Publicis Sapient adds sizable LATAM nearshore capabilities by Practia acquisition

Digital business transformation remains in high demand. To tap into this opportunity and expand its capabilities and geographic footprint, Publicis Sapient acquired Practia. Practia is an independent technology and digital business service provider in Latin America. The acquisition marks the entry of Publicis Sapient into Latin America, where it will serve local clients and add capabilities to provide nearshore delivery for its North American clients. Practia’s existing 1,000+ clients will benefit from Publicis Sapient’s complementary skills and scale. Publicis Sapient will further leverage the acquisition to establish Latin America as its third major global delivery center after India and Eastern Europe, offering a notable boost in nearshore capabilities to North American clients.

This acquisition adds growth levers that complement and extend Publicis Sapient’s capabilities

Practia is headquartered in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and it has offices in Chile, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, and Spain and a business presence in the US. The 28-year-old company has a team of 1,300 employees and focuses on a diverse set of industries including financial services, retail, agroindustry, and telecommunications and media with major client logos including Walmart, Telefonica, Carrefour, Coca-Cola, and Santander. With its software engineering heritage, Practia offers product, experience, engineering, and data and AI solutions.

Publicis Sapient hit an array of growth levers with this strategic acquisition: boots on the ground in the Latin American market, nearshore goodness to its neighbors in the north, additional high-demand skills, increased headcount, regional specialization, and a diverse client portfolio.

Publicis Sapient is expanding its geographic footprint through acquisitions, adding capabilities, and regional specializations along the way

Publicis Sapient’s acquisition spree is part of its broader M&A strategy to capitalize on high-growth markets, generate new opportunities and expand its global delivery centers to enhance client service capabilities. Since 2022, it has acquired six companies: Tremend, Changi Consulting, Tquila ANZ, PS AI Labs, Corra, and now Practia.

• In January 2022, it acquired Tremend, a fast-growing and independent software engineering company in Central and Eastern Europe. The acquisition expands European delivery and serves as a global delivery center in Eastern Europe for Publicis Sapient.
• In August 2022, Publicis Sapient acquired Dubai-based Changi Consulting, a cloud solutions company and leading Salesforce partner in the Middle East and North Africa, to further grow its footprint in the Middle East and expand its Salesforce partnership globally.
• In February 2023, Publicis Sapient announced its Tquila ANZ acquisition, further expanding Salesforce capabilities.
• In June 2023, it acquired Publicis Sapient AI Labs, an AI research and development joint venture launched in 2020 as a partnership between Publicis Sapient, Elder Research, and Tquila, to strengthen its emerging technologies offerings, including generative AI, natural language processing, computer vision, and autonomous solutions to enable clients to apply data and AI solutions to solve complex business problems and build data-driven organizations at scale.
• Also in June, it acquired Corra in North America to augment its expertise in commerce solutions, including Adobe Commerce and MACH Alliance composable commerce solutions.
• Publicis acquired Practia to expand the delivery of its digital business transformation capabilities to the Latin American market.

Publicis Sapient also continues to expand its global delivery center in India. In HFS’ conversations with Publicis Sapient clients, clients compliment the firm on strong innovation and digital skills but often criticize its limited geographic presence. These recent investments will help assuage some of these concerns assuming effective M&A integration.

The Bottom Line: Publicis Sapient is making strategic acquisitions worldwide to serve its multinational clients, expand its regional specialization, and offer its best solutions at scale to local clients, but its clients will only benefit if Publicis gets the integrations right.

Acquisitions can be a risky but expedient approach to entering a market and expanding new capabilities, but synergies require time, effort, and cultural integration. Publicis Sapient’s fresh Latin American presence does not automatically enable nearshore delivery capabilities. It will need to build this capability in partnership with Practia. If Publicis can integrate all its new acquisitions well, clients will benefit from the expanded capabilities.