4 ms·

This definitely wasn't in my 2024 bingo card. What does Accenture (or for that matter Udacity) have to gain from this acquisition?

by yen223 3y ago

candiddevmike 3y ago
Free training for their worldwide consultants? They probably spend a small fortune on in house training and development, makes sense to just acquire a company to do it for them (and have a platform to resell this IP through) There could also be a trojan horse play to see what companies are training their employees on so as to offer competitive managed services around it.
anizan 3y ago
They are going to increase prices then offer discounts to corporate clients I suppose
TuringNYC 3y ago
Accenture has >730,000 employees (https://newsroom.accenture.com/fact-sheet https://newsroom.accenture.com/fact-sheet) Much of their model is hiring entry-level to junior resources, upskill them, bill them out to clients at high mark-ups. Many parts of the workforce follow an up-or-out mentality and technical/functional upskilling is a key component to this, rather than just tenure. Purchasing a platform to train that many people is probably a bargain compared to what they are probably doing now -- letting everyone choose their own platform and reimbursing the retail cost. It is definitely a bargain compared to what they did when I worked there -- they owned and operated an entire University-like campus called "St. Charles Illinois" and flew people in from all over the world.
- geodel 3y ago
  Agree. At Accenture's training budgets level I'd imagine 5-10% of that money could churn out hundreds of new courses per year.
- ghaff 3y ago
  The whole ex-MOOC and other online learning landscape has basically turned into (and mostly always was) continuing professional education. It's nice that there are still some options out there like OCW but it's mostly been a pretty dismal failure from the perspective of really transforming anything.
  - geodel 3y ago
    This is part of that list where at one point computer were supposed to totally transform learning in school. We know it didn't happen. Them mobile/smartphone were supposed to transform learning on the go that also didn't happen. But worry not, now personalized AI agents will totally transform learning. There will be individualized lectures for every students. No more lack of attention from teachers be bottleneck in learning.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      Yeah. And it's not like broadcast university lectures and some rudimentary echoes of in-person grading systems are some pinnacle of providing effective education. There's nothing wrong with video lectures--I take LinkedIn classes at work from time to time for certain topics--but it's usually because something appeals to an immediate need and being visual is at least useful.
- creativeSlumber 3y ago
  How would this work? I presume Accenture still has to invest the course content that is specific for them, and then use Udacity as the distribution platform. Why couldn't they do that before just like all the universities that uploaded their courses to Udacity?
- cheriot 3y ago
  I wonder if Accenture will also try to sell it as an add on in their contracts. Selling education to companies is much more lucrative than selling it to students. The closest one of these companies has gotten to profitable is Udemy via their business segment.
- throwaway598 3y ago
  Given you were in Accenture, you might appreciate the 'vertical' (those who 'find' work - consultants and senior management) vs the 'horizontal' (those who do work, and their management). St. Charles will still exist for the vertical, and for the chosen horizontal. An acquisition like this is for the horizontal and once internalised sufficiently to sell to clients, the selling the product not any individual training course which are pretty fungible. Online corporate in-house training's been lagging consumer bells-and-whistles for a decade, it'll be a flashier-better product than current competition.
lmm 3y ago
> What does Accenture (or for that matter Udacity) have to gain from this acquisition? Accenture's core competency is getting governments (and large companies) to hand over large sums of money. Seems like a good fit.
- yen223 3y ago
  That's what I don't understand, why would they spend all that money on Udacity, rather than spending it on champagne and Ferraris for senior officials? Where's the ROI for Udacity?
  - lmm 3y ago
    Udacity seems like the kind of thing governments and large companies would love to pay large sums of money to; it's something you can point to to say you're doing something good, which ultimately increases the champagne-and-Ferrari budget. So there's a synergy there.
bfeynman 3y ago
Accenture also performs weird menial tasks under guise of efficiency for large corps apparently unable to do it themselves. I would venture they will also roll out platform to enable corps to run their banal trainings on it (compliance etc)
shrubble 3y ago
Accenture has lots of corporate clients, probably 90% of the Fortune 1000; they could easily make an SSO sign-on work (like Percipio does with companies I am aware of) and give access to all or part of the content for a set fee per-month or a low per-course fee for employees of those companies.
dagw 3y ago
While I haven't worked for Accenture, I have worked for other consulting companies and designing and delivering custom in house eduction programs to companies was a non-trivial part of what parts of the company did. I imagine that they see Udacity as a platform for growing that part of the business.

