Accenture Announces Intent To Acquire BENEXT, Independent French Product Management Consulting Company

* Acquisition would bolster Accenture Cloud First services and skills in product management and agile transformation

Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has announced its intent to acquire BENEXT, an independent product consulting company specializing in product management, agile coaching, cloud-based development and data science. Financial terms of the transaction are not being disclosed.

Founded in 2014 and based in France, BENEXT is a full-stack, product consulting company experienced in helping clients design, organize, deploy, and efficiently manage their digital products, while also enhancing the customer user experience. The company’s approximately 160 highly skilled professionals would join OCTO Technology, already a part of Accenture since 2017, and more broadly expand the European and global capabilities of Accenture Cloud First. OCTO Technology is a technology consultancy specializing in digital transformation and software development. The OCTO team is primarily located in France and also operates across Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

"With many clients ramping up their multi-cloud environments, the need for new agile operating models and a seamless user experience across a multi-cloud network has never been greater. By tapping into the dynamic capabilities of the cloud, leading companies can reimagine their businesses from design to delivery,” said Karthik Narain, global lead, Accenture Cloud First. “Acquiring BENEXT would be a valuable addition to help more clients truly operate in the cloud and become digital enterprises. For clients, this ultimately equates to reaching a tipping point of change and pivoting the entirety of their business toward new opportunities.”

Powered by 77,000 cloud professionals and a $3 billion investment over the next three years, Accenture Cloud First brings together unmatched depth and breadth of cloud expertise, industry cloud solutions, ecosystem partner capabilities, and assets that help clients realize greater value from cloud at speed and scale. Over the past 24 months, Accenture has made a number of strategic investments to expand and enhance its Cloud First capabilities. In France, recent acquisitions include Linkbynet, Gekko, and Cirruseo.

Olivier Girard, market unit lead for Accenture France & Benelux, said “Together with BENEXT, we would bring more specialized skills to fulfill the growing demand for effective product management and agile methods by leveraging the use of the latest technologies such as cloud, artificial intelligence, data and DevOps. The unique combination of our product management, organizational and technology skills would generate more value to the French market in particular for our clients in the public sector, financial services, and the media industry.”  

David Robert, founder and president of BENEXT, said “We are excited about this opportunity based on our history and would accelerate our strategy. The combination of our two organizations’ expertise allied with our deep product management expertise would enable us to take the services offered to our clients to a whole new level. Together, we can help clients reimagine their products, reengineer their product life cycles and optimize their customers’ experiences.”

The acquisition requires prior consultation with the relevant works councils and would be subject to customary closing conditions.