Accenture Forges Alliance With Kubota; Street Says Buy

Global professional services company Accenture (ACN) recently announced that it has entered into a strategic partnership with Kubota Corporation, a Japanese machinery company, to strengthen and speed up the latter’s digital transformation.

The aim of the partnership is to build a platform to develop solutions to enhance the productivity and safety of food, promote circularity of water resources and waste, and improve urban and living environments. This is to be done by harnessing Accenture’s expertise in artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, along with Kubota’s prominence in building sustainable businesses.

The Market Unit Lead in Japan for Accenture, Atsushi Egawa, said, “By leveraging data analytics, the cloud, artificial intelligence, and industry knowledge, we can create a tailor-made platform that will help Kubota achieve its sustainability goals — something that will have a meaningful impact on all of us together.” (See Accenture stock chart on TipRanks)

Recently, J.P. Morgan analyst Tien Tsin Huang reiterated a Buy rating on the stock. The analyst, however, raised the price target to $364 from $308, which implies upside potential of 8.2% from current levels.

Consensus among analysts is a Strong Buy based on 16 Buys and 4 Holds. The average Accenture price target of $326.17 implies downside potential of 3.1% from current levels.

Accenture scores a “Perfect 10” from TipRanks’ Smart Score rating system, indicating that the stock has strong potential to outperform market expectations. Shares have gained 40.2% over the past year.