With live national radio coverage on BNR Nieuwsradio, 1441 innovative entries and 32000 social votes, the sixth edition of the Accenture Innovation Awards was an even bigger success than last year’s edition. In the Amsterdam Convention Factory over 900 guests joined Accenture in recognizing and rewarding the most innovative concepts in the Netherlands with the Blue Tulip. This year, for the first time in Innovation Awards history concepts could also compete for a special award for the most sustainable innovation: the Green Tulip.
Aiming at honoring, uniting and stimulating innovation in the Netherlands, keynote speakers Wouter van Dieren (Club of Rome), Mike Lee (Appsterdam) and Andre Kuipers (Astronaut ESA) shared their thought and vision on sustainable innovation. Wouter van Dieren kicked-off the event by stating that there are limits to growth, developments and innovations of industrial capital and agriculture. By changing the rules of ‘Business as usual’ organizations can take natural and social capital in consideration, instead of mainly focusing on financial capital. Andre Kuipers took the audience on a breathtaking journey in the life of an astronaut, his daily practices and his experiences during Mission ISS earlier this year. He demonstrated the vulnerability of the Earth Read more…
Earlier this year Accenture published the results of their 3rd annual global survey of energy consumers titled, Actionable Insights for the New Energy Consumer. This report provides energy organizations a detailed perspective into the current drivers influencing the shift in consumer needs and behaviors.
“The energy consumer landscape is constantly shifting with smart technologies, new products and services and challenging economic realities.” — Greg Guthridge, Global Managing Director Accenture Retail and Business Services for Utilities
Accenture gives great value to talent development. Therefore, Accenture decided to participate in the Young Professional of the Year (YPY) initiative of the Intercompany Association (ICA) where several young professionals compete for the title of ‘Young Professional of the Year 2012’.
To select the Accenture Young Professional of the Year our first step was to Read more…
In celebration of Accenture’s 10-year anniversary, I have written about it’s history over the past months. Over this period, I have taken a chronological look at the roots of Accenture by taking a closer look at one specific period which shaped the culture and values of our company: from the Beginnings in the early 1950’s to our transformation which resulted in Becoming Accenture in 2001, to Building High Performance and our Accent on the Future.
As a wrap-up of this series of blog posts, I have highlighted the blog posts which discussed the foundational periods in Accenture’s history below:
- 1953: First commercial application of a computer in the United States: Andersen was hired to program the payroll for General Electric’s Appliance Park manufacturing facility near Louisville, Kentucky. General Electric hired the Administrative Services team to assist in the design and installation of the system.
- 1965: John Higgins’ Charismatic Leadership and Accenture’s Special Sauce: Higgins was the organizational genius of Andersen. “John was probably one of the most brilliant men I have ever met in my life. He was meticulous in everything he did. It was either going to be right or not at all”. The Special Sauce was a mixture of moxie, drive and the willingness to commit the necessary resources. While Higgins didn’t coin the phrase “special sauce,” his strong leadership provided all the key ingredients for the recipe.
- 1970’s: “Bargain of the Century” – St. Charles: Beginning in the early 1970s Andersen made the “bargain of the century” when it purchased St. Dominic College in St. Charles, Illinois for $4 million. Today, the facility continues to play a role in Accenture’s education programs. A trip to the St. Charles campus is still a rite of passage for newly hired consultants.
- Early 1980’s: Competition from IT Outsourcing: The consultants realized that while Administrative Services was growing at roughly 20 percent a year, the industry was growing even faster, and, therefore, the consultants were losing market share. A new breed of non-accounting firms with practices which had it’s roots in IT outsourcing was emerging.
The late 1990s witnessed a surge of entrepreneurial risk-taking unleashed by the growth of the Internet. Andersen Consulting pursued its entrepreneurial destiny as well by filing, and winning, an arbitration case against Andersen Worldwide. The fully independent firm established its own identity with the adoption of its new name, Accenture, and a successful IPO, despite the bursting of the dot-com bubble. The company adjusted to new realities brought on by economic recession and the war on terror.
Two months later, Accenture and the world were shocked by the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. The consultants rallied to fund and construct a Family Assistance Center in downtown Manhattan where families of September 11 victims could seek information about loved ones and emergency aid. Accenture remained true to its roots. Rather than resist change, its employees proved willing to make the kind of bold moves that characterized Accenture’s strategy over the years, and that kept Accenture in the vanguard of the global technical services industry. Read more…
The Accenture CRM Team recently completed a global survey of consumers to ask about their views and opinions in the area of customer service. In the Netherlands there were 1004 participants in the survey and the results were at times quite surprising! To keep it simple I have selected five key findings that I wish to share with you;
1. Customer service expectations are rising!
Globally, 40% of consumers stated their customer service expectations had risen as compared to one year ago. This figure dropped to 19% for the Dutch sub-set of consumers. Why so much less in the Netherlands…?
