Vision - September/October 2007 - (Page 12) viSiOnary CE’s Cutting-EdgE LEadErs ] • [ by Founded: 1989 IPO: July 19, 2001/$14.50 per share Domiciled: Bermuda Business Model: management consulting, technology services and Outsourcing Net Revenue: u.s. $16.65 billion (f 2006) Employees: 166,000 Locations: 49 countries Exchange Ticker: nYse/Acn Donated: $4.4 million to colleges and universities Geographic Regions: Americas, Asia pacific, europe/middle east/ Africa (emeA) Website: www.accenture.com Cindy LoffLEr stEvEns Accenture Ltd Stats Bill Green A Accenture chAirmAn And ceO chArting A high-perfOrmAnce cOurse ing the next three years to expand its technology consulting capabilities to help clients better align IT and business strategy. The investment addresses a strong increase in demand from clients for services and advice from technology-platform-independent services providers. When he’s not working, the 53-yearold spends time with his wife and two children. He says, “In the winter, we’re in Vermont on the slopes, and in the summer, we’re at the beach windsurfing, sailing and fishing.” He recently spoke with CE Vision about the impact that Accenture’s high-performance philosophy can have on CE companies. ccenture Chairman and CEO Bill Green, a seasoned sailor, today is at the helm of a true global juggernaut. The 30year company veteran came on board after getting his MBA at Babson College. Getting a baptism by fire, his first client assignment in 1977 was with General Dynamics in Groton, Conn., working on the Trident submarine. He says, “It was frighteningly hard to build—the most complex contracting and engineering environment in the industry. To this day, I’ve never had a more challenging assignment.” So began an impressive career. Today he heads a $16.65-billion business. Green became CEO in September 2004 and added chairman to his title two years later. Prior to that, he was chief operating officer—Client Services after holding a long roster of other executive titles at Accenture. The company is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing firm that helps businesses and governments improve their performance. This “high-performance” focus leverages Accenture’s business and knowledge base to help its clients excel in their respective industries. Accenture announced in June that it would invest more than $250 million dur- performance. Each time we work with a client, we leverage the findings of our High Performance Business research, we look at what the best companies are doing in that industry, we look at what our clients are doing well in comparison, and most importantly, we identify the gaps. To close those gaps, we draw upon the deep, specialized skills of our people… as well as the assets and innovations and ideas from across Accenture. As I mentioned, we also are business-and-outcome focused rather than focused on technology itself. We leverage technology to drive the desired business outcomes. The other thing that puts distance between us and our competitors is our superior execution. We get the right skills to the right opportunities to serve global clients consistently wherever they operate around the world. So, when you combine our deep industry skills and cross-industry expertise with our global delivery capability and alliance partner capabilities, I believe we have a unique and differentiated proposition. michael grecco What exactly is a high– performance business? A few years ago Accenture launched a groundbreaking study to find out what drives high performance—what makes great companies great and able to outperform their competitors over time. The reality is that sustaining high performance is a really difficult thing to do. We’ve already looked at 8,000 companies, including 600 that meet our criteria as high performers. And from this research, we’ve been able to distill high performance to its essence. We’ve identified three building blocks of high performance: the first is market focus and positioning, which is about competing in the right place at the right time; the second is having distinctive capabilities in offerings, processes, knowledge and customer relationships; and the third building block is performance anatomy, which is the unique culture and leadership and mind-sets that allow a high performer to out-execute the competition. We take high performance seriously at Accenture, and not just for our clients—we apply the same principles to our own business as well. www.ce.org What differentiates Accenture from other consulting firms? Our clients are after business results. That is what we deliver. They look to Accenture to envision, design, build and operate solutions that produce results. Through our three growth platforms of management consulting, systems integration and technology, and outsourcing, we produce business outcomes that can be measured and help our clients differentiate themselves…and win. Our High Performance Business research differentiates us because it’s about outcomes —real business outcomes that drive superior 12 September/October 2007 http://www.accenture.com http://www.ce.org
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