Accenture to acquire German firm umlaut

Bengaluru: Global professional services company Accenture will acquire umlaut, an engineering consulting and services firm headquartered in Aachen, Germany for an undisclosed amount. The acquisition will 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. The acquisition of umlaut will add more than 4,200 industry-leading engineers and consultants across 17 countries to Accenture's Industry X services, and expand the company's capabilities across a range of industries, including automotive, aerospace & defense, telecommunications, energy and utilities, Accenture said in a statement. Industry X combines Accenture's powerful data and digital capabilities with deep engineering expertise to offer clients the broadest suite of services for digitizing their engineering functions, factory floors and plant operations, improving productivity, speeding up the transformation of hardware into software-enabled products, and allowing for faster and more flexible product development. "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. And, 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.