Perficient Buys $7M Digital Consultancy To Help It Achieve Mobile App Mastery

Perficient purchased a 60-person digital consultancy that works with Home Depot, the New York Philharmonic and Turner Broadcasting.

St. Louis-based Perficient, No. 61 on the 2016 CRN Solution Provider 500, said its acquisition of $7 million Bluetube will boost its expertise around enterprise mobile applications, creative services, marketing and strategy.

"We are excited to continue to strengthen our digital capabilities with the strategic acquisition of Bluetube," Jeff Davis, Perficient's president and CEO, said in a statement. "Bluetube's reputation for delivering excellent digital and mobile experiences, customer-centric mentality, and solid client roster ensures a strong cultural fit and compelling opportunities for accelerated growth moving forward."

[Related: Perficient Unveils $40M Dedicated Digital Agency Unit]

Bluetube will strengthen Perficient's Microsoft-oriented offering by deepening its practice around Sitecore -- a web content management and multichannel marketing automation software -- and introducing an Elite-level partnership around Xamarin, which developers can use to write native apps and share code across multiple platforms. Bluetube is one of just 10 Elite Xamarin partners globally.

The acquisition of Atlanta-based Bluetube will increase Perficient's presence in the southeastern U.S. and immediately strengthen the company's adjusted earnings per share. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, and Perficient wasn't immediately available for additional comment.

Bluetube's 60 employees have expertise in consulting, technology, sales, support and digital agency work, according to Perficient. Grant Davies, Bluetube's CEO, will join Perficient in a leadership role.

"We're thrilled to join a firm with a reputation for excellence and a distinguished track record of delivering outstanding digital experience, business optimization, and industry solutions to the world's leading enterprises," Davies said in a statement.

Bluetube was founded in 1999 and works closely with Global 2000 companies, other corporations and nonprofits. The company's focus on excellence and speed of delivery has resulted in its average client relationship lasting for more than six years, according to the company.

The Jackson Energy Authority, Kimberly-Clark, Mapco Express and Sea Tow are also Bluetube enterprise customers, the company said.

Perficient launched a 200-person digital agency division in April to better meet the growing technology demands of chief technology officers.

The practice – which is known as Perficient Digital – provides front-end support services around creative design, branding and search engine optimization, as well as back-end support around commerce and transactions, Davis told CRN in April.

Perficient has enjoyed double-digit annual growth in its digital agency work, he told CRN, due to the solution provider expanding its IT sales beyond the CIO and line-of-business executives to the CMO.

The company derives $40 million – or nearly 9 percent – of its $473.6 million in annual revenue from digital agency work, Davis said in April, and devotes almost 8 percent of its 2,678-person workforce to the endeavor.

The roots of Perficient's expertise in design and usability go back 15 years, he said, but the company recently integrated all of its design capabilities in one place to make its ability to support CMOs and CIOs more explicit.

The Bluetube acquisition builds upon two recent digital consultancy acquisitions by Perficient: Ann Arbor, Mich.-based digital marketing firm Enlighten, which was purchased in December, and Milwaukee-based e-commerce IT firm Zeon Solutions, which was acquired in December 2014.