Accenture’s thirst for acquisitions to extend its global IT services reach continued today with the disclosure of its plan to purchase Google Cloud Premier partner Wabion.
Wabion marks Accenture’s sixth acquisition just this month as the solution provider powerhouse, which ranks No. 1 on CRN’s 2021 Solution Provider 500 list, is on pace to buy more than 50 companies over the course of the past 12 months. Many of Accenture’s most recent acquisitions are based in Europe, although other companies acquired in 2021 hail from North America and Asia as well.
Since July 1, Accenture has spent millions acquiring the likes of France-based cloud service provider Linkbynet; New York-based infrastructure transformation services firm CS Technology; SAP specialist Ethica Consulting in Italy; France-based consulting firm Nell’Armonia; Switzerland-based automation and data analytics standout Trivadis AG; and Wabion, based out of Germany.
Last month, Accenture’s CEO Julie Sweet told the media and analysts during the company’s quarterly earnings report that the Dublin-based solution provider plans to continue its M&A pace for the foreseeable future with plans to spend $4 billion on acquisitions by the end of its fiscal year, which ends Aug. 31.
“Our level of investment demonstrates how scale, experience and trust matters. Scale in terms of our financial capacity, experience in terms of our track record [in] the successful integration of approximately 200 companies since 2013, and the trust we have earned in the market that attracts leading companies to want to join the Accenture family,” said Sweet, as Accenture reported third fiscal quarter revenues of $13.3 billion, up 21 percent year over year. “We’re going to make acquisitions to scale [and] to add new skills and opportunities.”
In terms of today’s Accenture’s acquisition announcement, Wabion is a Germany-based Google Cloud services specialist consisting of 60 IT professionals. The acquisition aims to boost Accenture’s Google Cloud business as Wabion is slated to become part of the Accenture Google Cloud Business Group, part of the Accenture Cloud First initiative.
In 2020, Accenture launched Accenture Cloud First, a new multi-service group of 70,000 cloud professionals, as well as a $3 billion investment over three years to rapidly expand its cloud services capabilities and offerings. Accenture Cloud First integrates the company’s broad cloud expertise to help customers across every industry accelerate their digital transformation and boost speed and scale by becoming a cloud-first business.
“Cloud is where all breakthrough technology innovations are happening today and a cloud-first strategy can help any enterprise master change at speed and at scale,” said Karthik Narain, global lead of Accenture Cloud First, in a statement. “Wabion’s market-leading Google Cloud skills will further strengthen Accenture Cloud First to continue to combine the best of Google human-centric design and innovation with Accenture intelligence.”
Wabion is a Google Cloud Premier partner providing a full spectrum of consulting and implementation services for Google Cloud Platform and Google Workspace including integration, development, licensing and training. Founded in 2004, Wabion works with companies on cloud migrations, cloud native application development to build new solutions, and on Google Workspace deployments for online collaboration and workforce productivity.
The financial terms of the Wabion deal were not disclosed.
Sourced from CRN - written by Mark Haranas