Monday 30th January 2012 and Alterian have officially become part of SDL. This is personally very exciting for me, not least as I am an Alterian alumnus like my good friend and ex-colleague SDL’s Ian Truscott, but more importantly, it raises the stakes to the tune of SDL’s just under £70 million cash investment in the grand game of trying to deliver on the long talked about Customer Experience Management (CXM).
SDL say: “This excellent strategic fit blends the marketing analytics, campaign management and social media capabilities from the Alterian product suite with that of SDL’s leading global Web and Structured Content Management, eCommerce and Language Management capabilities, providing an integrated platform for companies to significantly enhance the global customer experience.”
Read more of what SDL say.
Whilst I think the goal is both real and achievable, I’m sure there must be other motives under the surface of the rhetoric, some of which should give customers pause:
1. What (on the surface) does SDL add to the mix of technologies Alterian already possessed and had failed to capitalise on in terms of delivering the promise of CXM?
Alterian had a CMS and e-mail product with which to execute, albeit one less well regarded by the analyst community than SDL’s Tridion (I’ll come clean right here and say I really rate Tridion by the way).
Language then? Hmmm. SDL clearly believe they can execute where Alterian could not. I trust they plan to build a joined-up solution, the industry already suffers badly from a requirement to either mix and match across best-of-breed vendors in analytics and multi-variate testing, CMS, campaign management, translation, e-mail marketing, etc. or buy a vast and expensive toolset from a single vendor that is inevitably lacking in like-for-like features in at least some areas.
2. What does SDL really want from Alterian?
If SDL already have all the pieces of the puzzle except marketing analytics, campaign management and social media capabilities, then surely they could have picked up those they really need on the open market for less than £70 million? After all, Alterian picked up Techrigy in 2009 for significantly less. This is oversimplifying the financial reasoning I know, but casts some perspective on the numbers.
As the analysts caution each time there’s a major acquistion in the space, existing customers on the platfrom should be wary of deprecated product lines and potentially long pauses between releases whilst the acquiring company tries to digest its latest meal.
If I were a customer of Alterian’s CMS platfrom, I’d be very concerned about where my next upgrade was coming from for sure. I wonder if a good part of what SDL has actually bought is Alterian’s customers. We all know that’s how it really works, but we prefer not to talk about it because you can’t easily use the word “synergy”.
My esteemed ex-colleague Ian makes a passionate case for the advantages of the deal. Some of which I really buy, and some of which I question:
1. The combination of language and social – This one I think is a great call. Tridion makes a great job of conquering the challenges of language and content, so they bring unquestionable expertise to the next great frontier of content – social content.
2. Actionable insights – this one I just don’t quite buy yet. I’m sorry to say that people really have been spinning this line for quite a few years, and have been buying companies along the way with the express intention of the same. Customers have been stranded, product lines have been canned, people have lost their jobs, but I haven’t seen many actionable insights roll off the production lines of content management systems. Throw European cookie legislation and the challenges of tracking individuals across devices into the mix and you wonder if it really can work the way we all hope. If I was SDL, I’d walk the walk first, then talk that talk.
3. Expertise not just technology – another good call, and something quite new and challenging from a vendor, I think Ian is actually maybe talking here about consultancy, professional services, something like that? Does SDL then have ambitions to become more like IBM? However, the risk I see here is to the partner/agency ecosystem with which the industry is largely peacefully co-existent. Vendors should compete with their own partners at their peril, and I’ve firsthand experience of that.
Overall, one to watch for sure. My experience of SDL has been well above-average ability to execute, and I have to rate their chances of succeeding where Alterian failed as much better than even. If they do, then I’ve no doubt this will look like a very shrewd investment.
Even if we don’t see actionable insight nirvana in 2012, or even for longer, I still think that the combination of language and social that this acquisition represents could be remarkably powerful. Global brands should be paying close attention to SDL’s shiny new “social” muscles.