This article was written by a human. Here’s how to tell.

Accenture this morning revealed that it has acquired a competing consultancy called Flo Group to enhance its capabilities in the Oracle implementation services market.

Flo has 280 employees in the Netherlands, Argentina and India. It helps big companies implement Oracle’s suite of software-as-a-service logistics applications, which enable supply chain departments coordinate the movement of goods in a more efficient manner.

Supply chains are a central focus of digital transformation programs because they generate a lot of data. Whenever a merchandise shipment changes locations on its way to a store, data about its status is sent to a backend logistics system. Over time, this adds up to a lot of information at a company like a restaurant franchise that may process hundreds of millions of individual items per week.

Because there’s such a massive amount of data to analyze, the software used to analyze it is highly complicated. That’s where consultancies like Accenture and Flo Group generate their revenue. Companies looking to set up Oracle’s logistics software for their employees usually seek out an external consulting partner to make the rollout process faster and reduce the risk the project will fail.

Flo has been in business since 2007. It boasts clients in the retail, automotive, consumer goods and manufacturing sectors as well as several other areas.

Flo CEO Michiel Keijzer framed the deal this way in a prepared statement: “For 17 years, we’ve been delivering complex supply chain solutions worldwide, as a leading Oracle business partner in supply chain in Europe. By joining Accenture, we can deliver logistics excellence at scale, while creating new growth opportunities for our people.”

Accenture will fold Flo into its Oracle Business Group. The group is one of the largest of its kind in the consulting world: Accenture has more than 60,000 employees with Oracle certifications and was the first firm to become an Oracle Diamond Status partner.

text

text