Carlson to Acquire Peppers and Rogers

Carlson Marketing Group announced yesterday it will acquire customer strategy--consulting firm Peppers and Rogers Group. The companies say the deal was made to facilitate better end-to-end execution of their offerings. "Peppers and Rogers has been in the business of helping clients get their money's worth in technology investments, but our clients have been increasingly asking us to be even bigger and stronger, going farther in helping them put their customer strategies in place," says Martha Rogers, Ph.D., founding partner of Peppers and Rogers. "Now we have another 3,300 people to call on to help us who do world-class work." Rogers adds that Carlson was a favorable choice as a buyer, since both groups are strictly vendor neutral and remaining objective in terms of technology solution suggestions was imperative to Pepper and Rogers. Once the merger is completed on August 21 Peppers and Rogers will continue to operate as its own entity, Rogers says. "Both the organization and the brand will remain very independent," she says. "The day-to-day operations will not look all that different to our clients, and will not feel different to our employees. "We offer a unique service in the marketplace, and Carlson is committed to maintaining that uniqueness," Rogers says, noting that Carlson could have easily hired more staff if it were not aiming to bring together two very specialized forces. Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Carlson Marketing Group, summed up the combined companies' scope in a prepared statement: "By joining forces we now provide our clients a truly integrated solution that delivers the gold standard in strategy, program design, execution, and measurement, all under the same roof." Peppers and Rogers is perhaps best known for its "one to one" philosophy, its concept of treating customers individually to increase their value to a firm. Carlson Marketing Group helps its clients grow the value of their customer base by creating a detailed, integrated CRM implementation plans. Carlson Marketing Group has long advocated building better relationships with customers, employees, and business partners as the framework for implementing one-to-one strategies. "This really is the perfect marriage," Rogers says.