Accenture acquires ANZ-based customer insights business

Accenture has acquired Fiftyfive5, a customer insights and advisory business. The move aims to strengthen Accenture Song's (formerly Accenture Interactive) ability to help clients tap data insights and performance marketing to accelerate growth and innovation across Australia and New Zealand.

According to Accenture, recognised by The Research Society Australia and recently named B&T Research Agency of the Year, Fiftyfive5 has a track record in delivering customer insight-driven strategy, customer insight optimised execution and performance measurement for some of the regions leading brands.

Globally, 95% of C-suite executives say that customers and employees are changing faster than they can change their business, significantly pushing the demand for new playbooks for growth.

Accenture Song and Fiftyfive5 share a vision and passion for helping brands meet this new reality and capturing new opportunities for growth through insight-led strategy and decision making in anticipation of a US$28.7 billion global customer analytics market by 2026, according to a statement.

Mark Green, Accenture Song's Australia and New Zealand Lead, says, "Clients are struggling to keep up with the pace of change today. They are looking for creative solutions and strategic insights for growth. Fiftyfive5's addition is timely.

"The team boasts powerful insights and deep customer understanding, which will significantly enhance Accenture Song's customer intelligence capability. Importantly, Fiftyfive5 brings top talent, and we cannot wait to see what they can add to our growing team."

Accenture acquires Fiftyfive5 to boost its customer intelligence capability in Australia and New Zealand. Founded in 2010, Fiftyfive5 specialises in opportunity identification, brand strategy and positioning, innovation, category strategy (channel, shopper, retail& loyalty), pricing, CX and experience measurement and brand comms tracking.

Fiftyfive5 works with clients across health and public services, consumer goods and services, financial services, communications and media, travel, digital and technology.

Its team of more than 200 people across Australia, Singapore, New Zealand and London will join Accenture Song and build upon Accenture's existing strategy, design, performance, technology and large-scale operations capabilities to better serve clients, the company states.

Mark Sundquist, Managing Partner of Fiftyfive5, comments, "Accenture Song is one of the most interesting businesses thats emerged in our space a combination of creativity, technology and data. We have a shared belief in the importance of customer insight and intelligence to underpin strategy, creativity and execution to fuel growth for our clients.

"Joining Accenture Song creates an exciting new opportunity for our team and the chance to deliver greater commercial impact for clients given the enhanced range of capability we can bring to the table."

Jatinder Singh, Accenture Song's Global Head of Data and Analytics, also commented on the announcement, saying, "Clients globally are reevaluating how they grow and they are increasingly challenged by the speed of change. Intelligence will become the engine brands need to become relevant to their customers.

"Having insights that can support brand creative, content, and experience strategy and operations will be essential. Fiftyfive5 adds to Accenture Song's credentials to help our clients drive growth through customer data and insight."

According to hte company, the acquisition of Fiftyfive5 is in line with Accenture Song's strategy to deepen its broad, scalable set of capabilities across product innovation, commerce, marketing, sales and service to help clients unify purpose and customer experience for sustainable growth as customers lives are ever-changing and constantly influenced by external forces. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.