Blueocean Market Intelligence acquires UK's Cognicient

Acquisition to give Indian company entry into Europe

Mumbai-based research and analytics firm Blueocean Market Intelligence has acquired a UK-based analytics platform company Cognicient for an undisclosed amount. This is Blueocean’s first acquisition and is aimed at foraying into the UK as well as leveraging from Cognicient’s ‘LINK’ technology that enables data integration from various sources.

Cognicient was set up in 2007 by Mike Page, who is now its CEO. Cognicient’s LINK software suite enables the creation of a single, real-time repository of data, regardless of the agency, software or language used in the collection. Leading global brands have leveraged from the LINK suite to organise, mine and unite all types of data, from market research and business intelligence to syndicated, social, sales and transactional.

According to Cognicient’s website, the LINK technology is being used by Cadbury, MasterCard, AstraZeneca, Samsung, Sanofi, ANZ and Merck, among others

“Currently, there is no concrete platform in the industry that combines data from various sources for one single holistic view, and Cognicient’s platform provides us with that. Being an analytics firm, we wanted to add this platform so that we can provide improved services to our client,” Ashwin Mittal, president, Blueocean Market Intelligence, told Business Standard.

“We are seeing this need coming from our clients; there is a lot of demand for this kind of technology, and while Cognicient had the technology, they did not have the reach, which we do in terms of our clients in the US market. So putting both together is a win-win situation.”

He added that Cognicient has around 10 “major corporate clients”, most of which are Fortune 500 companies headquartered in the UK with a global presence.

Blueocean would acquire Cognicient’s intellectual property and also the three full-time employees of the company.