EY acquires leading international digital consultancy, Seren, to meet surge in demand for digital transformation and service design

-    Business for digital transformation and  service design in MENA has quadrupled over the last year
-    Delivering an exceptional customer experience remains a key challenge for MENA governments and businesses

DUBAI, 18 August 2015. EY has today announced its acquisition of Seren – an international digital consultancy based in the UK with a significant footprint in the MENA region. Seren is a leader in international digital design and innovation of customer service and experience, which works with leading firms across a number of sectors. In MENA, Seren have been working closely with governments, banks and media organizations to drive digital business transformation through a customer-centred approach to design.

Gerard Gallagher, MENA Advisory Leader, EY, says:
“EY’s Advisory business has already built  an impressive  Customer Experience capability across  MENA. As EY-Seren, we will be able to significantly augment the services we provide to our clients in terms of digital engagement strategy and customer experience design. Combining the digital design expertise of Seren with the broader transformational capabilities of EY will bring a fresh dimension to the services we deliver to our clients.
Ben Langdon, CEO of EY-Seren says:

“There has been immense growth in demand for our services in the Middle East and our business in the region has quadrupled in growth over the last year. The union with EY, especially in MENA, is a natural extension of our growth plans. A number of our UK based team are relocating to the Middle East to give us dedicated EY-Seren presence in the market.”

Ross Maclean, Partner and MENA Head of  Customer Advisory practice at EY says:
“We have seen that customers in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have higher levels of digital interaction with organizations than the global average. With the significant growth of digital and mobile services across the region, we continue to see huge investments by organizations in the region to provide better experiences across all channels. It’s interesting to note that in MENA, it’s the government sector that is very often leading the way with new and innovative approaches to delivering services. We are hugely excited by the capabilities that EY-Seren will bring to our clients.”

The acquisition of Seren will bring the total number of dedicated Customer Experience practitioners in MENA to over 50. EY made a commitment to grow its global strategy consulting practice to over 2,500 professionals by 2020, both organically and through continued acquisitions and has progressed this rapidly already with a particular focus on client’s digital transformation agenda.