Capgemini Buys 70-Person, Cutting-Edge Design Consultancy

Capgemini has purchased a 70-person design consultancy with experience in boosting the digital brand of corporate giants like The Coca-Cola Company, Marriott and Citi.

Paris-based Capgemini said its acquisition of New York-based Fahrenheit 212 will pave the way for offering enhanced business transformation and digital customer experience solutions.

’We didn’t know what we wanted exactly until we saw Fahrenheit, and then we knew,’ Dee Burger, CEO of Capgemini Consulting North America, told CRN. ’We saw Fahrenheit as among the best in innovation, and this will fundamentally advance what our clients are doing in terms of change.’

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Fahrenheit 212 said the deal will enable the company to marry its creative impulse with an entirely new set of capabilities around robust software development, supply chain expertise, unique access to emerging technology and data analytics.

’The ability to shape the future is only half the question,’ Todd Rovak, Fahrenheit 212’s managing partner and CEO, told CRN. ’Being able to deliver the future in also vital.’

Burger expects Fahrenheit 212 will help Capgemini shift from traditional linear consulting to an approach focused on continuously fusing innovation into all business processes.

’We, in some ways, created the innovation consulting category,’ Rovak said. ’It wasn’t a thing 10 years ago.’

Traditional management consulting is analytical and deductive, Rovak said, and typically uses data to advise companies on new markets or fields to play in.

’If you’re waiting for the data to validate your decision in this market, you’re waiting too long,’ Rovak said.

Fahrenheit 212 fused design and development skills with a traditional management consultancy so they could assist clients well beyond identifying strong markets. By bringing creative and analytical capabilities together, Rovak said Fahrenheit can help clients unlock new spaces by identifying what existing assets to leverage and helping them design a brand strategy for the new market.

The deal will additionally allow Fahrenheit to plug into Capgemini’s Applied Innovation Exchanges, 30 workspaces around the world where companies can immerse themselves in emerging technologies in areas like retail innovation, the Internet of Things (IoT), virtual reality and artificial intelligence. The Exchanges are also intended to help firms address the business disruptions confronting their industries.

Terms of the deal, which closed a couple of days ago, were not disclosed. Fahrenheit 212 will for now continue to operate as a freestanding brand and group within Capgemini’s North American consulting operation.

The Fahrenheit 212 deal comes less than a year after 180,000-person Capgemini dramatically bolstered its North American presence by purchasing 31,000-employee iGate for $4 billion. Since then, Capgemini has shifted its focus from large geographic acquisitions to smaller, tuck-in deals intended to boost skills in particular areas, according to a video statement from chairman and CEO Paul Hermelin.

That process began last month, when Capgemini bought 100-person Oinio, a leading European Salesforce partner with a presence in both Germany and China.