Wipro has announced that its subsidiary Wipro LLC will take a $9.9 million minority stake in omni-channel marketing services firm, Harte Hanks. The two companies will jointly market the Opera Solutions’ Signal Hub platform, which is an advanced big data analytics and machine learning solution that gives clients the ability to provide customers with a relevant, personalized UX.
“Wipro’s investment in Harte Hanks reflects our continued commitment to offer leading-edge marketing technology and digital services that cater to the needs of Chief Marketing Officers and marketing professionals, across industry segments,” said Srini Pallia, President of Wipro Limited’s Consumer Business Unit. “This investment strengthens our existing partnership with Harte Hanks and enables us to address a key industry challenge by offering ‘Marketing as a Service.'”
U.S.-based Harte Hanks is an omni-channel marketing solutions specialist with emphasis on customer interaction marketing. This includes consulting, data and analytics, digital and social media, contact center, and fulfillment. Through its partnership with Wipro, the company looks to combine Wipro’s experience and insight into industry verticals, cognitive and analytic capabilities, and process animation with its own customer insights and experience offerings, as well as its “MarTech” (marketing technology) strengths.
“Enterprises and brands are working hard to better understand their customer’s buying journey and are deploying technology to help them interact with customers in relevant, meaningful ways,” Harte Hanks CEO Karen Puckett explained. “However, CMOs are increasingly concerned about marketing’s capability to acquire and manage technology effectively, This partnership squarely addresses those opportunities.”
Founded in 1945 and headquartered in Bangalore, Karnataka, India, Wipro demonstrated its Wipro ngGenie myAdvisor intelligent banking assistant at FinovateEurope 2015. The technology uses natural language and gestures to communicate with bank customers, providing personalized financial assistance by studying and analyzing the user’s spending and savings patterns.
Wipro began 2018 earning recognition as a leader in cloud enablement services by Everest Group PEAK Matrix, and winning a business process services contract with Denmark’s Nilfisk. The company acquired InfoSERVER in January, as well, paying $8.7 million for the Brazil-based company. Back in December, Wipro teamed up with Headspin to provide next-generation mobility quality engineering and testing solutions for global mobile networks.
Abidali Neemuchwala is Wipro’s CEO. With 2017 revenues of more than $8 billion, Wipro is traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol “WIT”. The company has a market capitalization of $23 billion.