Accenture acquires Australian martech company, The Lumery

Professional services firm Accenture and its global creative unit, Accenture Song is expanding its marketing technology capabilities via a new acquisition in Australia.

Mark Green, Australia and New Zealand lead at Accenture Song and Rajan Kumar, co-founder and chief executive of The Lumery

Professional services firm Accenture has acquired Melbourne-based marketing technology company The Lumery. The transaction marks is latest of a series of recent global and local acquisitions to come from Accenture over the past 18 months.

The Lumery is to be embedded within Accenture Song (formerly known as Accenture Interactive), the company’s global digital creative unit.

Accenture’s acquisition of The Lumery comes as the global “martech” (marketing technology) sector is forecast to grow. According to Forrester research, its value is expected to surge by 64 per cent to $216bn in 2027, while 66 per cent of chief marketing officer’s planned increases in their martech spend last year.

The purchase of The Lumery marks the second acquisition to take place in the Australian market in recent years, following Accenture’s acquisition of consumer insights advisory Fiftyfive5 in 2022.

Both transactions point to Accenture’s pathways for growth in Australia.

Accenture Song Australia and New Zealand lead Mark Green said: “We’ve never been shy about our ambitions.”

“Our aim is to offer our clients the opportunity to unite brand and experience to fuel sustainable growth. Having the best marketing, design and digital products, commerce and service capabilities in the market will help us deliver significant value to our clients. And that is recognised by the rapid growth we are seeing at Accenture Song and why Accenture is doubling down on its efforts to serve clients and the big market opportunity.”

Consumer’s digital experiences and interactions with brands are increasing in large volumes alongside advancing technology. In many cases, these experiences are becoming increasingly fragmented and complex.

Martech – including the software and data it draws on – aims to solve some of these complexities for companies and encompasses services such as customer relationship management (CRM) and loyalty, among others.

The Lumery’s co-founder and chief executive Rajan Kumar said with such rapid technological changes, companies must take a longer-term view of managing its interactions with customers online, or risk falling behind.

“Solving for the “right now” is rarely the correct answer because we know technology evolves at lightning pace,” he said.

“That kind of approach means a company will be constantly lagging. The mindset shift we need organisations to make is to build towards what you believe is your longer-term competitive differentiation and ultimately be led by your customer strategy – not your technology one. Doing that means you’re solving the problem or realising the opportunity with today’s solution but leaving yourself open to tomorrow’s innovation.

Mr Kumar said that marketing technology is already in the throes of its “next evolution” stepping out of its perception in its industry silo.

“Recently we’ve been seeing the next evolution of martech and that is to remove the view that this is only for ‘marketing’,” he added.

This evolution, termed ‘consumer tech’ refers to the idea that companies can shape the entire customer experience and is how many leaders are now thinking about the technology as growth-drivers.

“The reality is any brand that is looking to be relevant in today’s world must wrangle data and technology. There is no modern customer experience without data and tech. There is no marketing without tech. That debate needs to stop. So, the pain point or opportunity it solves is simple - it’s how you connect with customers, so continued investment is to be expected,” Mr Kumar said.