopra is a consulting, IT services, and software development company. Its subsidiary Sopra Banking Software develops and distributes software for the financial services market.
It runs three complementary business lines: consulting management and technology, systems integration, and software publishing in the following field in human resources and real estate management.
Sopra is focused on financial services; services, transportation, and utilities; public sector; industry; telecom and media; and retail as business sectors.
Acquisitions
Sopra's main acquisitions are:
* SG2 Ingénierie (1996)
* Orga Consultants (2000)[Rapprochements conseil et SSII : quand l'amont et l'aval ne font qu'un](_blank)
/ref>
* ITI and CS Rand (2001)
* Inforsud Ingénierie from the Crédit Agricole Group (2003)
* Valoris (2004)
* Newell & Budge (UK) and its subsidiaries in Ireland and India, IT services (2005)
* 100% of the share capital of PROFit SA (2005)
* CIBF (2008)
* 100% of the share capital of Delta Informatique (2011)
* Callataÿ & Wouters (2012)[Callataÿ & Wouters racheté par le français Sopra](_blank)
/ref>[Callataÿ & Wouters signe un accord avec le groupe Sopra et formera ainsi un acteur européen majeur](_blank)
/ref>
* British subsidiaries of Business & Decision
Business & Decision (frequently called B&D ) is an international consulting and systems integration company with its global headquarters in Paris, France.
The group specialises in Business Intelligence (BI), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), ...
and Tieto
Tietoevry Oyj, Tietoevry Corporation, (Tieto prior to Jun 2019) is a Finnish IT software and service company providing IT and product engineering services. Tietoevry is domiciled in Espoo, Finland, and the company's shares are listed on the NASD ...
(2012)
* Callataÿ & Wouters and Delta Informatique (2012)
* HR Access (2013)
* COR&FJA Banking Solutions (2014)
* Merger with Steria (2014)
* CIMPA (2015)
* Cassiopae (2017)
* Kentor (2017)
* 2MoRO (2017)
* Galitt (2017)
* BLUECARAT (2018)
* Sword Apak (2018)
* SAB (2019)
* Sodifrance (2020)
* Fidor Solutions (Fidor Bank) (2020)
* EVA Group (2021)
* EGGS Design (2021)
* Labs (2021)
Axway Software
In 2001, Sopra used its subsidiary Axway to access the EAI market. The following year, Axway acquired Viewlocity Inc. From 2006 to 2008, it acquired Cyclone Commerce, Inc., Atos Origin, and Tumbleweed Communications Corp.
Axway Software split from Sopra in June 2011 after its stock market launch.
Steria
Groupe Steria SCA was a multinational information technology
Information technology (IT) is the use of computers to create, process, store, retrieve, and exchange all kinds of data . and information. IT forms part of information and communications technology (ICT). An information technology system (I ...
services company founded in 1969, based in Issy-les-Moulineaux
Issy-les-Moulineaux () is a commune in the southwestern suburban area of Paris, France, lying on the left bank of the river Seine. Its citizens are called ''Isséens'' in French. It is one of Paris' entrances and is located from Notre-Dame Cath ...
, France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...
. It focused on public services, finance, telecommunications, utilities and transport, and provided consulting services for its clients' core business processes.
Steria was created by Jean Carteron in 1969. Francois Enaud took over as chairman and CEO in 1998 and Steria listed itself in the Paris Stock Exchange the next year. In 2000, Steria acquired three service and telecom companies in France and became one of the top five French service providers. In 2001, Steria started the Foundation Steria, a community support group. In July 2007, Steria acquired the United Kingdom-based IT outsourcing and technology company Xansa
Xansa plc, trading as Xansa, was a British outsourcing and technology company, and was quoted on the London Stock Exchange until 17 October 2007 when the purchase of Xansa by Steria was completed and the company was delisted. Its headquarter ...
for £472 million in cash. According to the terms of an agreement signed with AURELIUS on 20 October 2012, Steria completed the sale of its Spanish subsidiary on 28 November 2012.
Steria had sites in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Luxembourg, Morocco, Norway, Poland, Singapore, Switzerland, Sweden and United Kingdom.
The "Steria Corporate Center for Real-Time and Embedded Software expertise", located in Aix-en-Provence
Aix-en-Provence (, , ; oc, label= Provençal, Ais de Provença in classical norm, or in Mistralian norm, ; la, Aquae Sextiae), or simply Aix ( medieval Occitan: ''Aics''), is a city and commune in southern France, about north of Marseille. ...
, France, focused on aeronautics (Eurocopter, Dassault), defense (DCNS, DGA) and transportation use products including QC (TEST DIRECTOR), SCADE and VAPS.
Services offered by Steria included applications management, infrastructure management, IT service management, business process outsourcing, testing and quality, cloud – Workplace on command, infrastructure on command, and security.
NHS Shared Business Services (NHS SBS) was a joint venture between Steria and the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...
's Department of Health
A health department or health ministry is a part of government which focuses on issues related to the general health of the citizenry. Subnational entities, such as states, counties and cities, often also operate a health department of their ow ...
. It provided services in finance and accounting, payroll and human relations, family health services, and commercial procurement.
In May 2018, the UK's Minister of State for Immigration
The minister of state for immigration is a minister of state in the Home Office of the Government of the United Kingdom.
From June 2017 to July 2019 and since October 2022, the minister has attended cabinet meetings.
The role was known as Parl ...
, Caroline Nokes, announced significant changes to the visa application submission process. In her statement, she announced the government would be outsourcing the immigration application process to Sopra Steria Group by October 2018.,
Controversies
In the UK, the National Audit Office found that NHS SBS first recognized in January 2014 that patients might have come to harm as a result of what was, at the time, a growing backlog of undelivered paperwork. Although staff raised concerns, the company did not alert the department or NHS England until March 2016. The NAO concluded that the company had been "obstructive and unhelpful" with regard to the subsequent inquiry launched by NHS England. In 2017, a UK Commons public accounts committee was informed that at least 12,000 missing papers – possibly including patient records and cancer tests – had not been processed by the company.
In 2019, several members of the British Parliament, concerned about "grave problems" in Sopra Steria's £91 million contract to manage post-Brexit biometric services for immigrants, wrote to the National Audit Office to request an urgent investigation into the quality of service, responding to allegations that the company was charging "extortionate" rates to the vulnerable.
Ransomware attack
On 20 October 2020, the company suffered a Ryuk ransomware attack. Using a new variant of Ryuk, the cybercriminals unsuccessfully tried to encrypt the company's data, making it inaccessible unless a ransom is paid. Ryuk has been described as "one of the most dangerous ransomware groups that operate through phishing campaigns".
Further reading
Sopra Steria is part of GAIA-X (2021), a digital ecosystem regulated by its members. The initiative is working to create an environment in which data can be shared and stored under the control of data owners and users; and where rules are defined and respected, so that data and services can be made easily available, compiled and exchanged. Gaia-X has the potential to create unprecedented opportunities for innovative, data-driven business models and new solutions that help European industries and companies of all sizes to scale up and compete globally. The result will be a strong foundation for modern, next-generation infrastructure that meets the needs of business, science and society.
Environmental practices and initiatives
For several years, Sopra Steria’s climate actions recognized by Carbon Disclosure Project with ‘A’ score.
References
[https://www.soprasteria.com/docs/librariesprovider2/sopra-steria-corporate/finance/cp-fi/20220112_nomination_uk.pdf?sfvrsn=e0adc9dc_6 ]
{{Authority control, state=expanded
Information technology companies of France
International information technology consulting firms
Software companies of France
Software companies established in 1968
French companies established in 1968
Companies listed on Euronext Paris