The deal is designed to boost SAP’s customer experience offerings and is expected to close by the end of the year.

Germany-based business software company SAP SE—its products and services include the SAP Ariba procurement and supply chain network and the SAP Customer Experience software used by many retailers—announced today it will buy omnichannel marketing platform Emarsys. The purchase price was not disclosed.

The deal is designed to boost SAP’s customer experience offerings. Emarsys, which is also a European company with headquarters close to SAP in neighboring Austria, operates a cloud-based marketing platform that helps retailers offer personalized marketing across email, mobile, social, SMS and the web. Emarsys will be folded into SAP’s Customer Experience unit.

SAP made a similar acquisition to bolster its customer experience arm when it acquired Qualtrics International Inc. for $8 billion in late 2018. Qualtrics’ software gathers and analyzes customer data. Both Qualtrics and Emarsys are designed to help companies better understand customers and deliver targeted marketing messages to them. In July 2020, SAP announced it was spinning out Qualtrics and take the company public in the U.S. SAP remains the majority owner of Qualtrics. But the IPO will “increase Qualtrics’ autonomy and enable it to expand its footprint both within SAP’s customer base and beyond,” SAP said in a statement.

 

advertisement

SAP’s Top 1000 retailer clients include Costco Wholesale Corp, No. 16 in the 2020 Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000, and industrial supply company W.W. Grainger Inc. (No. 11). Emarsys’ Top 1000 clients include kitchenware retailer Sur La Table Inc. (No. 235) and lingerie retailer ThirdLove (No. 295). 14 Top 1000 retailers use SAP for their ecommerce platforms and 15 use SAP for social media marketing. But SAP offers a wide range of vendor services across 11 different categories to Top 1000 retailers.

Emarsys has more than 1,500 customers worldwide and more than 800 employees across 13 offices including in London, Berlin, Sydney and Budapest, as well as a U.S. headquarters in Indianapolis. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2020, subject to regulatory approval. Ten Top 1000 retailers use Emarsys for marketing automation.

This latest acquisition is a signal that SAP still sees ample opportunity in tying is traditionally back-office software with customer-facing operations like personalized marketing offered by vendors Emarsys and Qualtrics.

“With Emarsys’ technology, SAP Customer Experience solutions can link commerce signals with the back office and activate the preferred channel of the customer with a relevant and consistently personalized message,” said Bob Stutz, president, SAP Customer Experience, in a statement.

advertisement

SAP’s investments in customer experience are steps to help it compete with competitors such as Salesforce.com Inc., which offers a suite of integrated could-based offerings including commerce, marketing and customer service clouds.

“The success of brands worldwide depends today on their ability to offer a compelling customer journey and to cater to the individual expectations of customers,” said Christian Klein, CEO of SAP.  “To meet these expectations, front-office data must be integrated with back-office capabilities and with individual customer feedback. Once the transaction closes, SAP will enable brands to connect every part of their business to the customer, including experience data.”

 

Favorite

advertisement