Among the recent clutch of M&A deals are the three transactions highlighted below, including the acquisitions process finally concluding for two companies: in the first case for Mastercard, which had set out to acquire personalization provider Dynamic Yield; and in the second case for CX services giant TTEC, which was acquiring the public sector and smart city assets of customer management solutions provider Faneuil Inc. The third event of note is the new partnership of Israeli-based NICE, known for its popular CXone platform; and Deutsche Telekom Global Business, a subsidiary of the German telecom behemoth. Details follow.
Mastercard Completes Acquisition of Dynamic Yield
Global payment network processor Mastercard has completed its acquisition of personalization platform provider Dynamic Yield from McDonald’s. A state-of-the-art personalization platform and decision engine company, Dynamic Yield is expected to strengthen Mastercard’s suite of consumer engagement and loyalty services to help brands deliver trusted CX across channels.
With teams in Tel Aviv, New York City, and around the world, Dynamic Yield helps more than 400 brands deliver personalized consumer experiences through individualized product recommendations, offers, and content, based on a range of factors, including past purchases, page views, and customer affinity profile information. Dynamic Yield will join Mastercard’s growing Data & Services organization, which has more than 2,000 data scientists, engineers, and consultants serving customers in over 70 countries.
With the acquisition of Dynamic Yield now completed, Mastercard will extend its consumer engagement services to meet growing customer demand for relevant “right-place, right time experiences.” Ori Bauer, Dynamic Yield CEO, says the acquisition will show consumers today are seeking highly personalized experiences, and that brands risk being left behind if they fail to adapt.
TTEC Completes Acquisition of Specific Faneuil Assets
TTEC, the Englewood, Colorado-based provider of CX technology and services, has completed acquisition of the public sector citizen experience and smart city assets of Faneuil Inc., the provider from Hampton, Virginia, of integrated customer management solutions for public and private sector organizations. The acquisition, first announced in December for $140 million, will target a total addressable market (TAM) of $19 billion in tech-enabled citizen engagement solutions.
Ken Tuchman, chairman and CEO of TTEC, says the $140 million acquisition will enable TTEC to address growing market demand for more equitable services and solutions in various areas of the public sector and the smart city sector. Those areas include mobility, fleet management, congestion management, health and wellness, healthcare exchanges, labor and social benefits delivery, tolling and transportation, and emergent infrastructure citizen response systems. The acquired business is now part of TTEC Engage, the company’s customer experience as a service (CXaaS) business segment.
Other Faneuil verticals, such as utilities, non-health benefit exchange, and commercial, will remain at Faneuil, which will continue to operate as a wholly owned subsidiary of ALJ Regional Holdings.
NICE and Deutsche Telekom Global Business Pair Up
NICE, the Israeli provider of contact center software solutions, is partnering with Deutsche Telecom Global Business (DTGB) to make its CXone portfolio of digital and agent-assisted solutions available in Europe. For its part, DTGB will integrate the CXone platform and its applications into DTGB communications projects, offering DTGB clients advanced communications services and AI-driven capabilities for the contact center, operating within a robust and agile cloud infrastructure.
The partnership will also provide DTGB clients with a range of benefits, including access to CXone capabilities in conversational AI and chatbots for more natural, personalized assistance; workforce and quality management solutions to improve the efficiency of customer-facing agents; and automated speech recognition to speed up resolution times while avoiding long queues and waiting periods.
A subsidiary of German telecom giant Deutsche Telekom Group, DTGB offers telecom and connectivity services for business customers and the public sector. Present in more than 25 markets around the world and employing some 3,000 workers, the DTGB portfolio of solutions and services is highly focused on communications as the main driver of digitization. Meanwhile, NICE is an important name in AI-powered self-service and agent-assisted CX software for the contact center. In its work of transforming and elevating the CX field of study, NICE has partnered with more than 25,000 organizations in well over 150 countries, and with more than 85 of Fortune 100 companies.
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.
