Accenture boosts energy sector capabilities with True North Solutions acquisition
CALGARY, CANADA — Outsourcing giant Accenture has announced its acquisition of True North Solutions, a Calgary-based provider of industrial engineering solutions.
The acquisition aims to enhance Accenture’s ability to help clients in the oil, gas, and mining industries produce and transport energy more safely and efficiently.
The terms of the deal remain confidential.
Expanding operational technology expertise in energy sector
True North Solutions specializes in operational technology (OT), which encompasses the hardware and software systems that companies use to operate and control physical equipment and facilities such as pipelines, refineries, plants, and mines.
By integrating True North’s knowledge with its own advanced digital capabilities, Accenture plans to optimize clients’ operations through real-time data analytics and intelligent asset management.
Additionally, Accenture plans to collaborate with the True North Solutions team to engineer and commission new field operations that seamlessly integrate OT and IT.
“True North Solutions brings boots-on-the-ground understanding of how to design, build and commission our clients’ critical assets and infrastructure,” said Adam Foster, Accenture Canada’s Energy Portfolio leader.
“We are combining True North Solutions’ unique expertise with our advanced digital capabilities, such as digital thread, predictive maintenance and intelligent asset management, to improve the performance and safety of our clients’ field operations.”
Enhancing digital transformation in energy production
The merger will enable Accenture to offer more comprehensive solutions for digitizing and integrating OT and IT systems in new field operations and facilities.
The integration is expected to lead to increased productivity, predictability, and safety in energy production and transportation.
David Morgenstern, president of Accenture in Canada, emphasized the importance of this acquisition. He said, “We will help our clients benefit from transformative technologies such as generative and predictive AI through digitally enabled field operations.”
True North Solutions, which offers engineering and commissioning, industrial automation solutions, enterprise asset management, OT cybersecurity, and digital infrastructure for industrial telecommunications, will bring a team of 95 experts in automation, instrumentation, and electrical engineering to Accenture’s digital engineering and manufacturing service, Industry X.
Blair Hanel, CEO of True North Solutions, expressed enthusiasm about the merger: “By joining Accenture, we’re giving our clients in North America access to Accenture’s digital leadership in areas such as cloud, data, and AI, and global scale, which will help them advance their businesses.”
Accenture’s strategic growth in Canada
The acquisition of True North Solutions is part of Accenture’s strategic effort to enhance its capabilities for asset-intensive companies in Canada.
Previous acquisitions include Comtech Group, a consulting and program management company for infrastructure projects, and Eclipse Automation, a provider of customized manufacturing automation and robotics solutions.
Accenture is a global leader in professional services. It operates in more than 120 countries and has an approximately 750,000-person workforce. For the second consecutive year, it ranked #1 in the OA500 2024, an objective index of the world’s top 500 outsourcing companies.
