Buy and Investment for France's BVA Group

Paris-based research and consultancy company BVA Group has strengthened its customer experience offer with the acquisition of Lyon-based Côté Clients; and has invested further in in-store data collection software company IVS.

BVA's services range from feedback management and mystery-shopping to customer satisfaction & NPS, and ethnography, and include a behavioural change or Nudge unit. A subsidiary, PRS INVIVO, specialises in packaging & shopper research.

Côté Clients was established in 2006 and has revenue of EUR 6m, having grown by 30 percent in the last two years. The firm offers a range of agile CX tools with a particular focus on the retail sector. The buy will add to BVA's existing retail services which include behavioural economics insights and tech tools for in-store analytics.

Pascal Gaudin, BVA Group CEO, said, 'We are more than happy to welcome Côté Clients. Their expertise and agility perfectly match both with the BVA spirit and our clients' needs'. Côté founder and CEO Guillaume Antonietti adds: 'We're proud to join our strengths to BVA's business dynamics for the benefit of an always larger number of clients'.


The Group has already invested in IVS (Intelligent Video Software) - which develops solutions for in-store image analysis and live data reporting - as part of its BVA Venture innovation program. The firm's IVStore software decrypts customer in-store behaviour, revealing and optimising point-of-sale performance using autonomous 360 degree sensor boxes installed in retail premises and providing anonymised data on customer flow and behaviour. Analysis of this is fed real-time into a bespoke dashboard for store managers.

IVS CEO Franck Selve says the further investment will help his company to continue its growth programme and offer its advanced technologies to a wider international retail market. Gaudin comments: 'With IVS and through BVA Venture initiative, we mix cutting-edge technologies with data expertise for the benefit of our customers'.

BVA says it plans to announce other acquisitions in the coming months, expanding its footprint and range of expertise.

Web site: www.bva-group.com .