Accenture is betting on acquisitions to expand its cloud business which grew in double-digits for the second quarter ended 28 February. Accenture’s fiscal year ends 31 August.
The IT consulting giant formed the Cloud First group last September with a plan to invest $3 billion over three years to help clients across industries rapidly become “cloud-first” businesses and accelerate their digital transformation.
Since the launch of Cloud First, Accenture has acquired nine companies in the cloud segment to meet rising global demand for its services. The acquisitions include Imaginea (US), which has centres in India, for cloud native product and platform engineering skills, Linkbynet (France), Cygni (Sweden), Infinity Works (UK), Edenhouse (UK), Wolox (Argentina), Olikka (Australia/New Zealand), Enimbos (Spain), and Zag (Australia/New Zealand).
“We are looking for companies that have people with deep expertise in full-stack engineering, cloud engineering, data migration capabilities, and those who can build products and platforms in the cloud,” Kishore P. Durg, senior managing director and lead–Cloud First Global Services, Accenture, said in an interview.
Accenture will be scouting for more such acquisitions in 2021. “We are always looking for growth in segments where we need to bridge the gap for our clients and enhance our capabilities in specific markets,” Durg said.
The company’s thrust on cloud comes at a time when global spending on public cloud services is on the rise and expected to reach $332.3 billion in 2021, an increase of 23.1% from last year, according to the latest Gartner forecast. Public cloud spending in 2020 was $270 billion.
Cloud adoption among Accenture’s clients has accelerated during the pandemic. According to a company report, leaders in cloud adoption are now growing five times faster than the laggards. “Also, cloud has moved to board-level conversation today. What used to happen in 10 years is now happening in 2-3 years,” Durg said.
