One on One with Accenture's Anne-Marie O'Halloran

Accenture is about to acquire ESP, an Ireland-based consulting and manufacturing services provider for the life sciences industry. Upon close, ESP will join Accenture Industry X.0, which helps clients master the digital reinvention of industry, strengthening the firm's capabilities to transform manufacturing for pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device clients globally. The combination of ESP's digitally-enabled manufacturing services and Accenture's Industry X.0 capabilities will allow clients to take advantage of engineering and product lifecycle management, advanced analytics and artificial intelligence for a more flexible, efficient and cost-effective production process, says Anne Marie O'Halloran, Managing Director and lead of Accenture's Life Sciences Industry X.0 group.ESP currently services 17 of the top 20 global pharmaceutical and biotech companies from offices in Ireland, France, the Netherlands, Puerto Rico, Turkey and the United States and has a team of 200 professionals. O'Halloran sat down with Consulting to discuss the ESP acquisition.

Consulting: Can you tell me a little bit about ESP and the reasons behind the acquisition?

O'Halloran: We're really excited with what ESP brings to the table and how it further augments our capabilities. What I think excited us the most was they have long-standing industry experience in implementing manufacturing solutions—with niche expertise in manufacturing execution systems (MES), as well as their work in serialization. MES provides a digital foundation that's needed for clients to take advantage of analytics and IOT. And serialization allows clients to digitally track each saleable unit from the packaging line all the way to the patient.