Accenture taps Bulletproof as part of AWS, Azure push

Bulletproof has partnered with digital consulting giant Accenture Operations to provide combined services to blue chip clients.

The partnership means cloud solutions provider Bulletproof will provide consulting, implementation and support services for Amazon Web Services, Azure and private clouds to enhance Accenture's local cloud consulting, implementation and support capabilities.

Customers will be able to migrate, scale, optimise and innovate in the cloud as a result of the partnership

Both companies are engaged on a number of "large joint opportunities" with more opportunities expected to follow for corporate and government customers.

Bulletproof chief executive Anthony Woodward said: "We are very excited to be partnering with the leading provider of cloud-lead digital transformation strategy for enterprise and government organisation in the Asia-Pacific market. We believe the two organisations bring a unique and market-leading blend of capability to help accelerate organisation' cloud migration and transformation."

Accenture Operations managing director Jordan Griffiths said the partnership centres around cloud advisory, DevOps, cloud migration and cloud support.

"This partnership strengthens our local ecosystem and adds capabilities to support our clients on their journey to cloud," said Griffiths.

In order to enhance customer experience capabilities, Accenture just acquired Sydney-based creative agency The Monkeys. The creative agency has 130 employees and was recently named 2017 APAC Creative Agency of the Year by marketing publication Mumbrella and was a past Agency of the Year recipient from AdNews, B&T, Campaign Asia, Campaign Brief, and others.

"Customer experience is the new battleground and this acquisition will enable Accenture Interactive to integrate creative excellence with digital customer experience delivery," said Brian Whipple, head of Accenture Interactive.

"Together, we’re bringing our unique model to the market: part creative agency, part business consultancy, and part technology powerhouse – all focused on creating the best customer experiences on the planet."

In November 2016, Accenture acquired Sydney-based consultancy firm 2nd Road.

In March, Bulletproof was included in Gartner's Magic Quadrant in the Public Cloud Infrastructure Managed Service Providers Worldwide report.

Bulletproof went through an internal restructure this year to keep up with the fast-moving cloud services market. The restructure saw the company shed 30 staff, but saved $4.5 million. Bulletproof posted a 13 percent rise in revenue to $24.5 million for the half-year ending 31 December 2016.

Bulletproof has also announced the full year revenue for the 2017 financial year is expected to be $48.5 million, less than the $54 million previously expected. The company has also updated the underlying EBITDA to $3 million, instead of the $6 million previously expected.

The publicly listed cloud solutions provider is part of the Federal Government cloud services panel. One of its most recent works was with the Victorian Department of Environment, to which Bulletproof built a data lake on AWS so the department could make better use of its half-a-million gigabytes of high-value imagery.