Business

Accenture has entered into exclusive negotiations to acquire Altima, a full-service digital commerce agency, headquartered in France and with offices in China, Canada and the United States. The acquisition would boost Accenture Interactive’s capabilities in France and other key markets to help brands attract consumers and turn them into loyal customers with differentiated and compelling digital experiences.

The acquisition requires prior consultation with the relevant works councils and would be subject to customary closing conditions. “Experiences are where brands win and lose customers, today more than ever,” said Anatoly Roytman, head of Accenture Interactive Europe, Africa, Middle East, and Latin America and global digital commerce lead for Accenture. ”Adding Altima’s skills to Accenture Interactive will help in our mission to create the best experiences on the planet for clients.”

Altima creates and adapts experiences for eCommerce, mobile and in-store commerce. Its work for prestigious French and global brands has been recognized with numerous awards, most recently the 2016 Trophées E-Commerce in the user experience design category and a 2016 W3 Award for design and user experience. Altima’s offering spans experience strategy, user experience design, digital marketing services and multichannel commerce platform implementation.

“France is home to many of the world’s most exciting and successful brands,” said Christian Nibourel, country managing director for Accenture in France and Benelux. “At the same time, it’s a market where many international brands are trying to gain market share. The acquisition of Altima would put Accenture Interactive in France in an excellent position to help businesses innovate the digital experiences and expand their footprint, locally and internationally.”

“Altima and Accenture Interactive share the same culture of innovation and passion for designing the future of commerce,” said Arnaud Monnier, CEO of Altima. “We are excited to join forces with the world’s largest digital network. The global scale of Accenture Interactive would provide a unique opportunity for us to bring our work for clients to a new level, and offer new career opportunities to our people.”

Founded in 1997, Altima has a team of 370 people working from offices in Roubaix, Paris and Lyon (France), Montréal (Canada), Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong (China), and New York (U.S.).

In France, the Altima team would enable Accenture Interactive to better help companies grow their customer experience offering and expand into other markets. In China, it would boost Accenture Interactive’s services in commerce and content, which are critical areas for Chinese companies. In Canada, Altima recently merged its team with Montréal-based web marketing agency Konversion. The joint team will strengthen the Accenture Interactive end-to-end digital marketing services available to Canadian clients, in both English and French.

Once completed, Altima would be the seventeenth acquisition Accenture Interactive has made since 2013. Recent acquisitions include MATTER, a design and innovation firm, Wire Stone, a creative marketing agency, Clearhead, a digital optimization company, and Media Hive, an e-commerce solutions specializing in Salesforce Commerce Cloud implementation (all US). Other acquisitions in 2016 and 2017 include creative agencies The Monkeys/Maud (Australia) and Karmarama (UK), communications agency Kunstmaan (Belgium), and digital agency SinnerSchrader (Germany).