Technology firm 4Sight is hunting for companies that will help grow its business around AI while tapping into their talent pools to find and retain the best staff. The group announced its first acquisition in more than six years in April last year, the R40m acquisition of XFour, a human resources and payroll technology services provider, earmarked to boost its AI capabilities.JSE-listed 4Sight reported a strong set of results for the year to end-February, including a 16.3% increase in revenue to R1.16bn and operating profit growth of 45.8% to R71.7m, adding that XFour was “a major contributor to performance”. The unit exceeded the earn-out target set at the time of acquisition by 64%, and XFour’s leadership is now “leading the human capital [function] in 4Sight, and all staff are fully integrated”.It makes sense that 4Sight CEO Tertius Zitzke is looking to acquire other businesses that will also help to grow the group’s operation. “The first rule is that we will only invest in something that’s in our strategy, to enhance our existing business,” Zitzke told Business Day. “For example, security; we must do something for that side of our consulting business, so we are looking at that.”Zitzke values businesses that are “culturally a fit for us. People that believe in AI and the technologies [we have]”. “I’m always excited about talent. A big thing about XFour is they have three really intelligent business leaders. That is what we want, to get that young talent in the business for the future of 4Sight. They also believed in our AI strategy and what we do. “I already moved one of those leaders out of that business [XFour] into our shared services in the head office with me,” he said. 4Sight reported that revenue and profit growth was driven by enterprise customers increasingly embedding AI into their core business and operational processes “to boost productivity and agility and gain a competitive advantage”. Headline earnings per share, which strip out the effect of one-off financial events, increased 34.7% to 7.345c from 10.732c previously. The group declared a final cash dividend of 3c a share.“The main contributions to the increase in margin are our revenue mix and lower operational expenses, giving us the leverage on the margin achieved through internal efficiency gains. We embraced AI to boost output and make our existing resources more effective,” said CFO Eric van der Merwe.“With AI tool utilisation rising in 4Sight, company productivity is higher than ever, with headcount increasing by just 50 in the period under review.” Zitzke also noted the importance of using the products or platforms of acquired businesses. “We’re also drinking our own champagne as customer zero. That’s a principle. Comply and use all these technologies ourselves,” said Zitzke. “In that way, we talk the language the customers want to hear, and it’s easier to deploy as well. I’m definitely looking at a few [acquisitions] now. I want to do at least like three or four this year, but it must be in line with what we do.” “We’re doing it with the same recipe: a very simple, 50:50 cash and shares with an earn-out, and we really want to retain the talent as well.”