Based on case published by Kellogg School of Management (KEL471)

1. STRATEGIC IT TRANSFORMATION AT ACCENTURE
- GOA INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT (GROUP 4)
Sayan Pal
(2016110)
Kamal Bahety
(2016082)
Shubhendu Mishra
(2016116)
Oisheeparna Sen
(2016161)
Tapobrata Majumdar
(2016118)

2. ORIGIN OF ACCENTURE : FLOW OF EVENTS
1913
Arthur
Andersen
accounting
founded
1954
Added
consultancy
with
accounting
service
1989
Andersen
Consulting
& Arthur
Andersen
split
1990-1996
SAP
implementatio
n initiated
1997
Initiated
arbitration
process for
separation
2000
Arbitration
panel
reaches a
verdict
2001
Accenture
Consulting
founded
2001
IPO raised
$1.7 Billion
2002
IT
Transformati
on initiated
*Accenture – Large organization with $11 Bn in Annual revenue, 75 thousand
employees and more than 50 offices around the world

3. IT TRANSITION : THE NEED
• Patchwork of Legacy Applications – Low Flexibility, No ready interconnection
• Obsolete software platforms-Inability in remote access, requirement of
expensive private networks, risky manual compilation of financial information
• Self owned accounting and HR systems were outdated
Deficiency in
Infrastructure
Integration of
Global
Corporation
• Effective IT Infrastructure was critical for integration for the newly emerged global
organization and also to precipitate the knowledge flow, industry practices and
accurate financial information across the organization as well as to the investors
• Need for improving internal infrastructure to provide the touted
best practices and advanced technologies to its clients
• To provide support personnel and consultants “anytime, anywhere”
access to knowledge and information as their job demanded of high
mobility while remaining connected
• 75% of Accenture employees/consultants operated out of either
Client locations or where travelling. In house office work was less.
Strategic need
of “Anytime,
Anywhere”

4. PROBLEM DEFINITION AT ACCENTURE
• IT as a cost centre
• IT as a service provision centre
Value addition
Managing
Technology
platforms
• Decentralised approach
• Mixed Approach
• One-firm Approach
“Today’s Business environment makes wireless connectivity and other technologies almost a given, but in 2001
this was an aggressive technological goal”–
Accenture to create own IT infrastructure in a year
Aim : Development and Efficient management of a nimble and flexible IT organization with lowest per employee
cost without sacrificing the quality or innovation of technology tools
• Changing the IT philosophy (Business within a Business)
o Cultural shift
o Technology prioritise have political component
o Many island approach – difficult to integrate
• Resistance from different levels of the organization for radical change
• Go in house or outsource? If outsource what ?
• Best of breed or single platform which weighed heavy

5. CONNECTION BETWEEN STRATEGY AND ARCHITECTURE
• Organization’s 600 global and 1500 local applications on multiple platforms generated too much IT
complexity
• Accenture opted for single vendor approach to minimize the total cost of ownership of its IT infrastructure
• Minimize the number of worldwide applications it deployed
• For back-end IT operations, to provide communication and productivity applications, Accenture chose
Microsoft as a partner
• Single Platform and common global applications reduce overall expenditures and allow for flexibility to grow
through scalability
• Every office running own financial and HR suite of products had increased cost, made the process complex
and time consuming
• So, Accenture chose SAP as its worldwide application provider for financial and human resources solutions
• For hardware needs, Accenture went with HP
• For network-related equipment, Cisco was taken into consideration

6. CONNECTION BETWEEN STRATEGY AND ARCHITECTURE

7. CONNECTION BETWEEN STRATEGY AND ARCHITECTURE
• Accenture implemented new governance system to administer its IT decisions.
• Earlier, each division of the organization fought hard to get its own projects approved in an
unstructured and haphazard process.
• Under new governance, a steering committee was chaired by Accenture’s CIO and included the chief
operating officer of every line of business.
• By this, IT project selection philosophy became much more effective and streamlined.
• Also, each project had to have a senior business sponsor, typically a member of the committee.
• Sponsor’s role included but was not limited to, convincing other members of the committee of the
business value of the proposal he or she championed.

