Case Analysis-Strategic It Transformation at Accenture
Case analysis-Strategic IT Transformation at Accenture Accenture was separated from its parent company and rebranded as a new organization. They face a challenge of building a new IT infrastructure to support their business. Because the new Accenture’s organization structure is different from the Anderson Consulting, the Anderson’s IT is deficient in several ways. Based on the deficient aspects I have some own recommendations and then I will analyse what Accenture did to deal with the situation.
First of all, the Anderson’s IT system did not interconnect readily each other.
I suggest that in Accenture, they can build up a standard rules, and all the offices should follow such rules and use the standard information system to communicate each other. As we learned before, standardization is very important for an organization. It’s a good way to improve the efficiency of internal communication. Also, a standard information system is easy to manage the relationship with customers or partners. It can enhance the relationship and improve the customers’ satisfaction.
The second and third problem also can be solved by standardization.
So choose a right platform to standardize data and exchange process is crucial for Accenture. As a new brand, Accenture should consider their strategic context carefully before they making the decision. And clarify the enterprise’s view of IT infrastructure. In this case they realized that they should run IT not a cost center but as a business within business.
When they face three different types of platforms, they choose the single-vendor approach to minimize the cost of IT.
Also they choose Microsoft and HP as their software and hardware suppliers. It’s a brilliant decision because these two companies have great reputation in such industry.
It’s a valuable and stable relationship for Accenture to cooperate with Microsoft and HP. It can improve the efficiency both in software and hardware aspects.
In the case, I notice that the Anderson’s information system is too complex and it cost too much on storage data. So it’s inefficient in data exchange and communication. Accenture should try to simplify the process and try to control the cost. Choosing the single-vendor approach can save the cost of IT. Also, they outsource their data storage service.
To do so, I have some recommendations for Accenture to improve the information system management.
They should put more attention on the relationship management between Accenture and outsourcing companies to make sure the efficient communication between each other. In the information era, the communication is very important. They can provide their partners the part of Accenture IT platform , to they can communicate internally. onsidering Accenture as a B2B company, I suggest that focus on converting conventional interactions to IT-enable data exchange to make sure their clients can get the data timely and accurately.
The globalization and becoming a public company is a new challenge for Accenture.
Globalization is a great advantage of outsourcing, Accenture can outsource some service to low labor cost countries. It can reduce the IT cost. As I said before, how to manage the relationship between different suppliers and outsourcing companies is important for Accenture. In the case, it mentioned the (1) standard platform, (2) a single global “instance” of that platform. It tally well with my analysis before.
In sum, Accenture has a successful IT transformation, and for its further growth I have given several suggestions according to the articles this week.
