Gallic research firms get cosy: after taking on Germany, CXP and PAC merge

CXP and PAC announce their merger

CXP Group becomes the leading European research and advisory firm in the field of software and IT services.

Paris, 3 June 2014. CXP, an independent European application software research and advisory firm, has announced its merger with Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC), a leading market research and consulting provider specializing in the field of IT services and software.

Capitalizing on 40 years of experience, and with 140 staff present in eight countries (with 17 offices worldwide), the new company – CXP Group – has become the leading European research and consulting firm in its category and stands as the region’s main challenger to Anglo-American research organizations.

This is CXP’s second external growth initiative in three years. In 2011, the merger with German research and consultancy firm BARC (Business Application Research Center), a specialist in decision support systems and content management, expanded its expertise in the field of analytics and big data, and enhanced its European presence.

CXP Group intends to reinforce its role as a referral partner for IT departments and business lines among large and medium-sized companies.

“The complementary knowledge and skills of our two companies is immediately translated into benefits for our customers. The expertise we share in software solutions and their integration, combined with our understanding of market trends and especially the digital transformation agenda, significantly enhances the support we can provide our customers in how they tackle their key challenges”, said Laurent Calot, the chairman of the group.

The new group supports more than 1,500 end-user organisations every year in their choice and optimization of software solutions, and offers a wide range of research products (benchmarking studies, supplier analysis, market trends research) and consultancy services (IT system audit, project management support, vendors selection) in many areas (BI, HR, content management, IT management, finance, ERP, CRM, etc.). Through this merger, CXP Group is expanding its advisory services capabilities through increased expertise in sourcing and the selection of IT services providers.

CXP Group is also consolidating its role as an operational and strategic consultancy among IT services suppliers, thanks to PAC’s capabilities in supporting more than 300 software and IT services suppliers every year with market research products, strategic analysis, sales support & marketing services.

The combined group has the intention of becoming a major player in supporting its clients as they aim to benefit from investment in digital transformation and SMAC (social, mobile, analytics, cloud) initiatives.

“Digital transformation has become a strategic priority for all businesses”, says Frédéric Munch, CEO of PAC. “The merger of CXP and PAC will allow us to consolidate our expertise in technology and digital services and to offer our customers, IT services providers, software vendors and ICT users, support that will enable them to be the driver of their organization’s and their customers’ digital transformation”.

CXP Group’s three subsidiaries, CXP, BARC and PAC, will keep their brands. Frédéric Munch, the CEO of PAC, will become a member of CXP Group’s board and will join Laurent Calot, Chairman of the Board, Carsten Bange, founder and chairman of BARC, and Michel Roux.

Press contacts

CXP:
Anne Eidelman
+33 (0)1 53 05 05 76
aeidelman@lecxp.com

Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC):
Caroline Hannig-Sachon
+49 (0)89 23 23 68 33
c.hannig-sachon@pac-online.com

About Le CXP

Le CXP – headquartered in Paris, France – is a unique software consulting firm recognized as the uncontested leading authority on enterprise software solutions in French speaking countries. With 40 years of experience, Le 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. Le CXP owns a unique database of over 6000 software applications and offers extensive and proven consulting capabilities supported by a robust proprietary methodology. Today, more than 1500 large and mid-size end-user companies use Le CXP group services.

Le CXP has expanded its European presence (UK, Germany, Switzerland and Austria) after merging with BARC (Business Application Research Center), the German leading independent software industry analyst specialized in Data Management, Business Intelligence and Enterprise Content Management.

For more information, please visit www.cxp.fr.

More information about BARC: www.barc-research.com

About Pierre Audoin Consultants (PAC)

From strategy to execution, PAC delivers focused and objective responses to the growth challenges of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) players.

Founded in 1976, PAC is a privately held research & consulting firm for the software and ICT services market.

PAC helps ICT vendors to optimize their strategies by providing quantitative and qualitative market analysis as well as operational and strategic consulting. We advise CIOs and financial investors in evaluating ICT vendors and solutions and support their investment decisions. Public institutions and organizations also rely on our key analyses to develop and shape their ICT policies.

For more information, please visit www.pac-online.com.