This definitely wasn't in my 2024 bingo card. What does Accenture (or for that matter Udacity) have to gain from this acquisition?

by yen223 3y ago

This definitely wasn't in my 2024 bingo card. What does Accenture (or for that matter Udacity) have to gain from this acquisition?

candiddevmike 3y ago

Free training for their worldwide consultants? They probably spend a small fortune on in house training and development, makes sense to just acquire a company to do it for them (and have a platform to resell this IP through) There could also be a trojan horse play to see what companies are training their employees on so as to offer competitive managed services around it.

anizan 3y ago

They are going to increase prices then offer discounts to corporate clients I suppose

TuringNYC 3y ago

Accenture has >730,000 employees (https://newsroom.accenture.com/fact-sheet https://newsroom.accenture.com/fact-sheet) Much of their model is hiring entry-level to junior resources, upskill them, bill them out to clients at high mark-ups. Many parts of the workforce follow an up-or-out mentality and technical/functional upskilling is a key component to this, rather than just tenure. Purchasing a platform to train that many people is probably a bargain compared to what they are probably doing now -- letting everyone choose their own platform and reimbursing the retail cost. It is definitely a bargain compared to what they did when I worked there -- they owned and operated an entire University-like campus called "St. Charles Illinois" and flew people in from all over the world.

geodel 3y ago
Agree. At Accenture's training budgets level I'd imagine 5-10% of that money could churn out hundreds of new courses per year.
ghaff 3y ago
The whole ex-MOOC and other online learning landscape has basically turned into (and mostly always was) continuing professional education. It's nice that there are still some options out there like OCW but it's mostly been a pretty dismal failure from the perspective of really transforming anything.
- geodel 3y ago
  This is part of that list where at one point computer were supposed to totally transform learning in school. We know it didn't happen. Them mobile/smartphone were supposed to transform learning on the go that also didn't happen. But worry not, now personalized AI agents will totally transform learning. There will be individualized lectures for every students. No more lack of attention from teachers be bottleneck in learning.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    Yeah. And it's not like broadcast university lectures and some rudimentary echoes of in-person grading systems are some pinnacle of providing effective education. There's nothing wrong with video lectures--I take LinkedIn classes at work from time to time for certain topics--but it's usually because something appeals to an immediate need and being visual is at least useful.
creativeSlumber 3y ago
How would this work? I presume Accenture still has to invest the course content that is specific for them, and then use Udacity as the distribution platform. Why couldn't they do that before just like all the universities that uploaded their courses to Udacity?
cheriot 3y ago
I wonder if Accenture will also try to sell it as an add on in their contracts. Selling education to companies is much more lucrative than selling it to students. The closest one of these companies has gotten to profitable is Udemy via their business segment.
throwaway598 3y ago
Given you were in Accenture, you might appreciate the 'vertical' (those who 'find' work - consultants and senior management) vs the 'horizontal' (those who do work, and their management). St. Charles will still exist for the vertical, and for the chosen horizontal. An acquisition like this is for the horizontal and once internalised sufficiently to sell to clients, the selling the product not any individual training course which are pretty fungible. Online corporate in-house training's been lagging consumer bells-and-whistles for a decade, it'll be a flashier-better product than current competition.

lmm 3y ago

> What does Accenture (or for that matter Udacity) have to gain from this acquisition? Accenture's core competency is getting governments (and large companies) to hand over large sums of money. Seems like a good fit.

yen223 3y ago
That's what I don't understand, why would they spend all that money on Udacity, rather than spending it on champagne and Ferraris for senior officials? Where's the ROI for Udacity?
- lmm 3y ago
  Udacity seems like the kind of thing governments and large companies would love to pay large sums of money to; it's something you can point to to say you're doing something good, which ultimately increases the champagne-and-Ferrari budget. So there's a synergy there.

bfeynman 3y ago

Accenture also performs weird menial tasks under guise of efficiency for large corps apparently unable to do it themselves. I would venture they will also roll out platform to enable corps to run their banal trainings on it (compliance etc)

shrubble 3y ago

Accenture has lots of corporate clients, probably 90% of the Fortune 1000; they could easily make an SSO sign-on work (like Percipio does with companies I am aware of) and give access to all or part of the content for a set fee per-month or a low per-course fee for employees of those companies.

dagw 3y ago

While I haven't worked for Accenture, I have worked for other consulting companies and designing and delivering custom in house eduction programs to companies was a non-trivial part of what parts of the company did. I imagine that they see Udacity as a platform for growing that part of the business.