March 04, 2019

Accenture Acquires UK-Based Innovation Firm ?What If!, Enhancing Ability to Help Clients Reinvent Themselves with Experimentation-Led Approach



Acquisition will further expand Accenture’s front-end innovation capabilities


LONDON; March 4, 2019 – Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has acquired ?What If!, a privately owned innovation firm that uses an experimentation-driven approach to help clients incubate new products, services, business models and organizational cultures.

The acquisition will further enhance Accenture’s front-end innovation capabilities that help clients rapidly ideate, prototype and scale innovative products and services for the digital economy. The terms of acquisition were not disclosed.

Headquartered in London, with additional offices in New York and Shanghai, ?What If! applies provocative and bold thinking with fast iterative testing to help clients build agile and adaptive organizations. Since its establishment in 1992, ?What If! has developed many programs, tools and methods to train and educate people and organizations on building an innovation culture, including proprietary metrics that can measure the commercial viability of a project. The firm has codified the individual and organizational mindsets, skills and working practices that are needed to spark and sustain innovative thinking within large, established organizations, serving as a trusted C-suite advisor.

“With digital technologies converging, consumer expectations rising, and businesses under constant pressure to stay ahead of the digital curve, the only path forward is constant innovation to ensure flexibility and agility across every business function,” said Eric Schaeffer, a senior managing director at Accenture who leads its global Industrial practice and its Products Industry X.0 practice. “The acquisition of ?What If! is a significant addition to our innovation-engine capabilities.”

?What If! serves FTSE 100 and other leading companies across a variety of industries — including healthcare, finance, high tech, industrial, mobility, and consumer goods and services. Its primary areas of focus include brand and customer engagement, product innovation, and enterprise innovation. For instance, the firm helped a food and beverage company develop a strategy to bring to market a new type of coffee; the new product sold nearly 1 million packs within four weeks and became the company’s most successful coffee launch ever. Using its rapid experimentation-led approach, ?What If! also helped a financial services company launch a new card product faster than it had ever done, exceeding customer-acquisition goals in its first year.

John Zealley, who leads Accenture’s Customer Insight & Growth practice, said, “Together with ?What If!, we will help C-suite executives ask the right questions at the front end of their innovation journeys, imagine the ‘art of the possible,’ and then reinvent themselves — a core part of Accenture’s Living Business growth proposition for clients.”

?What If!’s more than 150 employees possess a wide range of innovation skills, including strategy, insight and research, ideation, design and commercial analytics. The firm’s distinct experimentation framework and team of experts will complement Accenture’s multidisciplinary teams of designers, developers and other technology experts who work with clients to investigate, imagine and bring to life new ideas in areas such as robotics, artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, connected products and devices.

“Over the last 26 years we have continued to push and re-invent our innovation process, rooted in human centered design, lean iteration and agile economics, to help companies to embrace innovation and empower transformation from the inside,” said Dave Allan, a ?What If! co-founder and board member. “By joining forces with Accenture, we can industrialize and scale our frameworks and methodologies, offering our existing client base a broad range of technology-related capabilities. Together, we’ll be uniquely positioned to enable companies to imagine new futures and turn disruptive ideas into innovative digital solutions that drive business performance.”

Accenture brings its innovation capabilities together through the Accenture Innovation Architecture, which uses an innovation-led approach to help our clients develop and deliver disruptive innovations, and to scale them faster. From research, ventures and labs to studios, innovation centers and delivery centers, the Accenture Innovation Architecture helps clients understand, experiment with, adopt and quickly scale new and emerging technologies.

About Accenture
Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries and all business functions — underpinned by the world’s largest delivery network — Accenture works at the intersection of business and technology to help clients improve their performance and create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With 469,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us at www.accenture.com.

Forward-Looking Statements
Except for the historical information and discussions contained herein, statements in this news release may constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Words such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “likely,” “anticipates,” “expects,” “intends,” “plans,” “projects,” “believes,” “estimates,” “positioned,” “outlook” and similar expressions are used to identify these forward-looking statements. These statements involve a number of risks, uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied. These include, without limitation, risks that: the transaction might not achieve the anticipated benefits for Accenture; Accenture’s results of operations could be adversely affected by volatile, negative or uncertain economic and political conditions and the effects of these conditions on the company’s clients’ businesses and levels of business activity; Accenture’s business depends on generating and maintaining ongoing, profitable client demand for the company’s services and solutions including through the adaptation and expansion of its services and solutions in response to ongoing changes in technology and offerings, and a significant reduction in such demand or an inability to respond to the changing technological environment could materially affect the company’s results of operations; if Accenture is unable to keep its supply of skills and resources in balance with client demand around the world and attract and retain professionals with strong leadership skills, the company’s business, the utilization rate of the company’s professionals and the company’s results of operations may be materially adversely affected; Accenture could face legal, reputational and financial risks if the company fails to protect client and/or company data from security breaches or cyberattacks; the markets in which Accenture operates are highly competitive, and Accenture might not be able to compete effectively; changes in Accenture’s level of taxes, as well as audits, investigations and tax proceedings, or changes in tax laws or in their interpretation or enforcement, could have a material adverse effect on the company’s effective tax rate, results of operations, cash flows and financial condition; Accenture’s profitability could materially suffer if the company is unable to obtain favorable pricing for its services and solutions, if the company is unable to remain competitive, if its cost-management strategies are unsuccessful or if it experiences delivery inefficiencies; Accenture’s results of operations could be materially adversely affected by fluctuations in foreign currency exchange rates; as a result of Accenture’s geographically diverse operations and its growth strategy to continue geographic expansion, the company is more susceptible to certain risks; Accenture’s business could be materially adversely affected if the company incurs legal liability; Accenture’s work with government clients exposes the company to additional risks inherent in the government contracting environment; if Accenture is unable to manage the organizational challenges associated with its size, the company might be unable to achieve its business objectives; if Accenture does not successfully manage and develop its relationships with key alliance partners or fails to anticipate and establish new alliances in new technologies, the company’s results of operations could be adversely affected; Accenture’s ability to attract and retain business and employees may depend on its reputation in the marketplace; Accenture might not be successful at acquiring, investing in or integrating businesses, entering into joint ventures or divesting businesses; if Accenture is unable to protect its intellectual property rights or if Accenture’s services or solutions infringe upon the intellectual property rights of others or the company loses its ability to utilize the intellectual property of others, its business could be adversely affected; changes to accounting standards or in the estimates and assumptions Accenture makes in connection with the preparation of its consolidated financial statements could adversely affect its financial results; many of Accenture’s contracts include payments that link some of its fees to the attainment of performance or business targets and/or require the company to meet specific service levels, which could increase the variability of the company’s revenues and impact its margins; Accenture’s results of operations and share price could be adversely affected if it is unable to maintain effective internal controls; Accenture might be unable to access additional capital on favorable terms or at all and if the company raises equity capital, it may dilute its shareholders’ ownership interest in the company; Accenture may be subject to criticism and negative publicity related to its incorporation in Ireland; as well as the risks, uncertainties and other factors discussed under the “Risk Factors” heading in Accenture plc’s most recent annual report on Form 10-K and other documents filed with or furnished to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Statements in this news release speak only as of the date they were made, and Accenture undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements made in this news release or to conform such statements to actual results or changes in Accenture’s expectations.

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Contacts:

Aleks Vujanic
Accenture
+44 7500 974 814
aleks.vujanic@accenture.com

Tara Burns
Accenture
+44 7850 435 158
tara.burns@accenture.com