Cisco Systems is acquiring Customer Experience as a Service (CXaaS) company IMImobile of London for roughly $730 million. The deal will boost the Cisco Webex Content Center as a Service (CCaaS) and deliver improved omnichannel CXaaS, the buyer says.
This is M&A deal 506 that ChannelE2E has covered so far in 2020. See the full M&A deal list here.
Cisco's Webex Contact Center solution coupled with IMImobile's cloud-based software and services will provide customers and partners with these five capabilities, Cisco says:
- Intelligent: Using AI along the entire customer journey to create "super" agents and augmented frontline employees.
- Contextual: Providing the customer data needed to personalize interactions.
- Collaborative: Empowering employee collaboration in order to deliver 10x better customer experiences.
- Omnichannel: Connecting with customers in their channel of choice—text, social or voice—throughout the customer journey
- Programmable: Giving the business the ability to orchestrate workflows and personalize customer journeys
IMImobile, which has roughly 1,100 employees, supports such customers as AA, Best Buy, BT, Capitec Bank, Centrica, EE, Hermes, IHG, Mercedes, Orange, O2, Vodafone and Walgreens.
The M&A deal is expected to close in the first quarter of calendar year 2021. At that time, the IMImobile team will tuck into Cisco's Contact Center business unit, led by Omar Tawakol, vice president and general manager, Cisco Contact Center, part of the Cisco Collaboration business.
Cisco Acquiring IMImobile: Executive Perspectives
In a prepared statement about the deal, Jeetu Patel, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco's Security and Applications business, said:
"A great customer relationship is built on consistently enjoyable interactions where every touchpoint on every channel is an opportunity for businesses to deliver rich, engaging and intuitive experiences. We look forward to working with IMImobile to help create a comprehensive CXaaS solution for the market—one that gives businesses a platform to provide delightful experiences across the entire customer lifecycle journey."
Added Jay Patel, IMImobile CEO:
"We are excited to join Cisco and become part of one of the world's leading technology companies as they seek to enable great customer experiences. We believe there will be a world of dynamic, always-on connections between global businesses and their customers and the combination of our respective technologies will enable to us make every interaction matter more for our clients."
Cisco Acquisitions Emphasize Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR)
Cisco, led by CEO Chuck Robbins, has emphasized an expansion toward software and recurring revenue/subscription business opportunities. The multi-year journey involves organic R&D coupled with multiple acquisitions. Recent purchases include:
- October 2020: Portshift, which develops a Kubernetes-native security platform for application containers.
- August 2020: BabbleLabs to further boost WebEx video & audio quality of service (QoS), and privacy capabilities.
- August 2020: Video analytics software company Modcam to boost Meraki MV smart camera business.
- May 2020: ThousandEyes for digital experience, multi-cloud, Internet and SaaS application performance monitoring.
