Enterprise ACN JUN 20, 2026

Accenture clears $18.7B in Q3, drops $4.2B on Dragos to build an OT security platform

ACN reported +6% revenue and +9% EPS for the quarter ended May 31, and lifted full-year M&A spend to $9B from $5B as AI-transformation bookings accelerate.

BY GRETA REINHART · ENTERPRISE SAAS

Accenture booked $18.72 billion in fiscal Q3 revenue for the quarter ended May 31, up 6% in USD and 3% in local currency, and used the same June 18 disclosure window to announce a roughly $4.175 billion plan to acquire a majority stake in Dragos plus full ownership of runZero and NetRise. The earnings number was the expected story. The acquisition stack is the actual one.

Diluted EPS came in at $3.80, up 9% from $3.49, with operating margin at 17.0%, a 20-basis-point expansion. New bookings landed at $19.3 billion, down 2% in USD, though the firm logged 104 client bookings of $100 million or more year-to-date, up 13%. Free cash flow was $3.6 billion for the quarter; $8.2 billion has gone back to shareholders year-to-date. Nine-month revenue reached $55.5 billion, up 7%.

The bigger signal is in the cash-flow statement. Year-to-date purchases of businesses and investments net of cash acquired hit $3.004 billion against $789 million in the prior-year period, and CEO Julie Sweet’s team lifted the full-year M&A spend target to $9 billion from $5 billion. Full-year FY2026 revenue growth guidance moved up to 3%–4% in local currency, or 4%–5% excluding an estimated one-point drag from the U.S. federal business.

Dragos, runZero, and NetRise are projected to generate around $208 million in ARR by June 2026, up 53% year-on-year, per Yahoo Finance. Accenture is buying into a $27 billion OT cybersecurity software market projected to reach nearly $59 billion by 2031, alongside a $7 billion services market it already plays in. The three deals are slated to close in August or September 2026 pending regulatory clearance. Engineering Group units Industries eXcellence Group and Alfahealth round out the quarter’s bolt-ons.

The shift here’s structural. Consulting margins are stable, bookings have softened, and the response is to buy software that turns advisory hours into platform revenue. The OT security stack is the most legible expression of that pivot: critical-infrastructure assets, recurring licenses, a Dragos-shaped moat. The firm is repositioning itself as a platform owner with consultants attached, not the other way around.

Sources

About the author

Greta Reinhart

ENTERPRISE SAAS

Greta Reinhart tracks the enterprise software stack from San Francisco — data platforms, AI bundling, seat pricing, and channel checks across the largest SaaS vendors. She files on go-to-market shifts, packaging changes, and quarterly enterprise reads.