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Wipro Digital, the digital business unit of software major Wipro, has acquired Cooper, a company that provides User Experience (UX), for an undisclosed sum, a move that could strengthen its capabilities in this emerging segment.
Cooper will become part of Designit, Wipro Digital’s strategic design arm. The acquisition strengthens Wipro Digital’s design capabilities, expands its reach in North America and adds capabilities in professional design education, as its customer increasingly look at design as a differentiator for their products or services.
Cooper, which was founded in 2002, counts companies such as Google, Bose, Starbucks and government organisations like NASA, Federal Reserve Bank as some of its clients. “With Cooper, an acknowledged leader and pioneer in the design community with roots on the East and West coast, we will now offer UX and interaction design solutions to our clients and coupled with Designit’s design services and our engineering capability, will allow us to support the digital journey for our clients,” said Rajan Kohli, Global Head and Senior Vice-President, Wipro Digital.
Access to Cooper staff Wipro Digital and Designit serve clients from 16 offices around the world. With the acquisition, Wipro gets access to 35 employees of Cooper in San Francisco and New York.
India’s third largest software exporter in a statement also said that the acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to be closed in the third quarter of fiscal 2017-18. This is the second such acquisition that the company has made in the UX segment, after it acquired DesignIT in 2015.
According to Peter Schumacher, CEO, Value Leadership Group, this acquisition will strengthen Wipro’s proposition in digital services.
While Indian engineers have strong technical knowhow, they are not quite adept at designing an experience for a product or service. “Engineers typically are not strong when it comes to right brain thinking, which is reflected in their design capabilities and hence companies acquire this talent from the West,” said Sanchit Vir Gogia, founder, Greyhound Research.
Other IT companies have also been trying to strengthen their UX areas. While cross-town rival Infosys acquired London-based Brilliant Basics, Tech Mahindra bought UK-based company BIO Agency in an all cash deal for £45 million.
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