The Hindu Business Line : `Kanbay's core strengths are well aligned with Capgemini's growth strategy'

We dashed off a quick questionnaire to Kanbay International's CEO, Mr Raymond Spencer, who is travelling in Europe to understand the strategic and investment rationale behind this acquisition by Capgemini. Here is his first take on the transaction:

Could you tell us the trigger for this transaction with Capgemini?

The specific trigger is that Capgemini approached us with a formal acquisition offer. Our directors carefully evaluated the offer and their findings were that this transaction was in the best interest of all Kanbay stakeholders, shareholders, associates and clients.

In what way is Capgemini complementary to Kanbay compared to other multinational vendors which were believed to have been interested in Kanbay at some point in time?

We are very excited about the complementary nature of this transaction. Fundamentally, both Kanbay and Capgemini have similar cultural and business philosophies. This is a key point that will drive a successful integration of our two organisations. There are numerous benefits and synergies from a business standpoint as well.

The key qualities that Capgemini valued in Kanbay are: i) our deep domain focus, particularly in financial services, ii) our proven global delivery model, and iii) our blue chip client base, and especially the fact that the majority of our clients are in North America.

Capgemini's business plan calls for expanding its presence in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) space and its operations in North America, and to continue to develop and leverage a truly efficient global delivery model. Therefore, Kanbay's core strengths are well aligned with Capgemini's growth strategy. From Kanbay's point of view, we are excited about the opportunities that will be open up now as we are part of the fifth largest consultancy firm in the world. We feel that our associates and our clients will benefit from the additional breadth of services, industries, and global reach that Capgemini has.

Is the integration with Adjoined (the consulting firm that Kanbay acquired) complete? In July you had said that it was going quicker than you had expected.

The integration with Adjoined is virtually complete. The integration moved much quicker than we had anticipated and I am very pleased with the progress that we have made.

Importantly, the lessons we learned from our fast and efficient integration of Adjoined give us confidence that we can merge with Capgemini with limited integration risk.

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