Media Giant Omnicom Closes $850 Million Acquisition of Flywheel
Omnicom, the New York City-based global media, marketing, and corporate communications firm, has closed its acquisition of Flywheel Digital in a move intended to integrate the offerings of both companies across retail, digital, in-store commerce, and marketing. The acquisition was first announced in October 2023 when Omnicom agreed to buy Baltimore, Maryland-based Flywheel, the cloud-based e-commerce arm of British information services and exhibitions specialist Ascential plc for $850 million.
By connecting Omnicom’s audience and behavioral data with the product and transaction data in Flywheel, the merger will provide clients with unmatched insights and analytics, said John Wren, Omnicom chairman and CEO. “We are thrilled to cross the finish line and officially welcome everyone at Flywheel to Omnicom,” Wren remarked. “Flywheel’s best-in-class solutions are a game changer for our clients, whose demand for digital commerce and retail media solutions continues to grow. When combined with our well-established offerings in commerce, media and precision marketing, we now have end-to-end services that outpace the competition.”
Omnicom was the world’s second largest media company in 2022 based on revenue, just behind the UK’s WPP plc. Omnicom’s branded networks and specialty firms offer services in advertising, strategic media planning, precision marketing, commerce and branding, and other specialty communications services to 5,000 clients in more than 70 countries.
Flywheel, founded in 2014, is known for a suite of best-in-class solutions designed to accelerate sales. The company provides services in retail commerce operations, media execution, and market intelligence to more than 4,500 brands.
Duncan Painter, previously CEO of Ascential, who will now lead Flywheel as a practice area within Omnicom, is enthusiastic. “We can scale faster, leverage relationships, and combine data and technology efforts,” Painter said, noting that the newly combined organization will be able to offer clients fresh ways to automate and optimize digital commerce and media spend.
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NICE Closes LiveVox Acquisition to Create Conversational AI Dynamo
Cloud-based CX specialist NICE closed its $350 million acquisition of contact center platform provider LiveVox shortly before the end of 2023, barely three months after the deal was first announced at the beginning of October.
Company officials said that combining the advanced digital engagement features of the Nice CXone solution with the proactive outreach portfolio of LiveVox will enable the newly amalgamated organization to offer AI-embedded CX capabilities that drive smart automation. The resulting unified platform will also deploy conversational AI more easily across a customer’s preferred channel and mode of interaction.
With dual headquarters today in Ra’anana, Israel, and in Hoboken, New Jersey, NICE is known for its robust AI-driven cloud platform and large array of native applications to manage customer journeys and boost employee engagement. NICE also operates Enlighten AI, a comprehensive AI and machine learning (ML) framework with generative AI capabilities for customer engagement.
For its part, San Francisco-based LiveVox has CX domain-specific expertise, and its contact center platform provides capabilities for omnichannel communications, customer relationship management (CRM), and workforce optimization (WFO).
NICE CEO Barak Eilam called the completion of the acquisition a major milestone, saying teams from the freshly merged organization will help customers accelerate their CX operations and help fuel their success.
No contribution is expected from LiveVox to the NICE bottom line for 2023. Instead, its financial participation will occur this year, with LiveVox expected to add $142 million to the total projected revenue for NICE in 2024.
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ServiceNow to Acquire Czech Task Mining Firm UltimateSuite
In a move aimed at boosting its automation and AI capabilities, digital workflow platform provider ServiceNow has signed an agreement to acquire Czech task mining company UltimateSuite. Through the acquisition, Santa Clara, California-based ServiceNow hopes to enhance process mining and intelligent automation across its own Now platform.
As a core capability of the ServiceNow platform, process mining improves workflows, revealing bottlenecks and redundancies through data analytics. Task mining, the specialty of UltimateSuite, is a part of process mining, used to understand individual behavior and identify opportunities for improvement. With the task mining technology of UltimateSuite, actionable insights can be obtained to streamline repetitive work and pinpoint automation opportunities, while predictive analysis enables customers to accelerate digital business transformation and enhance employee experiences.
“The Now Platform is the platform for digital business, and we are continually working to help customers remove guesswork and create more intuitive processes in the day to day flow of work,” said Eric Schroeder, vice president of Now product management at ServiceNow. “Task mining is key to revealing a more accurate picture of how people work. With UltimateSuite, we are extending ServiceNow’s ability to help customers easily automate workflows and drive productivity.”
Robert Samanek, CEO and founder of UltimateSuite, said integrating UltimateSuite with ServiceNow will transform the way people work. “We believe that automation, built with the power of our task mining technology, can help employees and businesses expand the potential of their creativity and productivity.”
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Author Information
Alex is responsible for writing about trends and changes that are impacting the customer experience market. He had served as Principal Editor at Village Intelligence, a Los Angeles-based consultancy on technology impacting healthcare and healthcare-related industries. Alex was also Associate Director for Content Management at Omdia and Informa Tech, where he produced white papers, executive summaries, market insights, blogs, and other key content assets. His areas of coverage spanned the sectors grouped under the technology vertical, including semiconductors, smart technologies, enterprise & IT, media, displays, mobile, power, healthcare, China research, industrial and IoT, automotive, and transformative technologies.
At IHS Markit, he was Managing Editor of the company’s flagship IHS Quarterly, covering aerospace & defense, economics & country risk, chemicals, oil & gas, and other IHS verticals. He was Principal Editor of analyst output at iSuppli Corp. and Managing Editor of Market Watch, a fortnightly newsletter highlighting significant analyst report findings for pitching to the media. He started his career in writing as an Editor-Reporter for The Associated Press.
