Global technology major Accenture Plc said on Tuesday it has agreed to acquire umlaut, an engineering consulting and services firm headquartered in Aachen, Germany. Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.
“The move will significantly scale Accenture’s deep engineering capabilities to help companies use digital technologies like cloud, artificial intelligence, and 5G to transform how they design, engineer and manufacture their products as well as embed sustainability,” Accenture said in a statement.
As part of the acquisition, Accenture will onboard umlaut’s more than 4,200 engineers and consultants across 17 countries to its Industry X services, and expand the company’s capabilities across industries including automotive, aerospace & defence, telecommunications, energy and utilities.
Industry X combines Accenture’s data and digital capabilities with deep engineering expertise to offer clients a competitive suite of services to transform core operations, customer experiences, and business models.
Umlaut is the latest in a series of 22 acquisitions Accenture has made since 2017 to build its Industry X capabilities. More recent acquisitions include operations technology provider Electro 80 (Australia), industrial robotics and automation services provider Pollux (Brazil), operations consultancy Myrtle (US), and technology consultancy SALT Solutions (Germany).
“We predicted that digital would ultimately be applied at scale to the core of a company’s business – the design, engineering and manufacturing of their products. For nearly a decade, Accenture has been building the unique capabilities and ecosystem partnerships to combine the power of digital with traditional engineering services,” said Julie Sweet, chief executive officer, Accenture.
“Covid-19 has accelerated the need for companies to transform these core operations, and umlaut’s leading and highly-specialized engineering services will enhance our ability to meet the accelerating demand and also continue innovating for our clients,” she added.
Accenture is expanding Industry X at a time when software increasingly determines the market success of platforms, products and services across industries that require intelligence to be embedded.
However, in a survey of more than 1,500 industry executives, Accenture research found that only 38% of companies have deployed at least one project to digitize their engineering and manufacturing.
Umlaut’s capabilities span across traditional and digital engineering services; testing and validation of smart connected products; strategy, process and organizational consulting; and hardware product development as well as software development.