2. Dutch consumers are the least satisfied with the most important service characteristics!
From eleven pre-specified service characteristics, Dutch consumers gave the following three (in order of priority) the highest score in importance: ‘having employees who are knowledgeable and informed’, ‘having customer service employees who know my history so I do not have to repeat myself’, and 3rd place was ‘the amount of time I have to wait to be served’. After scoring the characteristics to determine which were the most important consumers then were then asked to rate how satisfied they are with the current delivery of these characteristics from Dutch service providers. On a scale of 1-5 (5 being highly satisfied) the scores are shockingly low;
having employees who are knowledgeable and informed scored 2.74
having customer service employees who know my history so I do not have to repeat myself scored 2.42
the amount of time I have to wait to be served scored 2.44
So the service characteristics that are the most important to Dutch consumers are also those characteristics that consumers are least satisfied with. Odd, don’t you think? Are Dutch consumers not communicating to service providers what is important to them…? Or are service providers just not listening…? Read more…
On the 26th of May Accenture sponsored, in conjunction with TeleTrain, the first annual Customer Service Seminar. The theme this year was to investigate and discuss the impact of new social media platforms on organizations and their interactions with the customers.
The day began with an introduction to the demanding and selective customers of today combined with a poll of the room to see how ’social’ the audience members were. After the short introduction the participants were in agreement to the challenge their organizations face and were ready with their smart phones to start filling up the Twitter fountain. The day flew by as all 8 speakers provided their view on the challenge of today, and those challenges that are likely to arise. Key ideas shared by the presenters are; Read more…
This year we celebrate 10 years Accenture. On January 1, 2001, we successfully rebranded our company. We take great pride in the fact that only two years after becoming Accenture, we were ranked No. 53 among the world’s top global brands with a brand value of more than US$5 billion—and that today we have a brand value of US$7.5 billion.As a company, we have seen much change over the past 10 years. For example:
We have nearly tripled our workforce—from 75,000 employees in 2001 to more than 211,000 people today.
We have transformed our operating structure—from a group of locally owned idependent partnerships or other entities in 2001 to a public company with net revenues of US$21.6 billion today.
We have expanded our presence in the emerging markets. In 2001, five percent of our employees were based in Brazil, Russia, India, China, Mexico and South Korea. Today 36 percent of our people reside in these markets.
We have started the new year with a refresh of our airport advertising globally. Following our overall advertising strategy I wrote about in a previous post, the new creatives continue to explore topical high performance themes: optimizing productivity, capturing unconventional opportunities and enhancing core competence. Appearing across 31 countries—in print, television, online and airport media—the advertising retains its signature balance of wit and insight, as well as its now-familiar use of animal metaphors.
At Schiphol, we have a presence since many years ago at the B pier and LO L1.
The old ad, Play quantum leapfrog, has been replaced by Fuzzy Sheep. The other ad present now at Schiphol is Polar Bear. More information on our airport advertising can be found at accenture.com.
Continuous innovation and rapid transformation have been themes throughout Accenture’s history. Established in 1989 primarily as a technology consultant and systems integrator, Accenture soon began offering a new breed of business integration solutions to clients—solutions that aligned organizations’ technologies, processes and people with their strategies.
Harmen Werkman: Je noemt drie seizoenen maar toen wij in Februari aankwamen was het dus eigenlijk nog winter. In Pune was dat al genieten en in Hyderabad...Read the full comment
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In celebration of Accenture’s 10-year anniversary, I have written about it’s history over the past months. Over this period, I have taken a chronological look at the roots of Accenture by taking a closer look at one specific period which shaped the culture and values of our company: from the 
The late 1990s witnessed a surge of entrepreneurial risk-taking unleashed by the growth of the Internet. Andersen Consulting pursued its entrepreneurial destiny as well by filing, and winning, an arbitration case against Andersen Worldwide. The fully independent firm established its own identity with the adoption of its new name, Accenture, and a successful IPO, despite the bursting of the dot-com bubble. The company adjusted to new realities brought on by economic recession and the war on terror.
On the 26th of May Accenture sponsored, in conjunction with TeleTrain, the first annual Customer Service Seminar. The theme this year was to investigate and discuss the impact of new social media platforms on organizations and their interactions with the customers.
