CEB, now a part of Gartner, was a company providing best practice research, benchmarks, and decision support tools to business leaders in HR, Finance, IT, Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Strategy, R&D, Procurement, Legal, and Compliance functions globally. It was one of the first firms to offer a subscription pricing model for insights and advice, challenging the prevailing consulting delivery model and paving the way for subscription-as-a-service ("SaaS") pricing models now favored by software companies. Gartner announced its acquisition of CEB in January 2017, completed the acquisition in April 2017, and integrated the company in July 2018.