Tag: Acquistion

Tokyo, Japan – Global professional services Accenture has announced that it will be acquiring Tambourine, a Japanese-based commerce customer experience (CX) agency. Said terms of the transaction were not disclosed as of this moment.

The company, founded in 2015, provides integrated commerce services on the Salesforce platform. It delivers customer experience design and engineering, develops web services and applications, and offers consultancy services to optimize customer touchpoints. 

Tambourine already has a proven track record in using Salesforce Commerce Cloud to deliver seamless commerce experiences for consumer goods and entertainment companies in Japan. 

Through the acquisition, Tambourine will enhance the world-class suite of sales and commerce transformation services, from product and platform engineering, to omnichannel delivery of commerce experiences. 

Speaking about the acquisition, Flaviano Faleiro, president for growth markets at Accenture Interactive, said, “Brands understand that when they respond to new consumer behaviors with a seamless commerce experience, it makes them more relevant and valuable. The combination of Tambourine and Accenture Interactive will further enhance our ability to leverage creativity, technology and deep human insights to accelerate growth of our clients.” 

Tambourine is the latest in a series of acquisitions that Accenture has made to rapidly scale commerce expertise and excellence, including Experity in Brazil, Glamit in Argentina and Openmind in Italy. In Asia, the company had also acquired Malaysia-based marketing consulting/agency Entropia.

Atsushi Egawa, Accenture’s market unit lead for Japan, said, “Digital customer experience and brand reputation is so closely intertwined that it can impact a company’s growth. In considering ways to deliver the best of commerce experiences, brands are turning to data and the cloud for leverage. By weaving in Tambourine’s unique offerings into Accenture’s, we will continue to help accelerate our clients’ growth.”

Meanwhile, Tatsuya Nakao, CEO of Tambourine, commented, “Tambourine is founded on the premise of achieving excellent outcomes as a team. Now, as part of Accenture, we look forward to extending our digital commerce expertise across the entire customer experience and work closely together to create [a] deep impact for our clients.”

California, USA – Global ad platform Magnite has announced the conclusion of its acquisition of video ad platform SpotX, disclosed at an amount of US$640M in cash and 12,374,315 shares of Magnite stock.

Through the acquisition, both companies have created the largest independent connected TV (CTV) and video advertising platform, and reinforcing the company’s capabilities as linear TV budgets increasingly shift to digital, which works ideally for buyers and sellers that have long wanted a scaled, independent alternative to the giants that currently dominate the CTV marketplace.

Michael Barrett, president and CEO at Magnite, stated that scaling and reaching the largest possible audience is the name of the game when attracting the demand our CTV and video clients need, evident with the scale they have created with the recent acquisition.

“Acquiring SpotX positions us to become the world’s largest, independent source of highly-coveted CTV and video inventory. Two-thirds of our revenue is now concentrated in the fastest-growing segments of the market, and as linear TV dollars move to CTV, the greatest opportunity is still ahead of us,” Barrett stated.

Meanwhile, Mike Shehan, co-founder and CEO at SpotX, commented, “We’re thrilled to become a part of the Magnite family. CTV viewership and the ecosystem around it continues to evolve with new streaming services popping up every day and advertisers hoping to connect with those audiences.”

He added, “SpotX’s CTV business has experienced significant growth over the past year, and we believe our performance will only accelerate through this combination of resources by delivering even more value to our clients.”

Magnite, which now holds a large array of clients including A+E Networks, AMC Networks, Crackle, Discovery, FOX, among others, has also built a new Asia Pacific presence, as it announced last March the establishment of a new data center in Singapore.

Sydney, Australia – Enero, a boutique network of marketing and communication businesses, has recently acquired McDonald Butler Associates (MBA), a UK-based business-to-business (B2B) sales agency, through its global technology communications agency Hotwire.

Aligned with the Group’s global strategy to scale and expand the digital capabilities of its core agency brands, including Hotwire, BMF, and Orchard, the acquisition of MBA will add account-based marketing and channel marketing expertise and experience to Hotwire’s communications pedigree in the UK and globally. 

The acquisition will see MBA and Hotwire’s UK offices operate under the Hotwire brand led by Global Hotwire CEO Barbara Bates. Maeve McDonald and Mike Butler, founders of MBA, will take on the UK roles of managing consultant account-based marketing and marketing managing consultant respectively, 

They will be reporting to UK managing director and global leadership team member, Tara O’Donnell. This brings Hotwire UK’s headcount to more than 100 and more than 300 globally.

Barbara Bates, global CEO at Hotwire, said, “By adding MBA’s extensive account-based marketing and channel marketing experience, Hotwire will deliver a new level of communications programs designed to build brand reputation, strengthen stakeholder relationships and deliver revenue growth.”

McDonald Butler supports a strong client roster of technology clients including: Accenture, Adobe, AWS, Citrix, Dell Technologies, Deloitte, DXC Technology, Honeywell, IBM, Pegasystems, and PWC, which compliments Hotwire’s existing tech clients.

Maeve McDonald, CEO at MBA, said, “This is an extremely exciting opportunity for both MBA’s clients and our team. Both MBA and Hotwire have been dedicated to helping technology companies solve their most pressing business and communications challenges. Now we have a great opportunity to offer a wider range of communications, lead generation, and digital marketing services to our clients globally.”

Meanwhile, Brent Scrimshaw, CEO at Enero Group, commented that their acquisition of MBA reflects not only the group’s strong momentum and ambition, but their commitment to delivering on their global strategy of building scale and additional digital capabilities of their core agency brands.

“Hotwire is already one of the world’s most highly-regarded enterprise tech specialist communication businesses and we have no doubt that adding MBA’s specific sales and marketing expertise and complimentary client roster will unlock new possibilities of growth in a priority market like the UK,” Scrimshaw stated.

He added, “Enero’s investment will give Hotwire clients access to new capabilities and provide MBA’s clients access to a progressive global network, offering an even wider set of communications disciplines.”

Pakistan – Chinese low-cost retailer Miniso has acquired the Pakistan operations of eCommerce site ToSharing from shopping website Cheezmall, said a report by Profit.

The acquisition, which has a valuation between $5M and $7M, was finalized in September.

With the business based in China, ToSharing’s operations are manned outside of Pakistan. Prior to the acquisition, Miniso products are offered on a number of third-party marketplaces in the country, with ToSharing considered as its channel partner with direct online sales redirecting to the site.

With the deal, such marketplaces will be halted. Miniso did share that the sale of its products through the said channel resulted in inconsistent customer experiences, where ToSharing now standing as the exclusive online destination for purchasing Miniso products in Pakistan.

Mainly, the move by Miniso will be an acqui-hiring where as of 21 October 2020, cross-functional teams of ToSharing across marketing, supply chain, customer care, security, and risk will be transferred to Miniso.pk, its upcoming eCommerce store.

The site will be ready to process orders by the 31st of October 2020.

The acquisition is only the first phase of the investment from Miniso, with the retailer looking to complete further investments to build eCommerce fulfillment centers and the entire infrastructure, for a successful eCommerce operation in major cities of Pakistan.