Accenture Forms Alliance with Maana to Help Oil and Gas Client Accelerate Digital Transformation

Accenture Ventures makes minority investment in Maana

NEW YORK & PALO ALTO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has formed a strategic alliance with and made a
minority investment in Maana,
the pioneer in digital knowledge technology enabling industrial
companies to accelerate digital transformation. The alliance will
initially target oil and gas clients, with plans to expand to other
industries. Terms of the investment were not disclosed.

The Maana Knowledge Platform™, which creates digital knowledge based on
human expertise and data and augments people’s abilities to make better
and faster decisions, complements Accenture’s deep industry expertise
and capabilities. By working together, Accenture can extend its
intelligent industry solutions such as Digital Plant Operations and
Intelligent Operations Center with Maana’s knowledge platform™, which
accelerates creation of knowledge models using its patented knowledge
graph and artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms.

Through the use of AI and analytics within the Maana Knowledge
Platform™, Accenture can help clients digitize decision flows and
optimize assets and operations. For oil and gas companies, this can
result in better outcomes in areas that require high volume and high
value judgment-based decision-making such as well planning and
operations, maintenance, commodity trading and logistics.

“Knowledge-based decision-support platforms are of great interest to
many of our oil and gas clients and teaming partners, some of whom are
already using Maana’s solutions,” said Andrew Smart, global managing
director of Accenture’s energy practice. “We will collaborate with Maana
and scale these solutions to help clients take advantage of digital
knowledge for operational optimization. With the arrival of the digital Industry
X.0 wave, we are already seeing a large number of use cases
leveraging Maana’s platform. Furthermore, our investment will help
Accenture Applied Intelligence – which combines the power of AI with
Accenture’s deep industry and analytics expertise – define new ways of
working with clients, using intelligent technology and human ingenuity
to deliver greater business value.“

Accenture
Ventures drove the investment and alliance formation using an open
innovation approach to identify, partner with, and strategically invest
in the most promising cutting-edge technologies in the market to quickly
scale disruptive innovation. As part of the alliance, Accenture will be
the preferred systems integrator for Maana.

“We look forward to our new strategic alliance with Accenture as we
collaborate closely to help energy and other clients in their digital
transformation journeys,” said Babur Ozden, CEO and co-founder, Maana.
“Our alliance indicates that digitization is becoming a critical
mainstream activity at the world’s largest industrial companies and
demonstrates the demand for Maana’s AI-driven knowledge technology as a
key enabler of industrial digital transformation.”

This marks Accenture’s second recent investment in a leading technology
firm to help clients solve their most complex business challenges. Last
month, Accenture
Ventures made a minority investment in and formed an alliance with 1QBit,
a leading quantum computing firm based in Vancouver, British Columbia,
to help Accenture Applied Intelligence expand its capabilities in
quantum computing analytics across several industries, including energy,
financial services and life sciences.

About Accenture
Accenture is a leading global professional
services company, providing a broad range of services and solutions in
strategy, consulting, digital, technology and operations. Combining
unmatched experience and specialized skills across more than 40
industries and all business functions – underpinned by the world’s
largest delivery network – Accenture works at the intersection of
business and technology to help clients improve their performance and
create sustainable value for their stakeholders. With approximately
425,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries, Accenture
drives innovation to improve the way the world works and lives. Visit us
at www.accenture.com.

About Maana
Maana pioneered “digital knowledge technology”
for the enterprise. Maana’s patented Knowledge Graph™ combined with
Maana’s proprietary algorithms, expedites extracting knowledge from data
silos, to reveal their relationships in the context of optimizing
operations and decision flows. Customers include Fortune 500 companies
such as Chevron, GE, Maersk, Shell and Airbus. In 2017 Maana is named
Technology Pioneer by the World Economic Forum. Maana’s strategic
investors are comprised of Intel Capital, GE Ventures, Chevron
Technology Ventures, Saudi Aramco Energy Ventures, Shell Technology
Ventures, CICC and Accenture. Maana is privately held with offices in
Palo Alto, California, Bellevue, Washington, Houston, Texas and multiple
locations in Europe. Visit us at https://www.maana.io/

Twitter:@MaanaKnowledge
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/maana

Contacts

Accenture
Guy Cantwell, +1 281-900-9089
[email protected]