Press Release | Gütersloh, 01/11/2017

Bertelsmann division Arvato acquires India-based IT analytics start-up Ramyam

• With the deal, Bertelsmann enlarges its footprint in strategic growth market India
• Arvato CEO Fernando Carro: “Collaboration with Ramyam will enable Arvato to offer our clients more cutting-edge solutions”

Bertelsmann, the international media, services and education group, has acquired the Indian IT and analytics company Ramyam. The Bertelsmann division Arvato  , which handles hundreds of millions of consumer interactions for large clients worldwide, will utilize Ramyam’s product and IT development capabilities to offer new, innovative CRM solutions. With the investment, Bertelsmann further enlarges its footprint in its strategic growth region India. The partners agreed to not disclose any financial details of the deal.

Fernando Carro, CEO of Arvato: “I am delighted to welcome Ramyam to the Arvato family. Their unique expertise in advanced analytics enables us to offer new and more valuable customer experience solutions to our many clients around the world – giving us a real competitive edge.”

Shobhna Mohn, Executive Vice President Growth Regions at Bertelsmann: “India is one of our strategic growth regions, so we have been investing increasingly in the country in the past few years. Through the acquisition of Ramyam, we further strengthen one of our largest divisions in the country offering a global solution. Ramyam’s technical expertise will enable Arvato to further enhance its services to its numerous international customers with presence in and outside of India.

MV Balasubrahmanyam, CEO Ramyam said: “This deal is great news for Ramyam’s clients, partners and employees. Our combined expertise and resources mean that we’re ideally placed to maximize on our success to date, as part of one of the world’s leading customer relationship management organizations. With my leadership team, I’m really looking forward to growing our business and adding Ramyam’s expertise to Arvato’s solutions portfolio.”

Ramyam’s key technology will enable Arvato to integrate structured and unstructured information from a variety of sources and use this data for sophisticated analytics features like predictive guesses about a consumer’s individual needs in any type of interaction, regardless of contact channel. So if someone gets in touch via a mobile chat tool, the contact agents will have a powerful analytics and information tool to serve the consumer better and more efficiently.

At the same time, Ramyam’s technology will support Arvato to unite several existing platforms and make its own IT backbone more efficient. Ramyam, which was among the American research company Forrester’s top-ten emerging business technology companies in India in 2015, will become a fully-owned subsidiary of Arvato CRM Solutions.

Bertelsmann has invested significantly in India in the past years in companies including Pepperfry, the leading online marketplace for furniture, the leading music streaming service Saavn, and the higher education service provider iNurture, thereby creating strategic options for establishing digital and education business models in the country. Meanwhile, several Bertelsmann divisions also have operations in India: RTL Group is successful here through its production arm Fremantle Media with formats like “Confessions – It's Complicated,” “Indian Idol,” “The X Factor,” and “Got Talent”. Penguin Random House is the largest English-language trade publisher in the country, and Arvato offers international customers numerous services in the fields of customer relationship management and marketing.

About Bertelsmann
Bertelsmann is a media, services and education company that operates in about 50 countries around the world. It includes the broadcaster RTL Group, the trade book publisher Penguin Random House, the magazine publisher Gruner + Jahr, the music company BMG, the service provider Arvato, the Bertelsmann Printing Group, the Bertelsmann Education Group, and Bertelsmann Investments, an international network of funds. The company has 117,000 employees and generated revenues of €17.1 billion in the 2015 financial year. Bertelsmann stands for creativity and entrepreneurship. This combination promotes first-class media content and innovative service solutions that inspire customers around the world.