- Accenture (NYSE: ACN) recently announced it was buying both Callisto Integration and Kates Kesler. These are the details about both deals.
Accenture (NYSE: ACN) recently announced it was buying both Callisto Integration and Kates Kesler. Callisto Integration is a Canada-based provider of consulting and technology services, which provides digital manufacturing services for large companies in a wide variety of industries. And Kates Kesler is an organization design consultancy based in New York City. The terms of both deals were undisclosed.
Callisto Integration Acquisition
This acquisition will expand Accenture’s capabilities to help its clients in North America ensure the timely production of orders, increase their yield, and enhance the quality of their products. Some of Callisto’s key services are the design and implementation of manufacturing execution systems, industrial internet of things (IoT) systems, and shop-floor control systems.
These systems ensure that materials, workers, and equipment for each production order are ready when it is needed. And they also provide real-time data on the production process. This way, companies can better detect and address quality issues and more accurately predict machine failure.
The 160 Callisto employees will be joining Accenture’s Industry X.0 practice. This Accenture unit taps into digital technologies like IoT, data analytics, and AI to improve how companies design, engineer, and manufacture products and services and operate industrial facilities.
Callisto has two offices in the U.S. (Richmond, Virginia and Albany, Oregon) along with offices in Warwick in the United Kingdom and Rotterdam in the Netherlands.
Callisto is going to play a key role in creating a collaborative environment for digital manufacturing in North America — which will help clients develop and quickly execute innovative ideas, supported by a team of digital technology experts, and a full manufacturing technology stack.
This acquisition includes Callisto’s Albany-based MeasureTek subsidiary — which uses IoT technology to provide precision farming services like dynamic field monitoring and irrigation information.
Callisto Integration is known as the third digital manufacturing advisory and services provider that Accenture has acquired recently following Silveo in France and Enterprise System Partners in Ireland last year.
Some of the other recent acquisitions made to advance its Industry X.0 business include German embedded software company ESR Labs, Dutch product design and innovation company VanBerlo, U.S. product innovation and engineering company Nytec, U.K. innovation firm Happen, and German technology consultancy Zielpuls.
Key Quotes About The Callisto Deal
“Our clients, who include the leaders in virtually every industry, are under tremendous pressure to harness the power of disruption for competitive advantage. Our acquisition of Callisto shows how we continue to scale our digital manufacturing capabilities to help our clients innovate and succeed in an environment of accelerating digitization.”
– Accenture Chief Executive Officer – North America Jimmy Etheredge
“Digital technologies are fundamentally transforming the factory floor. The combination of our Industry X.0 capabilities with Callisto’s digital manufacturing expertise can help our clients make their production processes more efficient and flexible. It can also help them produce higher-quality products and increase the safety and sustainability of their plant operations.”
– Craig McNeil, Managing Director, North America Industry X.0 + Global Product X.0 at Accenture
“With Callisto, Accenture will offer a unique combination of manufacturing, technology and analytics services. We’re thrilled to welcome Callisto‘s employees to the Accenture family and to work together to solve our clients’ biggest challenges.”
– Jeffrey Russell, President of Accenture in Canada
“Becoming part of Accenture Industry X.0 and Accenture’s global organization is an incredible opportunity. It allows us to bring our digital manufacturing solutions to more clients at a scale that hasn’t been possible before and presents new opportunities to our people.”
– Michael Grasley, Chief Innovation Officer at Callisto Integration
Kates Kesler Acquisition
Kates Kesler is an organization design consultancy headquartered in New York City that helps many of the world’s largest companies execute on their growth strategies. And Kates Kesler is joining Accenture’s Talent & Organization / Human Potential practice an will add new methodologies and organizational design solutions that will expand existing C-suite offerings like People Experience, Organization, Leadership & Culture, Work & Workforce, Digital Core, Business & Change Agility, Intelligent Operating Model and Living Systems.
Kates Kesler is considered one of the most respected firms in the field of organization design, both for its insights and design processes along with its highly participative methodology. And the participative methodology has become the standard for organization design across industries and central to the company’s many recognitions.
Kates Kesler was launched in 2020 by Amy Kates and Greg Kesler. They are thought leaders who have authored numerous books on organization design. Their most recent book called Bridging Organization Design and Performance (see below) is a guide for CEOs to activate their global operating models:
And in addition to consulting, the firm helps its clients build internal capability including through executive education programs with leading universities globally.
Key Quotes About The Kates Kesler Deal
“Many of our clients were already shifting their operating models in response to dramatic changes in their business strategies even before the COVID-19 global pandemic hit,” said Eva Sage-Gavin, who leads Accenture’s Global Talent & Organization / Human Potential practice. “Kates Kesler’s recognized experts and leading methodology are a natural complement to our existing offerings in this area and will enhance our ability to outmaneuver today’s never normal for and with our clients.”
– Eva Sage-Gavin, Senior Managing Director of Accenture’s Talent & Organization/Human Potential Practice
“Sharing our work with clients and building the field of organization design have always been priorities for us, and joining Accenture scales that ambition to new highs.”
– Kates Kesler co-founder Amy Kates
“The opportunity to scale what we do and bring the strategy, technology and innovation assets of Accenture to bear in our organization work is an exciting vision.”
– Kates Kesler co-founder Greg Kesler
Disclosure: Pulse 2.0 could receive a commission for purchases made through this article. This author also has a small number of ACN shares.
