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“I think the Adobe-SAP alliance needs to be seen in the context of the broader SAP-Accenture Marketing Performance Solution,” said Martin Kihn, research director for Gartner. “The vision is for SAP HANA to power an Accenture media mix and analytics platform for marketers, who could use Adobe for the upstream stuff SAP and Accenture don’t do, like site analytics and content management.”

 

Adobe gains a couple of core competencies as a result of an “iron triangle” with SAP and Accenture such as professional services, custom solutions and implementation strength. “[These capabilities] lend Adobe some heft with the hardcore enterprise quants and CFO skeptics who don’t live in the marketing-driven cultures where Adobe traditionally shines,” Kihn noted.

 

“Digital marketing has become the ‘it girl,’” as Kihn describes it. Agencies and systems integrators like Accenture, IBM and Deloitte are transforming into digital shops while the advanced analytics players like SAP and FICO are essentially rebranding themselves as “marketing analytics” platforms, he said.

 

Another potential side effect is the SAP-Accenture partnership further expands the competitive landscape. This is where “Accenture starts to butt heads with the BBDO’s and Wunderman’s – all of those agencies who are the CMO’s advisors,” Kim said.

 

The dividing lines between technology and systems integrator (or agency, to that effect) will ultimately be about budget, organizational decisions and good, old-fashioned politics. “It remains to be seen which partners in both service and technology will be standing at the end,” Kim said.

 

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