Harris Bags Brace of MR Firms

Harris Interactive has acquired research firms Decima in Canada and MarketShare in Asia Pacific in deals with a combined value of more than $24 million.

Founded in 1979, Decima is a public opinion and market research firm with around 125 employees, two call centres with 300 stations, a proprietary panel of more than 140,000 Canadians and focus group facilities in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa. The transaction has a $21.3 million cash value, and the firms say that by combining the Harris and Decima online panels they will be able to offer the largest online panel in Canada.

Decima CEO Bruce Anderson, who will continue to manage the company as President of what will now be known as Harris/Decima, says the firm had grown as large as it could as an independent: 'We arrived at a point where we said to ourselves we're too big with roughly $30m a year in revenue to play like a small boutique in the marketplace, but we're not big enough to compete as well as we would want to with the largest local players'. He adds that the company plans to increase head count, and is looking to double the size of the business over the next few years.

News of the buy-out comes after an announcement earlier this week that Decima founder Allan Gregg is to rejoin the firm as Chairman (www.mrweb.com/drno/news7169.htm ).

Harris also confirmed its $2.8 million acquisition of MarketShare, which has joint headquarters in Hong Kong and Singapore and provides consultancy and research in China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, India, Singapore and Malaysia.

With approximately $2.6m revenue, the firm specialises in the retail, financial services, technology and travel/tourism sectors, has a team of 40 and has worked with Harris since 2004 on both global and regional projects.

'The rapid rise and continued growth of consumerism in Asia will force companies to better understand their customers' evolving needs and drive demand for faster and more sophisticated research solutions such as those available through Harris Interactive,' comments Ali Mirza, Executive Director of MarketShare.

MarketShare will become part of the buyer's Asia group, and the transition to the Harris Interactive global brand is expected to begin immediately.

Harris CEO Greg Novak concludes: 'Adding the strengths of these firms to the Harris Interactive enterprise will improve our global service offering and provide increased access into two fast-growing regions that represent about a $4 billion market opportunity. I'm thrilled to welcome them into the Harris Interactive family.'

Web sites: www.harrisinteractive.com , www.decima.com and www.marketshare.com.sg.

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.

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