Accenture (NYSE: ACN) announced its intent to acquire PRION Group – a leading consulting and systems integrator that specializes in Siemens Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) Software. The acquisition will strengthen Accenture’s PLM skills and enhance its ability to help clients deliver products to customers faster and more efficiently.
PRION Group provides PLM strategy and process consultancy, system implementation, data migration, application management and PLM as a managed service. With the acquisition of PRION Group, Accenture will expand its end-to-end PLM offering by combining PRION Group’s full range of PLM services with Accenture’s existing PLM capabilities. Combining PRION Group with Accenture’s management consulting, technology and outsourcing capabilities will create a market-leading global PLM offering for a range of industries, including industrial equipment, automotive, consumer goods, and aerospace and defense.
Koen Deryckere, senior managing director with Accenture said: “With manufacturing companies spending as much as 25 percent of their revenues on innovation and product development, PLM can help them avoid investments in products that are either late to market or don’t fully address customer requirements. The combination of PRION Group’s PLM specialist skills and Accenture’s industrialized delivery methodologies and global scale will help clients tackle the fragmented system and process landscape in the product development space, which many companies face.
PRION Group’s skilled workforce specializes in implementing Siemens PLM Software to help clients achieve the maximum business benefits the software can provide by improving product data management, reducing development times and more efficiently delivering products to customers faster. PRION Group’s clients span a range of industries, including automotive, aerospace and defense, transportation and engineering and consumer electronics.
Dr. Joseph Unger, managing partner of PRION Group, said: “The combined capabilities of PRION Group and Accenture will enable us to offer clients the full range of services needed to improve the critical processes that get products to market quicker and more efficiently. We will help tackle key pain points of PLM projects and support clients as they seek to reduce the cost of PLM activities while increasing the traceability of products and data transparency.
Frank Riemensperger, country managing director for Accenture Germany said: “The engineering lifecycle of products increasingly draws on a complex mix of mechanical, electrical and software elements, all of which require different development techniques. Truly understanding and managing dependencies and integration requires a robust set of PLM capabilities. This acquisition will allow us to rapidly expand our PLM capabilities with a strong focus on Siemens PLM technology, thanks to the experience and skills of the PRION Group staff in helping clients unlock new value and efficiencies through critical process improvement.
Industry 4.0 concepts will dramatically increase the incidence of sensor-equipped materials and components along the manufacturing cycle,” Riemensperger added. “These provide data and updates that allow companies to further optimize production and become more flexible, complimenting PLM-driven activities around increased efficiency and reduced time-to-market.
Founded in 1998 and headquartered in Stuttgart, PRION Group is a privately held company with more than 330 employees. It has offices in Munich, Nuremberg, Zurich, Oxford, Portland, Detroit, Bangalore, Pune and Singapore.
