Accenture Acquires Cloud Sherpas to Boost Cloud Consulting Chops

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This article originally ran at Talkin' Cloud

Accenture has acquired cloud advisory company Cloud Sherpas in order to scale its cloud consulting capabilities. The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

According to an announcement by Accenture on Tuesday, the acquisition will bring cloud strategy, technology consulting, and application management, integration and management services to its newly formed Accenture Cloud First Applications team. The division delivers cloud services for Google, NetSuite, Salesforce, ServiceNow, Workday and other “pure play” technologies.

With the cloud professional services market to be worth up to $34.41 billion in 2019, Accenture is one of the main contenders, and it continues to invest in cloud capabilities, not limited to its acquisition of Cloud Sherpas. Also this year, Accenture acquired consulting services company Axia, and Spanish cloud consulting firm Solium, along with several other acquisitions.

Headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, Cloud Sherpas has more than 1,100 employees. It has grown since its launch in 2007 to one of the top cloud service brokerages for Google, Salesforce, and ServiceNow.

Last year, Cloud Sherpas made a $10 million investment in its new global cloud advisory business unit designed to support large enterprises in their migration to the cloud. In April, Cloud Sherpas launched its Managed Services group and committed to hiring dozens of new employees.

“We are thrilled to be joining forces with Accenture. Cloud Sherpas was born in the cloud and we are perfectly aligned with Accenture’s Cloud First agenda,” David Northington, Cloud Sherpas’ chief executive officer, said in a statement. “The combination of our capabilities and experience with Accenture’s scale, broad industry expertise and global cloud application capabilities represents a unique and compelling opportunity for our clients, for our people and for the future of cloud technology.”

Cloud Sherpas made this year’s Talkin’ Cloud 100 list as #56.

Over the past couple of years, Cloud Sherpas has grown its business organically as well as through acquisitions. In 2013, Cloud Sherpas acquired Innoveer Solutions and Navigis to help customers migrate to Salesforce and ServiceNow. It also acquired London-based Stoneburn Software Services to gain a foothold in growing markets.

Goldman Sachs served as Accenture’s financial advisor on the deal.

This first ran at http://talkincloud.com/cloud-computing-mergers-and-acquisitions/accenture-acquires-cloud-sherpas-boost-cloud-consulting-cho