WNS ($WNS) has moved to acquire Value Edge Research Services for $17.5 million. The deal, which comes shortly after WNS extended its contract with GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK), will add biopharma-focused data analytics capabilities to the offering of the business process management player.
Noida, India-based Value Edge has built its business on cloud-based data analytics tools, through which it can help clients size up markets, keep track of the competitive landscape and monitor social media activities. By acquiring these assets and the team that developed them, WNS will gain access to a suite of capabilities it can pitch to its existing biopharma customers, plus the opportunity to sell more services to Value Edge's client base.
WNS sees the Value Edge deal strengthening its hand in the biopharma data analytics services and technology sector, a space in which it thinks it can grow its business in the years ahead. "The acquisition of Value Edge deepens our domain and specialized analytical capabilities in the growing pharma market, and provides WNS with a technology asset which is leverageable across clients and industries," WNS CEO Keshav Murugesh said in a statement.
While WNS sees the potential to apply Value Edge's technology to other industries, the early focus of the deal is on biopharma. Value Edge is expected to add about $5 million in sales to WNS in 2017, but, as importantly, could also help the new owner grow its legacy business. GSK, having signed up to work with WNS until 2020, is the business process management company's headline client. WNS first began working with GSK back in 2005, before going on to secure extensions to the alliance in 2013 and once again this month.
- read the statement