8. CONNECTION BETWEEN STRATEGY AND ARCHITECTURE

9. ORGANISATIONAL CHANGE STRATEGY
• Splitting up of the Arthur Anderson to Anderson Consulting and Arthur Anderson to look after different businesses
• Giving up the name further for Anderson Consulting to become Accenture to become the world’s largest
management consulting firm
• Viewing IT as a business opportunity rather than as a cost centre playing a supportive role
• Identify core IT competencies to handle in-house or outsource
• Benchmarking of third party providers to set standards for the vendors as well as internal performance metrics
• Opting for single-vendor with global presence while simultaneously reducing the number of applications gave a huge
cost reduction
• Maintaining different service levels for managing core and non core business application to reduce IT support cost
while maintaining satisfaction with the support
• Opting for best practices for other domains apart from IT with a strong web-enabled enterprise solution to provide
greater flexibility, centralized control and strong integration while reducing complexity
• Use of the Global delivery Network to carry out in the company outsourcing to overseas centre to build applications
at lower cost while also maintaining core applications inside US
• ROI-oriented approach for initiating new IT projects for prudent allocation of IT budgets while also doing
periodic audits to keep accountability of sponsor and IT team organizational change strategies and
approaches in dealing with complexity in very large companies

10. BEST PRACTICES FOR TRANSFORMING IT INFRASTRUCTURE
"We aim to practice what we preach"
- Frank Modruson, CIO Accenture
• Outsourcing - Allowed the CIO Organization to extend its capabilities, standardize delivery and drive rapid cost-
effective implementation
o Core light strategy (increase staffing flexibility) – Only 14% employees were directly under Accenture rest
86% was borrowed via Accenture Global Delivery Network
o Accenture sources business application development and maintenance to the Accenture Global Delivery
Network, a network of global sourcing resources
• Empowering users to "serve themselves” - Direct access to IT products and services boosts productivity and puts
control in the hands of the employees.
o If employees need to set up a team website, for example, they no longer work through an IT "middleman."
They simply complete an online request form and are sent a link to a newly created site
• Managed Services Approach “Run IT like a Business” - which creates the right suite of IT products and services
for each customer segment, rather than the traditional one-size-fits-all model
o Internet storage per account was made available in 50, 150 or 500 MB with distinctive price points
Ref. https://www.accenture.com/t20150527T211408__w__/jp-ja/_acnmedia/Accenture/Conversion-
Assets/DotCom/Documents/Local/ja-jp/PDF_2/Accenture-Technology-ACN-IT-Transformation-Case-Study-6606.pdf

11. Set strategy & governance
• Establishing the fact that Accenture should run as a business within a business.
• Segregating Strategies to be done in-house and those to be outsourced.
• Service Level Agreements (SLAs) drafted for each product line.
Run IT like a business
• Implemented managed service approach.
• Each product offering accompanied by different levels of service with
distinct price point for end user.
Centralize, standardize, consolidate
• Going for single-vendor approach to reduce cost and establishing better control
across all business units. Thus, having advantage of economies of scale.
Minimise total cost of ownership and total number of world wide applications
STEP-BY-STEP APPROACH IN RATIONALIZING A HIGH COST IT
TECHNOLOGY INFRASTRUCTURE
Ref. https://www.accenture.com/us-en/service-it-transformation-value

12. Source smarter
• Microsoft for Common Global Applications
• SAP SE for Financial and HR solutions
• HP for computers and servers
• Cisco for Network Infrastructure
• Custom vendors only for critical business requirements selected
Consolidate and virtualize data centres
• Leveraging Outsourcing via Global Delivery Network (GDN)
aimed at reducing cost
• Using cost advantage via economies of scale and location
Transform the network
• Single-instance platform application was implemented for easy
upgradation, maintenance and integration of applications
Transform processes
• Implementing new governance system to administer future IT
decisions
• Going for a ROI approach while allocating future IT budgets
Ref. https://www.accenture.com/us-en/service-it-transformation-value

13. 180,000 Employees
86 % Satisfied Sponsors
IT Spend from Revenue ($)
- Reduced by 59%
Global Applications - 356 Local Applications - 195
Revenue- $21.6 Billion
IT Spend ($)- Reduced by 22%
IT Spend per person ($)
- Reduced by 69%
1 Technology Platform
IT TRANSFORMATION
RESULTS
Benefits Realized – 111%

14. CASE REVIEW : CLASSIC CASE OF IT CONSULTING
• Accenture’s transformational journey began in the year 2000, as they reduced costs while
increasing investments in innovative technologies.
• By focusing on continuous improvement and business value, Accenture’s internal IT organization
fundamentally improved IT efficiency and effectiveness. We can effectively use Accenture’s
experience as a leading approaches for how organizations should plan for, buy and manage IT
resources.
Focus Areas :
• Platform Selection
• IT restructuring
• Supplier Management (Partnership with Microsoft,HP, Cisco, SAP)
• Outsourcing Strategy
• Minimizing applications for better IT management
• Running IT like business (Business IT alignment,employee empowerment,
managed service approach)
• Cost benefit, ROI analysis
• Radical Culture Shift (Structured IT Governance,steering committee)
• Change in organizational attitude
“build a single infrastructure that
was global, scalable and secure “

15. Thank You