Dive Brief:

• Global management consultancy Accenture continued its acquisition spree this week by adding two new companies to its roster — IBB Consulting and Matter. The deals were revealed in separate announcements yesterday.
• IBB Consulting helps broadband and mobile operators, media companies and technology providers uncover emerging industry shifts, adapt to market changes and capitalize on new business and tech opportunities per a press release announcing the acquisition. It will specifically help Accenture Strategy’s clients in the Communications, Media and Technology (CMT) sectors.
• The second acquisition, design and innovation firm Matter, will bolster Accenture Interactive’s design and innovation unit Fjord by adding physical product design to its services per a separate press release.

Dive Insight:

Accenture has acquired well over a dozen companies over the past five years to ramp up its digital services division that competes with ad agencies, as well as to boost its core consulting business. The pace of acquisitions kicked into high gear this year, in particular, as the company in the past few months alone has announced deals for the Wire Stone agency, Search Technologies and Brand Learning and the firm Clearhead.

Part of Accenture’s acquisition strategy for its digital services division, Accenture Interactive, has clearly meant to put it in direct competition with traditional ad agencies. The consultancy’s actions suggest much grander plans could be afoot as it moves to enter territory more closely aligned with ad tech firms and other players within the larger digital advertising and marketing ecosystem.

Industry experts agree that Accenture is looking to completely disrupt the existing digital marketing industry. In order to become an alternative to the major holding companies like WPP, Publicis and Omnicom, Accenture had to reshape its business segments and strengthen capabilities, Olivier Gauthier, founder and CEO of Comvergence, previously told Marketing Dive. With the IBB Consulting and Matter deals, Accenture is beefing up its media, strategy and creative capabilities.

Accenture “must be” betting the market is ready for its unique value proposition, Brigitte Majewski, a vice president and research director at Forrester who tracks the advertising and marketing industries, previously told Marketing Dive. The consultancy is looking for a big picture approach to execute true digital transformations for brands, she said.