One on One with Accenture Strategy's Chris Donnelly

A lot has been said and written about digital disruption, and few industries have felt that disruption as acutely as retail. Nowadays a cohesive retail strategy involves much more than a functioning e-commerce app or website, the changes also have to be adapted to internally and at all levels. Accenture recently acquired Kurt Salmon, a mainstay on Consulting's Best Firms to Work For list, to bolster its retail practice in a time that the industry is rapidly changing. Consulting recently caught up with Chris Donnelly, Senior Managing Director of Accenture Strategy's retail industry practice to talk about the nuts and bolts of the acquisition, the new landscape of retail, and the consulting opportunities it presents.

Consulting: What made Kurt Salmon an attractive acquisition target? 

Donnelly: They've been around over 80 years, and they are specialists in retail consulting and retail strategy. We've collaborated with them in the past, we've seen them as competitors and we've work with many of the same clients. What's always been impressive about them is their depth of expertise in retail. When we looked at our retail business, we would argue it's one of the largest in the world if not the largest, but there are still opportunities. It's a growing segment, there's a need for more depth of expertise, more talent. Kurt Salmon has spikes of expertise that complement ours and vice versa, so we think the fit is great. It's primarily a talent play. We see a number of clients where both Kurt Salmon and Accenture are present, which to us indicates there's a little bit of a gap on both sides; neither of us is able to cover the full suite, and we see that as an encouraging sign that we can do that now. Many of those clients have actually been very strong proponents of what we've done with the acquisition, even coming to us afterwards and saying we've been working with both of you separately and we love that you're coming together to really help us as a combined entity in even better ways.