Allegiance Software is having a good year. It's grown significantly, with a 50 percent workforce increase to about 115. It's received citations from Forrester Research and a customer experience excellence award from Bruce Temkin.
Allegiance is transforming again, this time through a deal that will make it a part of a 900-employee, customer experience company.
Officials of South Jordan, Utah-based Allegiance announced today that the company has been acquired by Maritz Holdings Inc. Maritz plans to form a new company -- MaritzCX -- that will combine Allegiance and Maritz Research to offer customer experience software, data and research science, vertical market expertise and managed program services.
Old Meets New
Maritz has roots as a 19th century jewelry company founded by Edward Maritz. More than 120 years later, the Fenton, Mo.-based sales and marketing services company includes several arms, including Maritz Research, which is about 40 years old.
Allegiance, led by CEO Carine Clark (right), was formed in 2005 when SilentWhistle, an ethics compliance company, merged with Allegiance Technologies, then a provider of web-based feedback tools.
R Ray Wang, founder and principal analyst of Constellation Research, sees the merger with Allegiance as "another example of how old line companies need to become more like tech companies."
He called Maritz a powerhouse in loyalty and customer programs.
"A lot of what they did required more advanced software and technology to succeed despite their powerhouse of services they built," Wang told CMSWire. "One quick way to catch up was to purchase a company in the customer experience space like Allegiance."
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Allegiance's voice of the customer (VOC) programs paired with Maritz in a new company is a good way for Maritz to enter the digital transformation in marketing and loyalty, Wang said. "Maritz can pair its industry expertise with Allegiance's software and tech expertise."
"One challenge," Wang added, "will be the merging of cultures but putting it into a joint venture should help create a new culture from both organizations."
Big Data Capabilities
Clark, current president and CEO of Allegiance and future president and CEO of MaritzCX, said in a statement the new company will include software that automates actions and influences "the triggers of customer happiness over the lifetime of relationships."
"The MaritzCX SaaS-based software and services approach is poised for growth and will become as vital to business performance as a financial, CRM or ERP system,” Clark added.
MaritzCX will have 900-plus full-time employees in 18 offices and five global regions and will serve 500 clients and one million users in 100 countries speaking 60 languages. MaritzCX clients will range from mid-sized to the world’s largest companies, company officials said.
The technology will integrate with Salesforce.com, Adobe, and other data systems. It will be SaaS-based and includes a big-data architecture based on Hadoop and Elastic Search.
