Le CXP and BARC merge: ignore local firms at your perils

BARC and Le CXP announced last week they were merging.

BARC (no Twitter handle?) is a German IT analysis firm founded in 1994 and focusing mostly on ECM and BI.  Le CXP (@cxpoeilexpert or @cxplace) dates back from 1973 and was formed originally as an end-user consortium aiming at evaluating something new at the time, packaged software.

Both focus on the end-user and will have something like 30 analysts and consultants overall, focussing only on software and selling mostly to end-users. Le CXP is also in partnership with Penteo (@PenteoAnalyst) in Spain.

Those three players, are some kind of exception for having built strong and resilient local IT Analysis firms.  There are many other EMEA players, some such as Ovum are more global in nature, other like PAC are vendor-facing or are more about consulting (e.g. Experton). And many more in the UK.

Key takeaway for AR pros:

• All those firms do answer a need for local knowledge in local langage
• For a reason, they can’t be easily dismissed, most of them for instance have a high SOV in their local market
• Some also have a prescriber role with end-users, typically below the radar of larger US firms
• Others have an expertise in the ecosystem and channels
• AR professionals should incorporate local influencers into their plans, even if they can appear as a low priority from 5,000 miles away
• Sometimes, they’re best “handled” through a GloCal model (members should read the IIAR Best Practice Papers on International AR > link 1, link 2)

Würzburg/Paris, April 6, 2011

PRESS RELEASE

The Business Application Research Center (BARC), Europe’s leading analyst firm for business intelligence (BI), data management (DM) and content management (ECM) technology, and Le Centre d’expertise des Progiciels (CXP), France’s largest business software analyst, today announced the merger of both firms to become one group of companies.

With more than 80 employees (40 analysts) and 1500 operating companies and 300 software vendors as customers, the merger creates Europe’s largest enterprise software analyst firm with offices in Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Both companies share the same philosophy for their market research and consulting services: a strong focus on end-users, thorough software testing and comparisons, and an intimate knowledge of their respective markets and software vendors.

BARC and CXP have already collaborated on two recent joint projects: The BI Survey 9 (www.bi-survey.com), the world’s largest end-user survey on the use of BI software with more than 3000 participants, and the market research report “Data Quality Management: Organization and Initiatives” conducted in France and Germany.

Dr. Carsten Bange, founder and CEO of BARC said, “As a result of the merger with CXP we can now offer an even wider range of support for software buyers. CXP complements our expertise in software markets for BI, DM and ECM with their extensive knowledge of technology for IT Service Management, HR, ERP and CRM.”

“Thanks to the merger of our companies, we will benefit from the synergy needed to support our customers on their most innovative IT projects. Also, CXP significantly expands its international role, the Group becoming the European leader in the evaluation of application software,” said Laurent Calot, President of CXP.

Customers of both BARC and CXP can be assured that both companies will work together to provide a broader product portfolio. There will be no immediate change in the relationship with any of their customers whilst the individual brands and existing products remain in place.

About BARC

Business Application Research Center — BARC — is a leading independent software industry analyst delivering information to more than 1000 customers each year. For more than ten years, BARC has specialized in core research areas including Data Management, Business Intelligence and Document Management. More than 30 highly-qualified professionals deliver 100% unbiased and well-founded knowledge about the software market with software evaluations, conferences, market research and consulting. BARC has offices in the UK, Germany, Austria and Switzerland, and partners worldwide.

About CXP

Centre d’eXpertise des Progiciels – CXP – headquartered in Paris, France – is a unique brand recognised as the uncontested leading authority on enterprise software solutions in French speaking countries. With 36 years of experience, CXP provides technology end-users and purchasers with a comprehensive range of services covering the critical aspects of the software and service solutions’ selection cycle. CXP owns a unique database of over 7000 software applications and offers extensive and proven consulting capabilities supported by a robust proprietary methodology. Today, close to 900 large and mid-size end-user companies use CXP’s services. www.cxp.fr