• Home
  • Latest
  • Fortune 500
  • Finance
  • Tech
  • Leadership
  • Lifestyle
  • Rankings
  • Multimedia

Trendingnow

1

The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind

2

Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock

3

Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem

1

The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind

2

Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock

3

Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem
TechPointCloud

Tech Consulting Giants Were Big on Acquisitions in 2016

By
Heather Clancy
Heather Clancy
Down Arrow Button Icon
By
Heather Clancy
Heather Clancy
Down Arrow Button Icon
December 21, 2016, 10:30 AM ET
Courtesy of IBM
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

The list of technologies that can transform how companies do businesses is long and growing longer by the minute. There’s software for customer service, sales, and marketing, and for crunching data to help executives make better decisions.

Corporate customers are expected to spend an astounding $2.1 billion annually on technology by 2019, according to market research firm International Data Corp. The demand by companies for help with installing it all and teaching workers to use it wisely have prompted big technology consulting firms to make dozens of acquisitions of design and strategy agencies in 2016.

Accenture (ACN), IBM (IBM), Cognizant (CTSH), Deloitte and Wipro (WIT) all snapped up smaller firms that can help businesses dream up new business models, test ideas, and install the technology to make those visions reality. For example, in November, Accenture and Cognizant both expanded their digital teams in Europe with the buyouts of London’s Karmarama (which caters to automaker Honda and consumer goods company Unilever) and Amsterdam’s Mirabeau (which counts airlines KLM and AirFrance as customers.)

Gajen Kandiah, president of Cognizant Digital Business, said his organization has added more than 500 anthropologists and behavioral economists over the past six months to help companies envision how technology will change how they do business. Many companies struggle with this step, he suggests. “This is a market that is quite confusing, and not really getting better over time,” he told Fortune.

Get Data Sheet, Fortune’s daily technology newsletter.

From a sheer numbers perspective, Accenture did the most acquisitions among its peers—it bought six boutique creative agencies and software development firms in the second half of 2016 alone. Separate reports from research firms Everest Group, Forrester, and Gartner list Accenture as the largest digital consulting firm based on the sheer number of services is offer related to analytics, cloud services, and other digital technologies. It can handle projects in more than 40 offices worldwide.

Accenture is followed closely by IBM in terms of employees dedicated to this area. IBM has been adding more talent quickly: it acquired three creative design agencies during the span of just one week early in the year, and then bought another in April. As of February, IBM’s consulting unit dedicated to consulting on digital technologies had more than 10,000 employees.

Accenture doesn’t disclose the size of its workforce.

Brian Whipple, senior managing director for Accenture Interactive, an Accenture business that specializes in helping clients with technology for dealing with their customers, said much of the consolidation is being driven by a desire by large companies to regain control over how customers “experience” their products and services.

That could include helping companies create entirely new ways to show off products to customers, such as using augmented reality headsets—which layer digital images onto a “real world” view—without actually taking them on the road. In theory, the data collected about that interaction would be used as part of an ever-changing profile of that individual customer that gives insights into their likes and dislikes.

Websites, mobile apps, and digital marketing videos—and other interactions—are becoming just as important as traditional advertising activities in shaping what consumers think about companies, Whipple said. “It’s just one of about 100 different experiences that a consumer will have with a company.”

How GE is merging industrial and digital models.

While many technology consulting firms specialize in some of these areas, market researcher Gartner says only a handful of them are capable of advising customers about the full breadth of their digital strategies like their growth plans, cybersecurity, using the Internet of things, evaluating new technologies, and changing corporate culture. Gartner’s list of the best one-stop shops for digital services includes (alphabetically) Atos, Booz Allen Hamilton, Boston Consulting Group, Capgemini, Cognizant, Deloitte Digital, EY, IBM, McKinsey, Orange Business Services, PwC, and Wipro.

Today, services related digital technologies account for nearly 20% of Wipro’s overall revenue. But this portion of Wipro’s business will grow least 30% to 50% over the next three years especially from customers in the financial services, telecommunications, media, and health care sectors, said Rajan Kohli, senior vice president and global head of Wipro Digital. “By definition, the disruption is often tied to consumer habits,” he said.

That opportunity inspired Wipro’s $500 million takeover of cloud services specialist Appirio in October. Appirio CEO Chris Barbin said his company had planned to build its own design team before it agreed to the takeover but now has access to designers through Designit, a Danish design agency that Wipro bought in July 2015. Appirio’s newfound ability to help customers about both cloud software investments and design-centric issues, such as how to make applications and websites easier to navigate, has already helped the combined teams win several deals together, he said.

About the Author
By Heather Clancy
See full bioRight Arrow Button Icon
Add Fortune on Google for similar content.

