April 30, 2019

Accenture to Expand Industry X.0 Capabilities with Acquisition of Zielpuls to Create Smart Products and Services for Carmakers

KRONBERG and MUNICH; April 30, 2019 – Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has entered into an agreement to acquire Zielpuls, a technology consultancy headquartered in Germany. The acquisition will bolster the capabilities of Accenture Industry X.0 in the design of smart products and services for automotive companies and will be expanded to support clients in the medical technology, industrial equipment and high-tech industries.

Zielpuls provides architecture, development, engineering and management services for complex digital products and services. Work examples include an automated car parking system and development of the architecture for driver assistance systems. The firm helped medical technology companies automate production and align it to Good Manufacturing Practices standards. It also defined the entire IT architecture to operate high-speed trains for a leading transportation company.

Technology consultancy Zielpuls will bolster the capabilities of Accenture Industry X.0 in the design of smart products and services for automotive companies

Founded in 2008, Zielpuls will bring a team of 190 highly skilled professionals with a background in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Zielpuls is headquartered in Munich and has offices in Wolfsburg and Hanover, Germany, Shanghai and Beijing, China.

Frank Riemensperger, senior country managing director for Accenture in Austria, Switzerland, Germany and Russia (ASGR), said, “Zielpuls excels at designing architectures and operating systems for smart, connected products and services. It will add to the deep expertise we have been building in this area and complement previous acquisitions, including award-winning strategic design consultancy designaffairs.”

Axel Schmidt, managing director and global lead of Accenture’s automotive industry practice, said, “The team of engineers and technologists of Zielpuls will strengthen our ability to develop connected, intelligent architectures for automotive clients, both in Germany and globally. Like designaffairs, Zielpuls has established business in Germany and China, which is strategic for us.”

Upon close, Zielpuls will become part of Accenture Industry X.0, which helps clients master the digital reinvention of industry by using advanced digital technologies to transform core operations, worker and customer experiences, and business models.

Andrew Smith, managing director and Accenture Industry X.0 lead in ASGR, said, “Zielpuls has started to branch out into other areas, such as medical technology, where software and data-driven services will transform the core products. Its engineering know-how and ability to orchestrate operating systems for smart products will help us build an organization that can co-create and reimagine smart connected products and services with clients from ideation through production.”

Following completion of the acquisition, the Zielpuls co-CEOs Markus Frey and Dr. Marc Poppner will join Accenture as managing directors. They will continue to lead the Zielpuls team along with their existing management team and support the firm’s transition to Accenture Industry X.0.

Markus Frey, co-CEO of Zielpuls, said, “We are excited to become part of Accenture Industry X.0 which will allow us to scale our services for clients, get access to the best brands in the world and capitalize on the huge market opportunity in the area of smart connected products and services.”

Zielpuls will be the latest of several acquisitions Accenture has recently made to expand Accenture Industry X.0. These include strategic design consultancy designaffairs (Germany), Pillar Technology (US) with its strong focus on embedded software development for the automotive industry, hardware engineering firm Mindtribe (US), and Enterprise System Partners (Ireland), a consulting and manufacturing services provider for the life sciences industry.

Completion of the acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.