Webhelp, Europe’s BPO industry leader, accelerates differentiation with new consulting investment

KKR backed Webhelp today announces the acquisition of OEE Consulting and its merger with gobeyond to create an industry leading customer experience (CX) transformation services business with global reach.

The coming together of the two businesses will create a market leader and takes place as rapid advances in new technologies combined with fast moving trends in consumer behaviours, are challenging brands to rethink how they connect, serve and transact with customers.

Webhelp invested in the set-up of gobeyond in 2017 as a specialist digital and customer experience (CX) transformation services business to provide clients with end-to-end customer journey management as part of its diversification strategy. Whilst the gobeyond business is backed by investment from the Webhelp Group, it operates entirely independently in order to provide objective advice to clients. The combined business will continue to do the same.

Rapid first-year growth of gobeyond underscored the scale of the opportunity in the advisory services market. Today’s investment will further accelerate its ambition for gobeyond and OEE Consulting to compete as a specialist alternative to the global consulting firms. OEE Consulting is headquartered in Oxford, with a consulting, training and coaching team of 150 working nationally and internationally for clients including Lloyd’s Banking Group, Citibank, P&O Ferries, and Action for Children.

Increasingly clients are seeking both advisory and delivery services when it comes to engineering economic value from new advances in customer experience.

The enhanced portfolio of services provided by the combined business will include:

  • strategic advice and support; target operating model design;
  • customer and user journey design; model office for test and learn;
  • data science and customer analytics;
  • omni-channel evolution through contact centre technologies; messaging, chat-bot and automation

The combined business will have the capability to operate at a global scale. With over 300 people across UK locations including Oxford, Sheffield and Liverpool, and complemented by a strong network of international multi-lingual specialists, the business will be extremely well placed to take on large scale, multi-market assignments.

Mark Palmer, Managing Director of OEE Consulting, said “This exciting new partnership creates a disruptive organisation of a scale and capability that positions us as a leading customer experience transformation firm both in the UK and internationally. gobeyond’s managed services and technology offerings are highly complementary, and we’re confident that this provides a platform for accelerated growth.”

gobeyond Managing Partner Dave Rumble, said “OEE Consulting’s expertise in customer journey design and operations transformation will help us grow our service offering, increase our advisory capabilities, and ultimately drive our growth. The strength and the portfolio of services from the combined business is much greater than the sum of its parts, and we’re excited to continue on our upward path.”

Webhelp UK CEO David Turner, said “Today we are delighted to support the team at gobeyond in the knowledge that our investment is creating an industry leading customer experience transformation business with a greater global reach.

Together the combined OEE and gobeyond business will possess the advanced capabilities to grow internationally at a faster rate than they would apart. We believe that the rapid growth in end-to-end CX services will be complemented by our investment in gobeyond giving the Webhelp Group access to a broader portfolio of CX services and enhanced client opportunities.”

 

For further information, please contact:

Nina Brooke: nina.brooke@uk.webhelp.com

Ewan McKay: ewan.mckay@uk.webhelp.com

Mark Hutcheon/ Mark Scott, Quiller:

mark.scott@quillerconsultants.com

mark.hutcheon@quillerconsultants.com