Latest in Tech

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025

Most Popular

Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Finance
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit, sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. Ut enim ad minim veniam
By Fortune Editors
October 20, 2025
Fortune Secondary Logo
Rankings
  • 100 Best Companies
  • Fortune 500
  • Global 500
  • Fortune 500 Europe
  • Most Powerful Women
  • World's Most Admired Companies
  • See All Rankings
  • Lists Calendar
Sections
  • Finance
  • Fortune Crypto
  • Features
  • Leadership
  • Health
  • Commentary
  • Success
  • Retail
  • Mpw
  • Tech
  • Lifestyle
  • CEO Initiative
  • Asia
  • Politics
  • Conferences
  • Europe
  • Newsletters
  • Personal Finance
  • Environment
  • Magazine
  • Education
Customer Support
  • Frequently Asked Questions
  • Customer Service Portal
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Single Issues For Purchase
  • International Print
Commercial Services
  • Advertising
  • Fortune Brand Studio
  • Fortune Analytics
  • Fortune Conferences
  • Business Development
  • Group Subscriptions
About Us
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • About Us
  • Press Center
  • Work At Fortune
  • Terms And Conditions
  • Site Map
  • Facebook icon
  • Twitter icon
  • LinkedIn icon
  • Instagram icon
  • TikTok icon
  • YouTube icon

Latest in Tech

Jensen Huang made his $172 billion fortune on AI chips. His family’s $75 million gift to Vanderbilt argues art decides what technology is for
Big Techphilanthropy
Jensen Huang made his $172 billion fortune on AI chips. His family’s $75 million gift to Vanderbilt argues art decides what technology is for
By Sydney LakeJuly 23, 2026
1 hour ago
Thijn Lamers is Co-Founder and President, Noah.
Commentarystart-ups
Adyen co-founder: Europe does not need more ambition. It needs to stop hiding it
By Thijn LamersJuly 23, 2026
1 hour ago
Sundar Pichai, chief executive officer of Alphabet Inc.
AIAlphabet
Anthropic and SpaceX just handed Google the biggest profit quarter in company history—on paper
By Eva RoytburgJuly 22, 2026
9 hours ago
‘It’s called StreetEasy, not StreetHard’: Mamdani cracks down on scourge of ‘housefishing’ and ‘real estate slop’
Real EstateHousing
‘It’s called StreetEasy, not StreetHard’: Mamdani cracks down on scourge of ‘housefishing’ and ‘real estate slop’
By Tatiana SatauaJuly 22, 2026
11 hours ago
As Washington panics about Chinese AI, Jensen Huang says open-source models like Kimi are ‘excellent’ and should be embraced, not banned
AIChina
As Washington panics about Chinese AI, Jensen Huang says open-source models like Kimi are ‘excellent’ and should be embraced, not banned
By Marco Quiroz-GutierrezJuly 22, 2026
11 hours ago
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman sits next to U.S. President Donald Trump.
AITech regulation
OpenAI’s rogue hacking incident was a warning shot. Will it be a wake-up call to finally create AI safety regulation?
By Jeremy Kahn and Emily ForliniJuly 22, 2026
12 hours ago

Most Popular

The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind
Real Estate
The millennial generation has split, new Fed research shows: Those over 35 are edging toward boomer-style wealth, while everyone else falls behind
By Nick LichtenbergJuly 22, 2026
16 hours ago
Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock
Success
Mark Cuban says he has the solution to growing income inequality, and it's to reward every employee—from CEO to janitor—with company stock
By Sasha RogelbergJuly 20, 2026
3 days ago
Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem
AI
Mathematicians grapple with a ‘very rapid and very unsettling change’ as AI cracks yet another century-old problem
By Eva RoytburgJuly 21, 2026
2 days ago
OpenAI says its AI models secretly broke out of a secure test environment and hacked into AI company Hugging Face in order to cheat on an evaluation
Cybersecurity
OpenAI says its AI models secretly broke out of a secure test environment and hacked into AI company Hugging Face in order to cheat on an evaluation
By Jeremy Kahn and Emily ForliniJuly 21, 2026
2 days ago
Despite a $156 million contract, Knicks star Jalen Brunson still calls his parents for financial advice any time he makes a big purchase
Success
Despite a $156 million contract, Knicks star Jalen Brunson still calls his parents for financial advice any time he makes a big purchase
By Emma BurleighJuly 21, 2026
2 days ago
Scott Bessent casually says the U.S. has more than $1 trillion in gold—and that it doesn’t matter for the dollar
Economy
Scott Bessent casually says the U.S. has more than $1 trillion in gold—and that it doesn’t matter for the dollar
By Sasha RogelbergJuly 22, 2026
13 hours ago

© 2026 Fortune Media IP Limited. All Rights Reserved. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy | CA Notice at Collection and Privacy Notice | Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information
FORTUNE is a trademark of Fortune Media IP Limited, registered in the U.S. and other countries. FORTUNE may receive compensation for some links to products and services on this website. Offers may be subject to change without notice.