OEE Consulting merges with Webhelp's digital subsidiary gobeyond

OEE Consulting, one of UK’s larger independent consultancies specialising in operations and customer excellence, has been picked up by French multinational Webhelp. The BPO provider will merge OEE Consulting with its relatively new consulting subsidiary gobeyond, creating a consultancy with more than 300 consultants.

Headquartered in Oxford, OEE Consulting has over 130 consultants and trainers working across multiple disciplines and languages to help clients create seamless customer journeys, with deep financial services expertise. Founded in 1997, the consulting firm works to create lasting organisational change that delivers a better experience for customers, and better results for businesses.

The firm’s strong position in the UK and global markets has made it a prime target for acquisition, and as a result French professional services firm Webhelp has completed a deal to merge OEE with its consulting subsidiary.

The coming together of the two businesses is geared towards creating a market leading entity of some 300 consultants, based in London, Sheffield and Paris, in a bid to make the most of a booming digital transformation consulting market. Rapid advances in new technologies combined with fast moving trends in consumer behaviours are challenging brands to rethink how they connect, serve and transact with customers.

Webhelp is backed by KKR, a private equity firm which invested in the firm in 2015 in order to facilitate an international expansion drive. Part of this saw Webhelp launch gobeyond in 2017, which currently hosts around 70 employees in Sheffield and Paris, and will now merge with OEE. The practitioner-led Digital and Transformation solutions service provider advises on, designs, tests and delivers end-to-end services across all elements of Customer Experience Management. The parties involved in the move hope that OEE’s rapid growth in end-to-end CX services will allow gobeyond to access a broader portfolio of CX services and enhanced client opportunities.

Mark Palmer, Managing Director of OEE Consulting, said, “This... new partnership creates a disruptive organisation of a scale and capability that positions us as a leading customer experience transformation firm both in the UK and internationally. gobeyond’s managed services and technology offerings are highly complementary, and we’re confident that this provides a platform for accelerated growth.”

Commenting on the deal, gobeyond Managing Partner Dave Rumble, said, “OEE Consulting’s expertise in customer journey design and operations transformation will help us grow our service offering, increase our advisory capabilities, and ultimately drive our growth. The strength and the portfolio of services from the combined business is much greater than the sum of its parts, and we’re excited to continue on our upward path.”

Webhelp UK CEO David Turner, added, “We are delighted to support the team at gobeyond in the knowledge that our investment is creating an industry-leading customer experience transformation business with a greater global reach.”

The transaction completed on October 31st 2018. Equiteq, a firm which specialises in advising on mergers and acquisitions in the professional services industry, advised OEE Consulting on the move.

Remarking on the merger, Gabriela Silvestris, Managing Director of M&A in Equiteq’s London office, said, “It’s been a real pleasure working with Mark, his management team and OEE’s founders. They have most certainly built a phenomenal business and with gobeyond’s highly complementary market offering the combined team will be able to accelerate their next phase of growth.”

The acquisition comes amid a period of high demand for UK consulting firms, thanks in part to the deflated value of the pound, making targets cheaper to acquire for companies on the continent in particular. This has seen a plethora of UK firms snapped up by French entities, including Crimson & Co, which was purchased by French firm Argon Consulting, Hudson & York’s acquisition by Solucom, and Sia Partner’s purchase of Molten. At the same time, Moorhouse Consulting merged with German firm SQS.