Santa Puts Aprimo Under the Tree!
2011 is shaping up to be the year of big marketing. And luckily for us measurers, smart marketing is founded in data and measurement. With IBM’s recent acquisition rampage and now Teradata’s plans to buy Aprimo, there is unprecedented choice for integrated enterprise marketing solutions. Teradata announced today it’s intentions to buy the Enterprise Marketing Management leader for $525M with a closing date anticipated for sometime in Q1 2011. It’s a smart move in my opinion because the days of big data management and the ability to harness the consumer data firehose for elevated marketing are upon us.
On the executive briefing this morning, I pointed a question by asking if this acquisition was a response to IBM’s recent buying spree and the answer was a definitive no. Bill Godfrey, Aprimo’s Chief Executive Officer, quickly pointed out that Aprimo’s technology set covers 8 categories and that only one competes directly with the IBM/Unica offering. He iterated, “This is not a copy-cat move” with mild umbrage. Mr. Godfrey went on to eloquently explain that the merger pursues an independent strategy that brings a unified platform covering a very broad end-to-end spectrum of functionality. While the story sounded familiar, it’s a good one. It leverages the database storage and business analytics capabilities of Teradata and layers the marketing management and operations proficiency of Aprimo on top. This enterprise-ready integrated solution fuels a marketers’ paradise where insights are churned from data, which pumps intelligent life into automated marketing. All this happens within a closed-loop system that improves over time. Sounds rosy doesn’t it? To paraphrase Teradata’s CMO Darryl McDonald, “The combined solution will help accelerate revenue generating campaigns and leverage data for strategic insights and quick response.”
Keep in mind that this isn’t entirely new territory for Teradata who has been offering marketing products to its customers for some time. With IWI (Integrated Web Intelligence) and TRM (Teradata Relationship Manager), it’s already servicing digital data integration and intelligent marketing to it’s customers. Yet, it will be interesting to see how many existing clients and new organizations adopt this complete functionality. My hunch is that this stack is not for the feint of heart nor the bootstrapped organization. It will work best with deeply integrated datasets, stored within big iron and activated using some complex Marketing Resource Management capabilities. All things that both Teradata and Aprimo excel at. But fair warning: Mom & Pop shops need not apply. However, if you’re a large enterprise looking to accelerate your marketing prowess, then this may be the solution you’ve had on your wish list all these years.
While integrating these technologies may take a while, and the promise of an end-to-end solution is no trivial pledge, I’m bullish on the deal. This is a step forward for marketers because it has the potential to deliver the ERP system they never had. It still doesn’t cover everything, but the combined solution sure does handle some critical moving parts.
Congrats to everyone at Aprimo for building an attractive offering and to Teradata for recognizing it. And Happy Holidays to all!
