If the COVID-19 pandemic taught us anything about global supply chain management, it’s the importance of edge computing and industry-specific expertise. With such high stakes, the partnership between IT management firm Accenture PLC and data management provider Splunk Inc. was more crucial than ever to leverage the unique capabilities from both companies, according to Brian Berg (pictured), principal director for Applied Intelligence Group at Accenture PLC.

“We have a very collaborative partnership with Splunk,” Berg said. “We have … more than 4,000 people working on Splunk projects globally, so it’s a very strong capability. You can reach out to Accenture, and you can reach out to Splunk. It’s a collaborative, strategic go-to-market approach.”

Berg spoke with Lisa Martin, host of theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio, during the Splunk .conf21 Virtual event. They discussed the highlights of Accenture and Splunk’s partnership. (* Disclosure below.)

The three major components of the Accenture-Splunk partnership

The Accenture-Splunk partnership is anchored around three core components, according to Berg. The first component is matching up Accenture’s deep industry expertise with cloud alongside Splunk technology. This really gives Accenture a unique differentiator in the market, because they are capable of having an end-to-end platform for their clients.

“We have been starting to work [with] … one of the leading European freight companies, where we really put the Splunk platform to the stretch and are using even internet of things data — like wagon shock sensors or locomotive data — to create very fancy … use cases,” Berg described.

The second component to the partnership is developing industrialized solutions, which has lead to Accenture’s Intelligent Operations, a model using machine learning to rapidly serve customers in the digital transformation. The third component is also closely related, as Accenture sees Splunk as an enabler of the cloud journey for their clients.

“A great example is our supply chain offering. We have developed a supply chain control tower,” said Berg. “Obviously, with the pandemic situation and the supply chain issues impacting our economic return and recovery, [this] is a very specific and very strong case. You can really use Splunk as a real-time supply chain tool, and that’s … the industrialized vertical solutions which we also did in our partnership.”

Accenture recently did a study of executives across the country that said 46% of the companies surveyed were overwhelmed by the complexity of a digital transformation and the cultural shift that companies need to undergo, according to Berg. He believes that Accenture and Splunk can help customers to create that shift.

“It’s not only a technological challenge, but also it’s a change and … transition [in] management,” concluded Berg. “It’s really about getting the business into the next level of understanding these complex data situations and the processes, and leveraging the value of the cloud. So that’s a huge business change as well.”

Watch the complete video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE’s coverage of during the Splunk .conf21 Virtual event. (* Disclosure: TheCUBE is a paid media partner for Splunk’s .conf21 Virtual conference. Neither Splunk Inc., the sponsor for theCUBE’s event coverage, nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE