Accenture Cloud First is a US$3 billion investment over three years of the global consultancy firm Accenture to help enterprises across all industries expedite their digital transformation by becoming “cloud first” businesses.
As a leading partner to the world’s major cloud providers including SAP, Accenture is seizing the opportunity in the cloud business as enterprises are forced to accelerate their digital transformation strategies to adapt to the COVID-19 challenges and realize greater value at speed and scale. The launch of Accenture Cloud First in 2020 came at a perfect time when the demand for cloud computing went through the roof due to the pandemic.
Since Accenture Cloud First’s launch in September last year, the professional services firm has expanded its presence around the world and strengthened its SAP capabilities through acquisitions of SAP partners that specialises in implementing on-premise and cloud-based SAP solutions.
Strengthening Accenture Cloud First Capabilities
Accenture Cloud First has a singular focus on bringing the “cloud first” business strategy to enterprises’ digital transformation journey. It is a new multi-service group of 70,000 cloud professionals that puts together Accenture’s comprehensive cloud expertise such as cloud migration, infrastructure, and application services. Most importantly, Accenture Cloud First embodies the company’s commitment to providing deep industry and cross-industry insights, data, and Applied Intelligence capabilities to its customers through reliable ecosystem partnerships.
In October 2020, Accenture acquired SAP and cloud solutions specialist Zag to boost its Australia and New Zealand capabilities to support organisations migrating to the cloud using SAP’s next-generation products. Zag is a premier SAP, cloud and spatial consultancy firm operating across Australia and New Zealand with offices in Auckland, Wellington, Sydney, and Melbourne.
This month, Accenture has ventured again on expanding its SAP capabilities with the acquisition of Edenhouse, one of the UK’s largest and leading SAP Platinum Partners specialising in the sale, implementation, support, and hosting of SAP products and services to mid-sized businesses. The strategic move strengthens Accenture’s SAP capacities in the UK by leveraging Edenhouse’s expert consultants’ unparalleled breadth of technical knowledge and industry experience in delivering SAP on-premise or cloud solutions, SAP implementation, SAP managed services, SAP maintenance, and SAP support.
Paul Solomon, CEO at Edenhouse, said:
“Being part of Accenture will provide amazing opportunities for our staff and our clients… We’re excited to be able to bring the combination of our people, technology, and industry excellence to take digital transformation to the next level for our clients.”
Solomon also highlighted that Edenhouse shares the same company culture with Accenture, prioritising optimal business outcomes and leveraging a long-standing partnership with SAP. With the recent skyrocketing demand for SAP’s cloud-based solutions, having 220 of Edenhouse’s employees becoming part of Accenture’s SAP Business Group in the UK significantly boosts the local presence of Accenture as a leading SAP partner.
“The global pandemic has increased demand for SAP’s cloud-based solutions and the additional skills we now have access to will enable us to rapidly meet the needs of our clients, helping them to progress more quickly on their path to value and become more sustainable businesses for the future,” said John Erik Ellingsen, Intelligent Platform Services Lead for the UK and Ireland at Accenture.
Accenture and SAP’s Unwavering Alliance
Globally, the Accenture and SAP alliance remain steadfast as the two technology giants empower enterprises in their digital transformation journey through cloud-based deployments of SAP solutions like migrating SAP S/4HANA to the cloud. Accenture is one of the first SAP global partners that embraced the newly launched RISE with SAP– SAP’s milestone Business as Transformation as a Service offering to propel customers’ holistic transformation into intelligent enterprises by leveraging SAP’s robust partner ecosystem.
Caspar Borggreve, Global Lead for the SAP Business Group at Accenture, stated:
“RISE with SAP provides a path for clients to transform into intelligent enterprises. With Accenture’s experience with SAP solutions and cloud deployments, we bring an exceptional combination of industry and functional expertise and innovation at scale to power transformation across every facet of the business. We deliver 360ᵒ value through a smart approach that uses automation, existing investments, and modern implementation methods to deliver solutions with greater speed and less disruption.”
