Accenture Acquires Two Firms in October YTD
It has been almost three years since Accenture launched Industry X.0, and we estimate that Accenture acquired nine competitors in these 36 months. The pace is accelerating with Accenture having five competitors in 2019, YTD.
Patterns are now emerging: Accenture makes tuck-in acquisitions, targeting firms with a headcount below 250. So far, Accenture has favored two geographies (the US and UK) and product design and product engineering services (PES), working across verticals (except for one German automotive specialist). In total, Accenture has acquired 1,300 employees in product design and PES, targeting mostly B2C clients.
The industrial world, in terms of client base and vertical-specific capabilities, seems less of a priority for the firm, with Accenture making only one acquisition in digital manufacturing, with an Irish firm specialized in MES. This lack of activity in digital manufacturing is a surprise given that growth on the manufacturing side is accelerating.
Finally, browsing through the many acquisitions of Accenture, we realized that we had left out of the picture Accenture’s software product engineering capabilities. Accenture has those capabilities in a unit called Products and Platform Engineering Services, which seems different from Industry X.0. Products and Platform Engineering Services is at scale, with Accenture highlighting it has 8,000 employees in this unit. In itself, this headcount positions Accenture as a decently-sized ER&D service vendor.
UPDATED: Accenture’s Industry X.0 Acquisitions
Source: ERDservices.org
| Date | Name / Location Size | Capabilities |
| 2020-10 | Myrtle Consulting / Houston, TX 150 employees | A supply chain consultancy |
| 2020-09 | Salt Solutions / Würzburg, Germany Revenues of 65m and a headcount of 500 | SAP capabilities around SCM, and to a lower extent production systems This Industry X’s largest acquisition. |
| 2020-05 | PLM Systems / Turino, Italy 60 employees | PLM services, with a specialization around PTC products |
| 2020-05 | Callisto Integration / Oakville, ON, Canada 160 employees | MES services, shop-flor command and control systems, and industrial IoT |
| 2020-03 | ESR Labs / Munich, Germany 130 employees | Embedded system services |
| 2019-12 | Silveo / Paris, France 50 employees | SAP services around manufacturing and supply chain |
| 2019-10 | Happen / London, UK 60 employees | Product design services for the CPG, retail, and life science industries Joins Products Industry X.0 |
| 2019-10 | Futuremove Automotive / Beijing, Shanghai, Nanchang and Chengdu 320 employees | A Chinese start-up providing mobility services Joins Industry X.O |
| 2019-10 | Nytec / Kirkland, WA 250 employees | IoT devices and product development services across industries Joins Accenture Industry X.0 |
| 2019-08 | Fairway Tech / San Diego, CA 80 employees | Software product engineering services Joins Accenture’s Product and Platform Engineering Services (which has a headcount of 8,000) |
| 2019-06 | Zielpuls / Munich, Germany 150 employees | Services including automated car parking and ADAS architectures for the German automotive industry Joins Accenture Industry X.0 |
| 2019-05 | ESP / Cork, Ireland 200 employees | MES services for the life science industry Joins Accenture Industry X.0 |
| 2019-04 | ?What If!, London / UK 150 employees | Focus on brand and customer engagement Joins Products Industry X.0 |
| 2020-02 | VanBerlo / Eindhoven, NL 90 employees | Product design of connected devices Joins Products Industry X.0 |
| 2018-12 | Enaxis Consulting / Houston, TX 100 employees | Upstream oil & gas, oilfield services, and airlines Consulting, analytics and agile development Joins Accenture’s Energy practice in North America |
| 2018-08 | Pillar Tech / Columbus, OH 300 employees | Embedded software development Joins Accenture Industry X.0 |
| 2018-08 | Mindtribe / San Francisco, CA 40 employees | Hardware engineering services to the high-tech industry Joins Accenture Industry X.0 |
| 2018-08 | designaffair / Munich, Germany 100 employees | Product design services Joins Accenture Industry X.0 |
| 2017-01 | Altitude / Boston, 50 employees | Product design services to the CPG, healthcare and high-tech industries Joins Accenture’s Connected Product Lifecycles Services practice |