Lenati, ProKarma Merge to Create DX Powerhouse
By Gabriella Pirrone
April 20, 2018
acquisition, Amazon, customer experience, Digital Transformation, ecommerce, Forrester, IT, Lenati, merger, Microsoft, PluralSoft, Press Release, ProKarma
On Monday, ProKarma, a global IT solutions company announced their definitive merger agreement with Lenati, a Seattle-based customer experience strategy consultancy.
Having said that, since I happened to come across this press release, I decided to take a deeper look into the merger and what the partnership brings to the table for both companies.
Not only did Lenati jump on this opportunity but it’s said that they also sought advice from Petsky Prunier, before moving forward with the partnership. Petsky Prunier is one of the leading investment banks in the technology, media, marketing, eCommerce, and healthcare industries that advises on mergers, acquistions and private placements all over the world. The company is led by JP Michaud and Norm Colbert, who served as the sole exclusive financial advisors to Lenati for this deal.
I decided to take a deeper look into Lenati to see what the company itself had to offer. Headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Lenati was founded in 2005 and is a premier consultancy company helping many companies develop, innovate and create a seamless customer experience. Not only do they work across the customer lifecycle from acquisition to engagement to retention, the firm serves as a valued advisor and collaborator to the world’s most valuable brands such as Starbucks, T-Mobile, Nordstrom and Microsoft just to name a few. Lenati’s expertise not only spans across customer and digital experience but also through loyalty, strategy and retention.
Lenati’s team has a deep understanding of how to help clients innovate and build market leadership by using data to dive into the depths of customer experience which in turn builds an effective yet engaging experience. Lenati’s strategy drives many well-known successful consumer engagement models and has also been ranked as one of the top five Customer Analytics Providers by Forrester.
Exclusive Interview with Lenati's Co-Founder
I was very fortunate to be able to connect with Kris Klein, Co-founder and Managing Partner for Lenati to comment exclusively on the news and find out a bit more about Lenati and what they bring to the marketing consulting industry.
What makes Lenati unique compared to other marketing consultant companies?
“At Lenati, everything we do is designed to strengthen customer connections. We’re not afraid to ask hard questions as we guide our clients through the ever-growing digital landscape.
We are unique because we have deep expertise in customer strategy, integrated loyalty design and digital experiences – expertise that has led us to be recognized throughout the industry for our thought leadership in marketing strategy. Through our merger with ProKarma, we will be able to offer our clients transformative experiences, human-centered design, analytical rigor and deep technology expertise delivered on a global platform.”
What are some of the biggest value propositions that you bring to the table for customers?
“We have strong expertise in customer and digital experiences. By bringing together our team with that of ProKarma, the market leader in digital transformation, emerging technologies and platforms, we can help our clients deliver highly integrated digital experiences that are both disruptive and innovative.
Over the past five years, Lenati projects have delivered over 2 billion dollars in revenue growth for our clients – a number that is unparalleled in our industry. Our work has helped grow business and retain customers for some of the world’s largest leading brands, including Nike, Vans, Starbucks and Hilton.
Through our merger with ProKarma, we will continue to serve as valued collaborators and advisors to our clients through best-in-class strategy and design across industries while delivering actionable strategies and real results.”
With the vast amount of marketing and sales strategy consultancy companies, why was ProKarma a good fit?
“We wanted to continue to expand our end-to-end capabilities, while ProKarma wanted to build on its digital strategy expertise by growing its marketing and sales strategy consulting services. The merger was a perfect fit to deliver on both goals. Through our partnership with ProKarma, our team can now deliver robust, end-to-end digital experiences.”
ProKarma Making Waves in 2018
Founded in 2004 by Vivek Kumar, ProKarma is an IT Solutions Company focused on helping businesses re-engineer themselves through powerful digital platforms, customer engagement, and emerging technologies. ProKarma has over 2,800 employees and operates in 18 offices across the United States, India and Argentina. The company fuels its clients’ growth and efficiency through accelerating business activities, enhancing experiences, and creating competitive advantages. ProKarma has also been ranked the fastest-growing IT services company in America by Inc. 500.
ProKarma’s strategic partnerships with Adobe, Amazon, Apple, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP enable them to expand their service offerings and provide their clients with comprehensive solutions.
The merger with Lenati will further strengthen ProKarma’s position as a market leader in digital transformation, emerging technologies, and platforms. Lenati’s clients will continue to receive transformative experiences, human-centered design, analytical rigor, and deep technology expertise that will now be delivered on ProKarma’s global platform.
When asked to comment on the news, Vivek Kumar, President, ProKarma said: “Integrating and building on our capabilities and services with Lenati will enable ProKarma to deliver increased value to our customers by growing our marketing and sales strategy consulting services,”
Lenati’s team has a deep understanding of how to help clients innovate and build market leadership by using data to dive deep into the customer experience to build effective and engaging experiences.”
On April 8th 2018, ProKarma also acquired PluralSoft, a Denver, Colorado-based leader in healthcare data analytics for an undisclosed amount.
To summarize the report:
The acquisition further strengthens ProKarma’s position as a market-leading analytics solutions provider with capabilities, expertise and resources that enable health care organizations to improve care and effectiveness. PluralSoft develops and delivers leading-edge healthcare data management, business intelligence and industry certified analytics to surface meaningful insights on clinical, operational and financial business performance.
Vijay Ijju, CTO, at ProKarma commented on the news: “The acquisition of PluralSoft allows us to continue to scale and deliver insights that enable healthcare providers to improve and transform to value-based reimbursement models, with broad healthcare expertise and a deep commitment to innovation, PluralSoft’s team understands how to empower users, from executives to front-line staff, to gain insights and take action to improve value of health care delivered by increasing quality, and reducing costs while managing risk and regulation compliance.
Ham Pasupuleti, President, PluralSoft said “We are excited to join forces with ProKarma and integrate our unique capabilities in healthcare analytics. This acquisition will enable us to give even greater access to solutions that support the evolving business intelligence and analytics needs of providers, payers, employers, government, health information exchanges and collaboratives (such as Accountable Care Organizations and Clinically Integrated Networks) in the new era of value-based care and reimbursement.”
Ending Notes
With several mergers (the combination of two companies to form as one) and acquisitions (one company taken over by the other) happening so far this year, I think we will be seeing a lot more of this type of news in the months or even weeks to follow.
According to Zacks.com, M&A activity was fairly quiet in 2017 and deals were said to be down 35% through mid-November. There’s also rumors circulating about Disney’s acquisition of several major 21st Century Fox assets as well as speculation of Apple acquiring Netflix.
You may remember in 2017 when Amazon made a $3.7 billion purchase of Whole Foods and was said to have acquired 11 companies alone – Do you think they will keep the ongoing trend and possibly look at acquiring other large companies in 2018? Be sure to stay tuned here, on CMS-Connected!
Gabriella Pirrone
Gabriella is the Digital Marketing Assistant for CMSC Media. She brings a wealth of knowledge from not only a CMS perspective but also content, SEO and eCommerce. She enjoys everything social media and staying ontop of the latest trends in the digital marketing world.