Accenture makes a further acquisition for Industry X.0, in Germany

/ May 1, 2019/ Accenture, Automotive, BMW, Embedded Systems, Germany, M&As (small under $50m in revenues), VW

Accenture continues to deploy its M&A strategy and has made its fifth acquisition for Industry X.0. The company acquired Zielpuls, an ER&D vendor servicing the German automotive industry. Zielpuls is an embedded systems specialist. The has a headcount of 190, is headquartered in Munich (where BMW has its headquarters) and has offices in Wolfsburg (where VW is headquartered), Hannover and also in China, in both Shanghai and Beijing.

Zielpuls had started diversifying its client base and Accenture plans to accelerate the client diversification to other industries, e.g., medical equipment, industrial equipment, and high-tech.

This is Accenture’s second acquisition in one year in Germany. No surprise really. The previous one had been, last summer, a product design firm, designaffairs. In total, we estimate that Accenture has added ~850 employees in less than one year to Industry X.0. Several readers have pointed out that Accenture is making only small acquisitions. And indeed, Accenture’s M&A strategy remains of small to mid-sized firms, looking at tuck-in acquisitions that can bring a specialization. The company does not make large acquisitions, so do not expect Accenture to acquire any of the top twenty ER&D vendors globally. But the number of acquisitions so far look right: we are expecting Accenture to make half a dozen ER&D acquisitions each year, and add ~1k consultants annually. This should be enough for Accenture, with its solid organic growth track record.