Archive for July, 2011
Posted on July 29th, 2011 at 1:19 pm by Jort Possel
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Theme: About Accenture, Latest Post | Tags: Asia, Competition, Consulting, customer needs, Global firm, Growth, High Performance, History, Outsourcing, Value Creation
The year 2003 was an extremely difficult period for many employees to live through, but the global downturn strengthened Accenture’s competitive position. With many traditional rivals left in a weakened financial state, Accenture remained unmatched in terms of its global breadth and depth. We were leveraging these strengths with scores of new and continuing engagements to drive growth in consulting revenues that was projected to exceed global growth in IT spending going forward. Once again, as it had many times in its history, Accenture showed its ability to quickly respond to changing conditions in the marketplace to best serve its customers’ needs.
Accenture also leveraged its global industry groups to differentiate itself from rival consulting as well as outsourcing firms. That fact hasn’t been lost on clients. Whether we took an insurance system we developed in Spain and installing it for a client in Chicago, or we took a banking system developed in Spain and installed it in the U.K., we got a lot of credit from our clients who say: ‘You can see that there’s “one firm”—and that’s Accenture’. A recent visit to Accenture delivery centers in India left clients with the same impression. We had a couple of clients visiting our sites in India where they said, ‘It’s very clear, you go into an Accenture office in London or you go into an Accenture office in India, and you say, that’s Accenture,’ said Karl-Heinz Floether, former group chief executive-Financial Services.
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Posted on July 29th, 2011 at 9:23 am by Battle of the Best Beta
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Theme: Careers | Tags:
30 schoolchildren with balloons
A tour guide named Lazarus
English Breakfast, massive amounts of fried chicken
And… a bumpy road.
Tuesday we’ve arrived in Kabwe, a small African city with banana trees, one barber shop per inhabitant and Airtel painted facades.
In the past few days we’ve met up with the local Plan staff at the Program Unit. Read more…
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Posted on July 27th, 2011 at 11:58 am by Tom van der Spek
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Theme: Innovation that works, Latest Post | Tags: Customer acquisition, Customer retention, Customer-driven innovation, Emerging markets, Financial Services, Innovation that works, Insurance, Insurance industry
For decades insurers cherished their reputation for conservatism because individual and corporate customers demanded solidity and constancy from the recipients of their premiums and investments. But things have changed. Today, the more conservative insurers are under threat, and innovation has emerged as the key to future success.
The first part of Accenture’s global Consumer-Driven Innovation Insurance Survey 2011 conducted in 13 countries of over 7,000 insurance consumers reveals that 90 percent of consumers are either “very” or “somewhat satisfied” with their insurers. They are fairly satisfied with and have high expectations of their insurance providers, which sounds very promising, but compared with an earlier survey the “satisfied” level has declined by 21 percent since 2009. An other interesting finding is that 33 percent of the respondents in the 2011 survey say they are unlikely to recommend their life insurance providers to others.
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Posted on July 26th, 2011 at 1:22 pm by Battle of the Best Beta
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Theme: Careers | Tags:
Nadat we begin februari de Battle of the Best Bèta gewonnen hadden, is het nu eindelijk zover: we zijn in Zambia om te kijken in hoeverre onze oplossing hier ook daadwerkelijk werkt.
Op de weg naar Zambia zijn we ‘even’ uitgestapt in Londen voor een bliksembezoekje aan Plan’s hoofdkantoor. Hier hebben we gesproken met de experts en de belangrijkste stakeholders. Via Amsterdam en een toerististische route via verscheidene Afrikaanse landen zijn we zaterdagmiddag uiteindelijk in Lusaka beland.
Eenmaal aangekomen in onze Afrikaanse Lodge, Read more…
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Posted on July 25th, 2011 at 11:49 am by Jort Possel
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Theme: About Accenture, High Performance IT, Latest Post | Tags: Airports, Biometric, Border control systems, Electronic systems, High Performance IT, Schiphol
Accenture has been selected by the Dutch Ministry of Internal Affairs to design and deliver automated border control systems at Schiphol Airport. Accenture initially provides 36 electronic border crossing systems for use at the airport. To validate the identity and passports of passengers by facial recognition, the new systems use the latest in biometric technologies. Border passage-based biometrics enhances security, increases efficiency, improves travel experience and reduces the waiting time of travelers at one of the world’s busiest airports.
