Dentsu joins holding company rush to acquire Salesforce experts with Pexlify merger
Japanese holding company Dentsu has acquired Salesforce consultancy Pexlify.
Dentsu has acquired a SalesForce implementation specialist, Pexlify / The Drum
The acquisition, for an undisclosed fee, will fold the British and Irish company into Dentsu’s Merkle, data and customer experience (CX) business, though the Pexlify brand will be maintained.
Pexlify was founded in 2015 and employs 150 staff across offices in Dublin, London and Frankfurt. Its clients, which include insurer AA, New Ireland Assurance, Volkswagen Financial Services and fintech Funding Circle, use it to integrate their existing tech set-ups with SalesForce, the accounting and sales software.
Expertise in SalesForce is a highly lucrative endeavor and one increasingly prioritized by clients and agencies – last year, Media.Monks acquired Maverick Digital and Omnicom bought Brightgen with that purpose in mind. Publicis’ 2016 acquisition of Vertiba and WPP’s acquisitions of Pierry in 2017 and Cloud Commerce Group in 2021 were also conducted with similar motivations. Brands looking to take more sales from digital commerce prize the software’s organizational capabilities, while most large digital agencies see digital commerce consulting services as a major growth area.
Dentsu already boasts expertise in SalesForce implementation via Merkle – it claims 1,300 of its staff are trained with the software – but Pexlify will deepen that bench. The holding company has a long-term ambition of deriving half of its annual revenue from B2B tech and data services.
Margaret Wagner, EMEA president of Merkle, said: “Pexlify provides a fantastic opportunity for Merkle to significantly extend our Salesforce services – adding scale and capability and supporting our ambitions for growth in these important markets with our key strategic partners.“
The company’s 150 staff will join Merkle, while chief executive officer Stephen Lambert will report directly to Merkle UK chief Anne Stagg.
Lambert said: “I am very excited about today’s announcement. Our incredible growth and success as a Salesforce partner wouldn’t be possible without the hard work of our team. With the similarities in our values, culture and ambitions, I am delighted to join Merkle to bring the benefits and opportunities it offers to our people, our clients and our partnership with Salesforce.”