Adobe announces IBM, Accenture as global services partners

Adobe has signed two new global services partnerships aimed at improving consultancy services around its Marketing Cloud platform.

The vendor announced at its annual Adobe Summit a global agreement with IBM’s Interactive Experience Services consultancy arm, as well as an expanded partnership with Accenture. Both will now provide specialised consulting services around Adobe’s Marketing Cloud platform for enterprises.

The choice of IBM as a partner is an interesting one given that Adobe and IBM are both striving to provide increasingly more comprehensive marketing services platforms to the CMO.

In a statement, Adobe said combining its marketing technology smarts with IBM Interactive Experience will help enterprises better integrate all touchpoints of a consumer’s journey. Services will include helping organisations design and develop customer experiences using big data and analytics, customer journey mapping and digital marketing strategy.

The partnership sees IBM consultants training and certifying across the Adobe Marketing Cloud suite, as well as the creation of joint IBM and Adobe client teams in key regions.

“We continue to partner with the world’s largest and most innovative agencies and systems integrators such as IBM Interactive Experience,” said Adobe’s vice-president and general manager of digital marketing, Brad Rencher.

“Mutual clients will benefit greatly from solutions that Adobe and IBM jointly develop to help them create differentiated customer experiences, whether those experiences are in a mobile app, an integrated shopping cart or on a digital screen in a retail store.”

In a press briefing at the summit, Rencher said systems integrator partnerships were an increasingly important part of Adobe’s efforts to help brands skill up around technology and digital strategy. As an example, he noted the vendor had established a maturity assessment model with partners to help identify where clients are in the modern marketing spectrum.

“There is going to be a maturity curve as people work through this digital transformation,” he said.

“Accenture’s and IBM’s services organisations are making it easier for marketers to on-board and engage in that digital transformation, and we have many partners helping with this. Partners clearly play a big role in the ecosystem in supporting the technology and helping that progression for marketing.”

The new partnership with Accenture sees the two launching a pay-per-use digital marketing service called Accenture Customer Engagement. The cloud-based managed service will allow brands to access a managed marketing technology service from Accenture supported by trained staff.

“As companies are looking to provide customers with personalized digital experiences, they can leverage our expertise and experience without being overwhelmed by technology and solution integration,” said Brian Whipple, senior managing director, Accenture Interactive, part of Accenture Digital.

“Bringing together Adobe’s marketing technologies with the strategy, design and implementation expertise from Accenture will help marketers create engaging customer experiences in a simple, agile and cost-effective way.”

“Together, Adobe and Accenture are removing barriers to help companies move at the speed of digital and deliver highly personalised experiences across marketing channels,” Rencher said.

More from Adobe Summit 2015

• Adobe extends its Marketing Cloud to IoT and beyond
• Adobe chief: Marketing now encompasses product creation

Nadia Cameron travelled to Adobe Summit 2015 as a guest of Adobe.

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