Accenture Triple Play: Three Acquisitions In Two Days

Accenture, which acquired about 20 mostly smaller solution providers in 2020, is continuing its channel M&A push with four small channel acquisitions in the first five weeks of 2021.

Accenture, which last year had a string of over 20 acquisitions of mainly smaller solution providers in 2020, is in early 2021 continuing its channel roll-up with three acquisitions in two days.

The global solution provider with U.S. headquarters in New York on Tuesday unveiled two acquisitions.

The first, Future State, is an Oakland, Calif.-based change management consulting firm with 40 years of experience helping clients manage change, particularly during times of disruption.

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Future State brings its 75-person team and its focus on helping clients innovate in the life sciences, consumer packaged goods, and technology industries into Accenture’s Talent & Organization / Human Potential practice.

The second, Businet System, is a Tokyo-based solution provider with a focus on developing and operating Salesforce Commerce Cloud-based ecommerce sites in Japan.

Businet System, founded in 1999, has developed and operated ecommerce sites for over 60 clients mainly within Japan’s apparel and retail industries.

Accenture on Monday also unveiled the planned acquisition of Imaginea, a Mountain View, Calif.-based cloud-native product and platform engineering firm focused on helping clients innovate through disruptive technologies to digitally transform their businesses and capture new opportunities.

Imaginea and its 1,350 or so cloud professionals currently advise over 200 global clients in cloud-first transformations. The company’s full-stack engineering team brings cloud data and cloud modernization skills across multiple platforms from Amazon Web Services, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform.

Accenture’s Global Cloud First Lead Karthik Narain, in an emailed response to a request for more information about the Imaginea acquisition, wrote that the acquisition brings Accenture more cloud native capabilities with product and platform innovation skills along with full stack engineering knowledge to support global clients in North America and Europe.

“This acquisition complements and expands our capabilities in this fast growing space of platform engineering. Imaginea brings a unique combination of cloud native and solution development skills and services to solve complex problems with a design thinking approach, which makes it possible to provide a ‘plug and play’ cloud native engine,” Narain wrote.

This acquisition will make Accenture a more significant player in the cloud native and platform engineering markets, and be better able to delivery leading-edge technologies for clients in North America and Europe, Narain wrote.

“This acquisition will unlock the potential synergies from accelerating cloud technology offerings, cross selling broader Accenture offerings (S&C, Applied Intelligence, Interactive) and driving strategic end to end transformational project,” he wrote.

Accenture plans to integrate Imaginea’s services into its Cloud First integrated services for global clients, Narain wrote.

“Next steps are to work on fulfilling the closing requirements. Imaginea’s leadership team will continue to lead the business. We have created a personalized approach for each of the Imaginea leaders taking time to understand their ambitions and ensuring impactful exciting roles,” he wrote.

Accenture declined to discuss terms of the three acquisitions.

It has been a busy start to 2021 for Accenture. In addition to three acquisitions in the first two days of February, the company on Jan. 15 unveiled the acquisition of Wolox, an Argentina-based cloud-native and agile development company.