In partnership with Vision-Box, Accenture already has successfully implemented similar automated border crossing programs at airports in the UK, Portugal and Finland. By deploying self-service systems, it is possible to limit the large amounts of travelers in a fast, secure and customer-oriented manner. For this project in the Netherlands, Accenture is supported by Vision-Box and Capgemini to develop and implement the solution. This partnership is also responsible for trainings, support and maintenance of the electronic systems.
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Posted on July 22nd, 2011 at 3:36 pm by Jort Possel
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Theme: About Accenture | Tags: Capacity, Consulting, Costs, High Performance IT, History, Human resources, Outsourcing, recession, Supply chain management, Transformation
By 2002 Forehand knew he had to do more than just cut costs and ride out the recession. To do so would leave an opening for a rival to take market share from Accenture or otherwise redefine the business. That wasn’t the Accenture way. He knew it was time for the company to once again embrace change and reflect the new reality in the marketplace for its clients. Accenture continued to stare change in the face every day and continue to challenge ourselves with: ‘What do we have to do to remain relevant to our clients?’. That’s what we’ve done over the last years during the downturn.
“We transformed our business model to blend consulting and systems integration services—areas in which we have had broad experience for decades—with outsourcing services,” Forehand noted in his 2002 letter to Accenture stakeholders. Accenture’s existing outsourcing expertise focused on managing business processes, applications and technology infrastructure. The company also began adding outsourcing capabilities in customer information, billing systems, information technology services, supply chain management and human resources administration.
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Posted on July 22nd, 2011 at 9:58 am by Jeroen Fidder
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Theme: Careers | Tags:
De vakantie brengt wat rust in de gelederen en dat zorgt voor wat ruimte om weer nieuwe kennis op te doen. Ik heb in het begin van het jaar al een week in de VS door gebracht voor de ‘Core Consultant School’ en had nu links en rechts wat tijd om bij lezen op het gebied van project management. Ik heb de afgelopen maand me een dag per week student kunnen wanen en dat was toch wel weer even relaxed zeg. In m’n trainingsbroek om half tien de boeken openen na een rustig ontbijtje – helemaal top. Read more…
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Posted on July 20th, 2011 at 12:36 pm by Wouter Koetzier
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Theme: Column, Innovation that works | Tags: Competitive advances, Innovation death spiral, Innovation Process Model, Innovation that works, Profitable growth, Sustainable Growth
Welcome to the first in a series of blog posts in which I’ll be looking at how a company’s approach to innovation can be the difference between success and failure. Or the difference between sustainable growth and declining sales. So what is innovation and why does it matter? And how do businesses that truly understand its importance achieve success? Not just once, but again and again. Accenture research has shown that innovation is about doing the right thing and doing the things right. In other words, what you do is important, but how you do it is even more important. Read more…
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Posted on July 18th, 2011 at 12:07 pm by Jort Possel
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Theme: Latest Post, Sustainable Performance | Tags: Consumers, Conventional cars, Electric vehicles, Fuel, Hybrid, PEV, PHEV, sustainability
PEVs (plug-in electric vehicles) have received much attention and support from governments and industry alike and are therefore a potential game changer in the realm of transport fuel technologies. As industry players monitor how the electrification of transport evolves, one of the key fronts to watch is the battle between PHEVs (plug-in hybrid electric vehicles) and full EVs. As stated in one of my previous posts, the battle between full EVs and PHEVs will not just be determined by technology, but by consumers’ perceptions and preferences. If drivers do not break out of ingrained habits or alter their perceptions, the popularity of PHEVs could hold back the adoption of full EVs. Read more…
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Posted on July 15th, 2011 at 11:57 am by Jort Possel
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Theme: About Accenture, Column | Tags: Can-do spirit, High Performance, High Performance IT, History, Outsourcing, Rebranding, Special sauce, Stock listing
The sense of accomplishment that came with the rebranding and stock listing was tempered by the sense of loss in the wake of September 11. And from a business perspective, it became clear within a few weeks that the company had been fortunate to go public when it did. With so much uncertainty in the world concerning security and the outlook for the economy, it was unclear how long the company might have had to wait to raise permanent capital, and whether it would have been able to raise anywhere near the amount it did in July 2001.
A sharp falloff in business spending was felt especially in the information technology sector in the final months of 2001. Read more…
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