Accenture To Acquire N3 To Boost Clients’ Sales

Accenture Plc, a leading IT professional services provider, agreed to acquire N3, a tech-driven sales firm, to help boost its clients’ sales growth in a virtual environment. As a result of the deal about 2,200 employees will be added to Accenture’s global workforce. The company did not disclose the financial terms of the acquisition.

The IT professional services provider said that N3’s specialized sales talent, supported by its cloud-based artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, in combination with Accenture’s (ACN) SynOps platform would drive sales growth.

Manish Sharma, Accenture Operations’ CEO said “N3 provides the perfect combination of skilled talent and technology to remove barriers and better influence purchasing decisions at critical stages.” (See ACN stock analysis on TipRanks).

Accenture is set to report its 4Q results on September 24. Ahead of its 4Q results, Wedbush analyst Moshe Katri raised the stock’s price target to $255 (7.6% upside potential), and maintained a Buy rating. Katri believes 4Q results will likely exceed the Street consensus. In addition, the analyst expects fiscal year 2021’s guidance to be conservative, amid the ongoing volatility in the IT (information technology) spending environment.

Currently, the Street has a cautiously optimistic outlook on the stock. The Moderate Buy analyst consensus is based on 9 Buys, 6 Holds, and 1 Sell. The average price target of $246.79 implies upside potential of 4.2% to current levels. Shares have advanced 12.5% year-to-date.