Columbia, MD, December 14, 2022

dentsu strengthens Customer Transformation & Technology capabilities with the acquisition of Aware Services, bolstering Merkle’s Salesforce and data practice offering

dentsu has today announced the acquisition of consultancy Aware Services. The acquisition will be part of Merkle, dentsu’s technology-enabled, data-driven customer experience management business and is an important step in its strategic plan to become the leading customer transformation partner in Australia.

Aware Services is an Australian-owned Salesforce, MuleSoft, and Tableau partner with data and analytics capability, working with a broad range of clients in both the public and private sectors.

The acquisition will bolster Merkle’s existing Salesforce and data and analytics practices, empowered by dentsu which has more than 1,500 Salesforce trained staff and almost 3,900 Salesforce certifications. Aware will assist Merkle in better serving existing clients, while allowing Merkle to pursue its goal of sustainable growth with a newly expanded team. Together with dentsu they will continue to provide exceptional customer experience transformation solutions that are aligned with Salesforce cloud capabilities.

Merkle is focused on continuing its accelerated trajectory towards supporting dentsu’s ambition to reach 50% of its revenues from Customer Transformation & Technology through organic growth and strategic acquisitions. The company continues to push further into the customer experience transformation space, delivering strong results for the business and its clients, while contributing to the broader industry.

John Riccio, CEO Merkle ANZ and APAC, commented: “In today’s environment, it has never been more important for businesses to have a strong end-to-end customer experience. This requires businesses to have a strong, in-depth understanding of who their customer is and what their motivations are. At Merkle, we are constantly looking at how we can be the best partner to solve real business challenges, today and tomorrow. Having strong data and analytics capabilities sits at the heart of this, and we couldn’t be more excited to be growing our team with 115 new talented people who are craft specialists in this space.”

Paul Stewart, CEO of Aware Services, said: “We are excited to become a part of the Merkle ANZ story and join the broader dentsu network. Aware Services has always been committed to helping bring our clients’ futures to life, and as part of Merkle, we will be able to do this on a larger scale.”

The consultancy will go to market as Aware Services, a Merkle Company for a brief transition period and then the 115-person staff and leadership will be fully integrated into the Merkle team by early next year.