Accenture Buys Advocate, Expands Tech Business Management As A Service

‘Advocate has intellectual property built into their assets with algorithms to analyze a company’s spending on technology, and to analyze spending patterns,’ says Greg Douglass, Accenture’s global technology, strategy, and advisory lead.

Accenture this week unveiled the acquisition of Advocate, a small solution provider focused on bringing technology business management to its clients.

Technology business management lets businesses monitor and manage their IT spending to track the value of that spending across technologies as a way to help them better understand, for instance, whether an Azure instance is a better value than running a particular application on premises, said Greg Douglass, global technology, strategy, and advisory lead for New York-based Accenture.

“Advocate is a consulting firm specializing in the practice of technology business management,” Douglass told CRN. “They help clients track the value of their technology investments.”

[Related: Accenture Exits Russia, Expresses Solidarity With Ukraine]

Prior to the acquisition, global systems integrator Accenture already had a technology business management practice, Douglass said.

“Advocate has intellectual property built into their assets with algorithms to analyze a company’s spending on technology, and to analyze spending patterns,” he said. “It looks at how that spending compares to what other companies are doing, and looks at where businesses might want to increase or decrease spending to improve the value of their technology.”

What’s new with Advocate for Accenture is the ability to offer technology business management-as-a-service going forward, Douglass said.

“Now our customers will be able to implement technology business management on their own, or have a company like Accenture run it on an on-going basis.

Douglass said both companies are partners with Apptio, a Bellevue, Wash.-based provider of technology business management applications.

“Last year, Accenture was Apptio’s global partner of the year, while Advocate was Apptio’s North American partner of the year,” he said.

Douglass said that Accenture is not providing any financial details about Advocate or the cost of the acquisition. However, he did say the Norcross, Ga.-based company is bringing over 85 new employees to Accenture.