Cognizant Buys Zone

IT and business process consultancy Cognizant is to acquire UK-based agency Zone, whose services include application development, user experience and content strategy.

Zone employs more than 220 strategy, technology and content experts in London, Bristol and Cologne, and was founded in 2000. Last year it won Agency of the Year from the British Interactive Marketing Association (BIMA).

Cognizant acquired privately-held Dutch digital marketing and customer experience agency Mirabeau BV in December last year. Like Mirabeau, Zone will join Cognizant's Digital Business practice, enhancing its capabilities in experience design, human science-driven insights and analytics, and broadening its customer base throughout the UK and Europe.

James Freedman, founder and Executive Chairman of Zone says of the deal: 'By joining Cognizant, we can significantly enhance the depth and breadth of our offering to better serve the needs of both existing and future clients in the UK and beyond. The leadership team at Cognizant shares our ambition and entrepreneurial spirit, and we are thrilled to be working with them in the next stage of Zone's evolution'.

Santosh Thomas, President, Global Growth Markets at Cognizant says combining the two firms 'strengthens our end-to-end capabilities and provides more localized access for clients in the UK and across Europe', and represents 'another powerful step forward as we grow our capabilities in the digital interactive space'.

Cognizant, which is based in Teaneck, NJ, USA, was once a subsidiary of IMS Health but was spun off and enjoyed massive growth in the decade after 2003. It now employs around 256,000 people and focuses on IT services, BPO and business consulting. The home page for the Digital Business division is at www.cognizant.com/cognizant-digital-business .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.