BPM vendor to acquire CRM company

By Barney Beal, News Director, SearchCRM.com | Mar 19, 2010

Pegasystems, a business process management software vendor, made a tender offer to purchase Chordiant, a CRM software and services company.

Under the agreement, Cambridge, Mass.-based Pegasystems will offer $5 per share for all outstanding shares of Chordiant common stock, bringing the total purchase price to $161.5 million, assuming all shares are tendered.

Pegasystems' business process management (BPM) software has been used by organizations to improve their customer experience initiatives and will be combined with Chordiant's predictive decision management software, according to Pegasystems.

"Chordiant has important assets in marketing, customer satisfaction and customer experience management, and we see some interesting ways to bring those to the existing Pegasystems client base and additional customers," Alan Trefler, CEO of Pegasytems, said on a conference call this morning. "Pegasystems' strength has been powered by automation. When we take a look at what Chordiant has done, they focused a lot on the customer conversation: How do you make sure the right thing is said to the customer? How do you make sure the best product is offered to the customer? We envision having something that will look to prospective buyers like a well-integrated concept and a more substantive offering than either of us offers today."

Trefler said he expected to have an integrated offering available to the market this year.