Capgemini splashes $500 million on US customer engagement firm LiquidHub

Global consulting firm Capgemini has confirmed the acquisition of LiquidHub, in a deal due to conclude for a $500 million price-tag. The digital customer engagement firm will reinforce Capgemini’s Digital Consulting capabilities in North America and accelerate its portfolio shift in the region.

Building on a 50-year heritage of technology and IT industry-specific expertise, Capgemini’s staff of 200,000 team-members in over 40 countries works to enable organisations to realise their business ambitions through an array of services from strategy to operations. The consultancy reported global revenues of €12.5 billion in 2016, and has been looking to build on that momentum over the past 12 months. Along with the broader consulting industry, this has seen Capgemini making a concerted effort to muscle its way into the design and advertising space via a campaign of acquisitions.

Most recently this had seen the firm acquire Lyons Consulting Group, an ecommerce agency, which has since been put to work on numerous holistic design projects, including digital transformations for the Build a Bear group, and jewellery store Claire’s. Capgemini’s digital wing more generally has been involved in numerous large projects over the last year too, including a contract to develop digital solutions for fast food giant McDonald’s. Now, Capgemini has further strengthened its digital consulting capacity, with a particular focus on growth in the US consulting industry, the largest in the world.

LiquiHub was established in 2000, and today counts industry leaders among its clients notably in financial services, healthcare and life sciences. Headquartered in Philadelphia, USA, with estimated 2017 revenues of around €200 million annually, the firm has recently been expanding its own operations, using the acquisition of Annik, a Seattle-based data analytics firm, at the end of 2016 to grow the company’s workforce by almost 50%. Liquihub’s now 1,600 strong headcount specialises in developing and delivering compelling customer experiences, and staff offices across Philadelphia, including a Delaware outpost, its global HQ in Wayne, and a start-up-style office in the Curtis Center.

Now, the large team of design thinkers, user-experience designers, digital architects and analytics specialists will join Capgemini’s digital teams to assist its clients in enhancing their customer experience offerings. This acquisition aligns with Capgemini’s growth plans focusing on digital and cloud consulting in North America, while also strengthening LiquiHub’s own capacity to expand.

The transaction will conclude in the next couple of months, at which point Capgemini are set to shell out $500 million to complete the purchase, encouraged by what the French-headquartered consultancy sees as multiple opportunities for scalability and synergy. By leveraging its industry knowledge and extensive client experience, LiquidHub has already developed a series of marketing, sales, commerce, and service solutions across the entire engagement lifecycle, while building a set of sought after platforms-as-a-services for complete customer management. These include a Speciality Pharma Insights Platform, and a Customer Acquisition Platform which delivers seamless, secure digital customer engagement for clients in regulated industries, among others. 

“LiquidHub’s passion to help clients uncover new ways to engage with their customers, supported by robust digital expertise and a strong track record in complex technology execution, was a natural fit with the end to end digital services that Capgemini provides enterprises around the world,” Paul Hermelin, Capgemini’s Chairman and CEO, commented.

Jonathan Brassington, CEO and Co-Founder, LiquidHub, added, “The challenge of omni-channel is connecting all the parts and pieces to deliver a unified and pleasurable experience to your customers. It’s not physical or digital; it’s the blended experience. The full spectrum of Capgemini’s digital transformation solutions and services coupled with its global reach will allow us to augment and expand our offerings for our current and future clients around the world.”