Industry Africa November - Accenture

ACCENTURE

Seizing the Now

Embracing the digital age with a zest that is unmatched in the business world, Accenture seeks to offer clients innovative and unique solutions to the persistent problem of remaining relevant and cutting edge. Transformational outcomes underpin everything the team at Accenture designs, as Nitesh Singh, Managing Director of Communications, Media and Technology explained in an exclusive interview.

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Accenture

Seizing the now Victoria South

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Embracing the digital age with a zest that is unmatched in the business world, Accenture seeks to offer clients innovative and unique solutions to the persistent problem of remaining relevant and cutting edge. Transformational outcomes underpin everything the team at Accenture designs, as Nitesh Singh, Managing Director of Communications, Media and Technology explained in an exclusive interview.

Accenture

been with Accenture for 13 years, Nitesh Singh has an intrinsic understanding of where the company has come from and, more pertinently, where it is going. He is invested in the vision of the future and how Accenture plans to help clients to accomplish their goals, all within the framework of an everevolving digital world, “Today, Accenture is focused on helping our clients be disruptors as opposed to disrupted. Never before have so many industries been impacted like they are today, so the need to help our clients innovate is critical, to avoid being disrupted.

At times, this leads them to seek

Having

transformative agendas and that’s where we come in. At Accenture, Our core principle is about trying to consistently improve our clients’ revenue, while looking at waste in their system and how we could remove it, for them to add value to their customers and to their shareholders.

So that’s what underpins each of the five arms of Accenture. We solve our clients’ biggest problems and benchmark how others are doing it worldwide and apply comparative techniques. That’s the power of Accenture: we are a global firm, so we can leverage ideas across the planet and put them into different markets, ultimately lowering risk levels, with a high degree of success.”

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Five arms, one goal

While it might sound complicated to have five separate areas of operation within one company, by specialising in this way, the focus of each team can be that much more targeted. Collectively, the different divisions all work symbiotically to offer clients’ unrivalled solution provisions and having partnered with in excess of three-quarters of the Fortune Global 500, clearly the strategy is working, Accenture reported very strong fourth-quarter and full-year fiscal results for 2018.

Accenture is clearly benefiting from significant investments in digital cloud and security services.

The self-contained departments

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Accenture

are relatively self-explanatory.

The Strategy arm aims to shape the future at the intersection of business and technology, Consulting transforms businesses through industry expertise and insights, Digital focusses on creating value through new experiences, new intelligence and new connections, Technology powers businesses with cutting-edge solutions using established and emerging technologies and Operations

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delivers outcomes through infrastructure, security, cloud and business process services.

Collectively, these divisions create a one-stop solutions shop for organisations looking to improve their performance and with more than 40 industries currently being addressed, Accenture is exceptionally well qualified for the task.

The broad scope of industries being serviced makes absolute

sense when the operational reach of Accenture comes into sharp focus, as Nitesh explained “Our global reach of 120 countries uniquely positions Accenture to solve challenges across the globe, in addition to this we work across 40 industries. The secret sauce is how we innovate with our clients and in an everchanging world, we need to push the boundaries so our clients can compete against disruptive forces�

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Looking ahead

Accenture might be focussed on improving the future for its clients, but that doesn’t mean that there is no internal identification of where things are headed, quite the opposite, in fact, as growth areas have already been clearly identified, with security showing particular potential. It’s not a huge surprise, given that, globally, cyber security has become a serious concern for everyone, from cautious parents through to conscientious business owners. Nitesh divulged a little more, “We’ve seen a lot of cybersecurity threats globally and we definitely see a lot of growth potential in our security business.

We have a premier global security practice and consult to several clients about cyber-security, security and continuity planning.

We’ve seen a lot and it’s a big, very scary world and as we enter this digital age, cyber-security becomes more of a priority to our clients, so we are definitely focussed to assist them in this regard.”

Being able to identify key growth areas in terms of clients’ needs and priorities is key to remaining an industry leader, but Accenture has an extra advantage in the sense that the five separate divisions allow for a far more diverse portfolio of services. It’s the business version of not putting all your eggs in one basket and it has helped Accenture to stand out from and supersede its nearest competitors. It certainly doesn’t hurt that every team member is an expert in their own right and committed to the vision of helping clients to seize the now, in order to improve the future.

Speaking of improving the future, it is definitely worth noting that Accenture is aware that greener operating initiatives are essential and is already addressing environmental concerns, as Nitesh revealed, “Sustainability is a big thing for us and we are proud to be promoting a cleaner healthier planet. Corporations have a social responsibility to reduce their carbon footprint and this is a high priority for us, as environmental ambassadors.”

A case study of success

MTN is Africa’s premier telecommunications operation and has now partnered with Accenture 6 | www.industryafrica.net

to ensure even more effective communication and interaction strategies, with both existing and potential customers. Working with such a giant of industry is indicative of just how valuable Accenture is, not to mention how trusted and proven the results it garners are as well. Nitesh was keen to showcase the strategies being put in place to take MTN from a premier provider to stratospheric success, “MTN needs to uplift its revenues and it’s all about service as well. They need to conform to the new agile and digital ways of thinking and they need to be able to work differently. This requires them to change the way they service their customers, as they need to understand that a lot more consumers are interacting with them on digital channels. One has to commend MTN for putting their customer at the heart of everything they do and as their customers embrace digital channels we are partnering with MTN to ensure a seamless digital experience” He went on to illustrate his point, “To give you a good example, from an omni-channel perspective, you have customers that, before they walk into a store, know what product they are going to buy because they have done their online research, so they walk into physical stores having a fairly good idea of what they want. Likewise, as customers gravitate to order online they have a predetermined need and ultimately, servicing these customers efficiently is at the heart of a pleasant experience. The digital customer is the new king” Acknowledging that Accenture is only at the start of a very exciting journey with MTN, not too much can be disclosed at the time of going to press, but it will most definitely be worth maintaining a close eye on how MTN seeks to improve operational functionality, for the good of its customers, as there will be an air of Accenture expertise floating around.

It takes self-assurance to offer other companies a portfolio of services that guarantee increased reach and retained relevance, especially in a fastevolving digital age, but Accenture has the heritage to back it up. After all, if it has been in existence and successful for over three decades, isn’t that the best example of how effective its strategies and techniques are? There’s certainly no doubting that in a bid to retain an industry-leading position in the future, both for itself and its clients, Accenture is seizing the now.

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