Accenture has acquired Happen, a privately owned innovation firm that uses proprietary methods and digital tools to help clients generate new ideas, products and services. The terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.
Established in 2007, Happen has helped companies primarily across the consumer goods, food and beverage, retail and life science industries. The firm’s key skills include consumer insights where teams identify new opportunities and determine how an organisation can commercialize them; and product and service innovation.
“Bringing data-driven intelligence to clients’ decision-making, Happen helps companies tailor innovative products, services and experiences to create customer-centric businesses,” said Eric Schaeffer, a senior managing director at Accenture who leads its products industry X.0 practice and supply chain and operations consulting practice. “The acquisition further enhances the analytics, design and engineering capabilities we use to help clients deliver relevance at scale to a marketplace of millions of individuals.”
Mark Cowan, co-founder of Happen, said, “Joining Accenture will enable us to scale our offerings and capabilities and deliver our services to an even greater range of clients. We’re excited to become part of one of the world’s truly great companies.”
Happen is the latest in a series of acquisitions Accenture has made recently to expand its Industry X.0 product innovation capabilities. These include the acquisition of Pragsis Bidoop, a Spanish company with expertise in big data, artificial intelligence and advanced analytics, and its acquisition in March of ?What If!, an innovation firm that uses an experimentation-driven approach to help clients incubate new products, services, business models and organisational cultures.
