Yesterday, the Accenture signage was put up on the new building, so I guess it’s official: we have moved our local HQ from fancy Amsterdam Zuid to corporate Amsterdam Zuidas.

Here’s an impression of the move. lees verder…

This post is to follow up on my previous post on getting the promotion to consultant. Let me discuss how the Accenture Career Levels works within the Consulting Workforce. The Consulting workforce has an “up-or-out” career path. The average time for each level is displayed in the picture below:

Accenture Consulting Career Levels

So I’ve joined Accenture as an Analyst on the 1st of August 2005 and will become a consultant on the 1st of September 2007. Slightly more than 24 months ;-) Because the fiscal year starts in September.

My next step will be to become a manager, which will take a minimum of 36 months. We’ll see what the future brings me next

CRM Magazine, the industry’s leading publication, has named Accenture as the recipient of its 2007 CRM Market Awards for the consultancy category. Accenture has been honored with the leadership award in this category every year since 2003.

The award honors organizations that, according to the magazine, “focused on creating and cultivating rewarding customer experiences and relationships through the sophisticated integration of people, processes, and technologies.”

In eight industry categories, the magazine named one vendor, firm or consultancy as the Market Winner, based on highest score compared to its peers. Awards recipients are determined through an extensive three-month process and proprietary rating formula that involves industry analysts, financial and corporate information, product and functionality assessments, and customer satisfaction scores.

You can read all about the award in the September issue of the magazine, which can viewed online at destinationCRM.com

Some characteristics that are very typical in todays globalized, commercialized and standardized society, haven’t just yet touched some traditions in Europe. Thank god! One of the things that I really appreciate is the effort, love and patience that people can put in producing a product like wine, beer, and cheese the old-style-way. This is what makes a product really special and one can definitely taste the difference with mass produced food and beverages.

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Yesterday morning I’ve received the long awaited phone call from my Career Counselor… with the good news that I’ve received my promotion! I will be a consultant starting from 1st of September!

The other day a colleague told me the story of the 10 monkeys. They were all in a cage where a few bananas hang from the roof. Whenever one of the monkeys would take a banana, they would all be splashed soaking wet, which they hated of course. Quickly, they saw through the system and nobody took a banana from the roof.

Then, one by one the monkeys would trade places with monkeys in a cage next to them, which did not have this banana-system in place. When the first new monkey reached to take a banana, the other monkeys got so mad they beat him up. This happened with every new monkey and soon there were all these monkeys new to the banana cage, who knew not to take the bananas but had no idea why, since they had never been splashed. Still – nobody took a banana.

For me, it’s a great metaphor for some of the work done at organizations which do not innovate and re-invent themselves. The people do all these chores because it is custom, but don’t stop to think about the ‘why’. They practice business as usual, just because other say this is the right way. Instead - let’s question everything. Why don’t we take alll the bananas together once. Maybe we’ll get splashed - but at least we will have all the bananas and it will not happen again.

Accenture launched its Web Evaluator two weeks ago. The Accenture Web Evaluator provides a comprehensive assessment of how well companies use their websites to attract and retain customers, support and reinforce their brand, deliver services and generate sales. In creating the new offering, Accenture developed a rigorous methodology that captured information from websites of more than 260 of the world’s most prominent consumer brands, using nine key factors comprised of 33 criteria associated with delivering a high-performing branded customer experience via the Internet. The nine key factors included: search and navigation; information; service; engagement; relationship building; branding; eCommerce; globalization; and number of visitors. lees verder…

It has never been more important for companies to design, manage and deliver an appropriate branded customer experience. Nowadays, customer expectations are increasing: Customers have more information than ever before and are able to compare products and services across industries and geographies. 

Within this context, companies which incorporate a Customer Experience Design model and a Customer Centric approach will benefit an improved customer profitability, customer satisfaction and loyalty.

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By the end of July the US and the EU have agreed to adjust their agreement on the passing of information on European flight passengers from to the US. Under the old agreement the US was entitled to obtain 34 characteristics of a person flying out from the EU to any US airport. examples of such characteristics are name, address and creditcard number.

Although the US minister of Internal Security has described the former agreement as an important instrument for detecting potentially dangerous persons the EU has always been more hesitant in to surrender privacy for security. In this light it is an interesting question how the decrease of the number of characteristics from 34 to 19 should be interpreted.

Source: ANP, 27-07-2007

We have found leaders rely on three differentiating traits to create and sustain loyalty:

1. Leaders think about Marketing and Customer Management differently;
2. Leaders excel across five key performance factors;
3. Leaders undertake transformational changes to support excellence.

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