Sopra Steria announces acquisition of cxpartners

Digital transformation specialist Sopra Steria has announced the acquisition of an industry-leading consultancy in customer experience and user-centred design. In a strategic move for the multinational technology – which counts the Scottish Government among its clients – the purchase of cxpartners has been made in order to ensure customers’ needs are reflected more acutely at the heart of its digital products and services. Based in London and Bristol and employing over 50 designers, cxpartners is renowned for delivering award-winning customer centric solutions for both the public and private sectors. Since establishing in 2004, it has worked with a range of clients including the government, FTSE 100 companies and organisations operating in multiple industries such as AXA, Google and Public Health England. The acquisition will see cxpartners become an autonomous subsidiary of Sopra Steria. As such, it will see a minimal impact, with no changes to its brand identity, locations, employees or culture planned. Instead, the acquisition has been designed to have minimal operational impact and to reinforce the natural fit of the two brands. Sopra Steria harnesses digital technology to tackle the most complex and critical challenges. It works with a wide range of public and private sector clients such as UK Visas and Immigration, the Financial Conduct Authority, Tesco, Centrica, McDonalds and the Ministry of Defence. Customer experience has been identified as a business priority for organisations as they progress with digital transformation in a fast-changing climate, as revealed by recent research undertaken by Sopra Steria. The research surveyed 400 decision makers across key sectors including retail, finance, transport and the public sector. Over half (53%) of organisations viewed improved customer experience as the main objective of digital transformation and just 36% use customer experience feedback to measure progress and success. Pierre-Yves Commanay, Executive Director – UK Consulting and Continental Europe at Sopra Steria said: “cxpartners is a natural fit for Sopra Steria; the business has a fantastic heritage and reputation and will complement and expand our customer experience and design capabilities. Welcoming cxpartners into the Sopra Steria group demonstrates our business-wide strategic focus to deliver end-to-end services centred around peoples’ needs. “We know from proprietary research that clients are increasingly focused on solutions anchored in user-centred design. This acquisition reflects our commitment to their needs and a strategic focus on customer centric transformation that is imperative for modern organisations to succeed.” Giles Colborne, founding partner and CEO at cxpartners said: “We founded cxpartners 16 years ago with the mission to put people at the centre of technology. Technology is woven into the fabric of people’s lives; they’re constantly in contact with it every day from travelling to work in the morning through to listening to an audiobook at night. Many organisations are trying to bolt on customer experience and design. Our focus has always been to put customer needs front and centre right from the start. “Joining Sopra Steria group will enable us to amplify this work on a much larger scale while benefiting from the deep operational knowledge of the business. We’re thrilled to have struck a partnership which sees us maintain our identity while joining forces with a respected brand which shares our values and passion for human insight.”