Sabio flexes its muscle in APAC with latest acquisition

VP Mike Andrews says acquisition is in response to changing customer habits

Sabio's acquisition of Singaporean virtual assistant platform provider flexAnswer Solutions is part of the company's continued growth in the APAC region, according to Mike Andrews, VP of commercial strategy at Sabio.

The latest purchase is Sabio's fourth since it received £30m backing from private equity firm Horizon Capital (formerly Lyceum Capital) in 2016. It previously added Rapport and DatapointEurope to its portfolio in 2017, and analytics firm Bright UK earlier this year.

FlexAnswer's virtual assistant platform covers web, voice and messaging channels which can be applied externally and internally to support customer advisers.

Sabio will combine its managed service with flexAnswer's natural language processing and machine learning technologies.

"This was an attractive proposition, particularly when you consider this is a solution that scales all the way through our customer base and isn't just the preserve of the largest enterprise businesses," Andrews told CRN.

"There is considerable demand [for this technology] as consumers are engaging with organisations in different ways and channels, and our customers are looking to us to help them with that.

"We see a real advent of conversational user interface - the next generation of how consumers want to interact with organisations.

"This type of virtual assistant technology is at the heart of how organisations can realise and deliver those experiences."

Andrews added that the procurement of the Singapore-based company is part of Sabio's focus on developing its business in the APAC region. It has recently expanded operations into Kuala Lumpur.

"APAC is a definite growth region for us," he said.

"Our strategy is to be recognised as a real leader in delivering customer experience solutions and services and we are really focused on Europe and APAC - those are priority regions for us."