Just a little two months after unveiling plans to acquire PwC Consulting, IBM Wednesday completed its acquisition of the firm, creating a 60,000 employee-strong business consulting services organization with operations in more than 160 countries.

IBM paid about $3.5 billion in cash and stock for the PricewaterhouseCoopers unit, which specializes in global management consulting and technology services. IBM combined the 30,000 consulting professionals from PwC with its own professionals to form a new business unit, IBM Business Consulting Services.

The unit is intended to provide customers with a full range of business and technology consulting services that can leverage IBM's services, infrastructure, technology and financing resources.

Business Consulting Services will adopt IBM's sector and industry segmentation, and also PwC's key solution areas. Ginni Rometty, general manager of IBM Business Consulting Services, will head up the operation, with three geographic leaders reporting directly to her. The geographic leaders are Mike Collins, general manager of Business Consulting Services-Americas; David Dockray, general manager of Business Consulting Services-Europe, Middle-East and Africa; and Hideki Kurashige, general manager of Business Consulting Services-Asia Pacific. All three come to IBM from PwC.

The deal was approved by PricewaterhouseCoopers member firms and partners globally, and has received regulatory clearances in both the U.S. and European Union.