Adobe and Accenture have expanded their partnership, in a move that speaks to the industry changes involved in large-scale digital transformation projects. Here are the key details from the announcement:
Accenture and Adobe today announced the expansion of their global alliance to create and deliver digital marketing solutions for life science, healthcare, and financial services organizations in North America and Europe. Under a new three-year agreement, Accenture and Adobe will develop technology services and solutions designed to help customers in these particular industries drive greater marketing performance and efficiency.
Accenture and Adobe will create a dedicated team with industry and digital marketing experience, sales personnel, and developers to integrate Adobe Marketing Cloud solutions with digital marketing services from Accenture Interactive, part of Accenture Digital, and apply Accenture’s knowledge of the life science, healthcare, and financial services industries. Accenture will also invest in growing its Adobe practice to deliver digital marketing solutions to clients at scale.
The joint effort will seek to develop, sell, and deliver solutions that are:
Focused on large-scale content and campaign management
Built to help drive business outcomes primarily for life science companies, healthcare providers, retail banks, and insurance companies
Designed for industry-specific digital marketing performance metrics and to help support compliance with industry regulations
Ready-to-use, scalable, support fast implementation, and provide integration with clients’ existing solutions
Initially available in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, and France
The Bottom Line
"A lot of the systems integrators are trying to be something between a digital agency and an SI," says Constellation Research founder R "Ray" Wang. "Agencies do a good job of getting the design right and making things pretty, but they can't do it on the back end. Digital transformation is about both."
Adobe is the only vendor with a product set spanning from content to marketing campaigns and analytics, Wang says. "That's what makes them a valuable partner to all the systems integrators." Adobe is only ones that can go from creative to campaign, that's what makes them a valuable partner to all the systems integrators."
"At the end of the day, what everyone's trying to do with digital transformation is some kind of commerce," Wang adds. That's where SIs and customers would work with a third class of vendor, such as Elastic Path or Hybris, to complete the end-to-end picture.
Expect to see similar announcements between Adobe and other systems integrators over the next year, Wang says.