German software giant SAP has reached an agreement to buy Emarsys, a cloud-based customer engagement platform.
No purchase price or other terms were disclosed.
Once the transaction closes, SAP will enable brands to connect every part of their business to the customer, including experience data,” SAP chief executive officer Christian Klein said in a statement. “We will deliver a portfolio for a ‘commerce anywhere’ strategy allowing for hyper personalized digital commerce experiences across all channels at any time.”
The deal comes some two months after SAP announced it was spinning off Qualtrics, the customer experience management company it bought for $8 billion in 2018.
“This illustrates that SAP is serious about CX and competing in a highly competitive space,” CRM Essentials founder and principal analyst Brent Leary said. “Emarsys adds industry-specific customer engagement capabilities that should help SAP CX customers accelerate their efforts to provide their customers with the experiences they expect as their needs change over time.”
Qualtrics was the last big acquisition under former CEO Bill McDermott, who was criticized for overpaying for the company days ahead of a public offering. Experience management remained the smallest of SAP’s four business segments however.
In a statement, SAP said Emarsys would enhance its customer experience portfolio and create a new paradigm to deliver omnichannel enagements in real time.
“Customer engagement technology has evolved tremendously over the past decade, and in that time, Emarsys has emerged as a world-class platform that truly enables personalized, one-to-one digital interactions between brands and customers across all channels,” SAP President of Customer Experience Bob Stutz.
Emarsys was founded in 2000 in Austria and has more than 800 employees in 13 offices around the world. U.S. headquarters are in Indianapolis. It has reportedly raised $55 million.
The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter.