Accenture

The overview

Accenture is a consulting firm that is made up of three business areas: management consulting, technology and business process outsourcing or BPO. The latter is about taking responsibility for part of a client's activities – for example, a company might ‘outsource’ part of its supply chain process to Accenture to manage and improve for a period. An example of technology consulting might be working with a client to develop 'cloud computing' services whereby new business services are developed via third-party IT suppliers and on remote servers, dispensing with the need for the company to buy its own IT infrastructure or to hire its own IT staff.

The firm opened its London office in 1957 (when the firm was originally called Andersen Consulting) and it now employs over 10,500 staff in the UK.

It does well in retaining its clients. In 2009, of Accenture’s top 100 clients worldwide, 99 of them had been Accenture’s clients for 5 years and 91 of them for at least 10 years.

Key client service groupings

• Communications and high tech: communications, electronics and high tech, media and entertainment
• Financial services: banking, capital markets, insurance
• Health and public service: health services, defence, postal, education, revenue, human services, immigration, justice/security, election services
• Products: automotive, industrial equipment, pharmaceuticals and medical products, retail and consumer, transportation and travel services
• Resources: chemicals, energy, forest products, metals and mining, utilities

Clients include: Barclays, BP, ITV, Carlsberg, RSC, Unilever, UK Government, Oxfam GB, Mercedes and Warner bros.

Rankings and awards

• 22nd in the Best Multi-Service Firms 2010 survey by Consulting Magazine
• 32nd in the Guardian UK 300 2010-11 graduate employers guide
• Best Undergraduate Internship/Vacation programme in the TARGETjobs Awards 2010
• Featured in The Sunday Times Top 25 Best Big Companies to Work For 2011
• Featured in Fortune’s Top 100 Places to Work

In the last six months

• August 2011: L’Oreal selects Accenture to support its field sales operations in the UK
• July 2011: Delivers automated boarder control systems at Amsterdam airport
• June 2011: Accenture implements a new nationwide electronic health record system in Singapore

Salary and benefits

Accenture offer analyst consulting graduates a starting salary of £31,000 plus a £10,000 bonus within the first two years of working for the company.

Culture and values

Accenture states it has six core values:

• stewardship
• best people
• client value creation
• one global network
• respect for the individual
• integrity

A networking culture – away from home

Networking is an important part of the firm’s culture and is instilled in employees as soon as they start work. And staff often work away from home – sometimes for months at a time. However, the firm makes a number of provisions to support staff and have several flexible working solutions, including:

• flexible hours
• home working
• revised working (simply changing the hours worked)
• job sharing
• long weekends at home (when working away from home)
• compressed working (working a full week in hours over a shorter number of days)
• outcome-only working (where employees are paid for results (outcomes) rather than the number of hours they work)