Blog post written by Jort Possel. Jort is the Global Social Media Director at Accenture and a former blogger on Blogpodium.
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.
- Mid and late 1980′s: Demanding consultants and the “Can-do Mentality”: The financial success of the consulting practice in the mid-1980s led to renewed demands from consultants for a greater say in Andersen affairs. They saw themselves in different businesses with different economics, and didn’t see the audit practice as the “core” of their business.
“Whatever it was that the firm said we should do, we had the entrepreneurial spirit that would say, okay, we’ll go sell that to a client and then we’ll work at how to deliver it.” — Gill Rider, Accenture Executive Leadership Team member.
- Early 1990′s: Redefining Management Consulting: “Our mission essentially is to help our clients rethink and reshape their businesses as single, interconnected entities. We embrace business integration because we want to be strategically relevant and offer our clients high-value solutions. We were the first to build systems for business use. We were the first to blend industry and technology skills to create a business perspective. And we are the first to recognize that companies need to move beyond systems integration and embrace business integration.” — George Shaheen, Head Consulting Practice.
- 2001: “Renamed. Redefined. Reborn. 01.01.01.”: We established our own identity with the adoption of the new name, Accenture, and a successful IPO. Kim Petersen, senior manager-Resources in Oslo, Norway, came up with the name ‘ Accenture’ by thinking of “accent on the future“.
- 2002: Remaining relevant to our clients: We transformed our business model to blend consulting and systems integration services—areas in which we have had broad experience for decades—with outsourcing services.
- 2003: Cultural Shifts: The introduction of the Partner Career Management and Compensation program and winning the 2003 Catalyst Award in recognition of our innovative approaches to recruiting and advancing women.
Continuous innovation and rapid transformation have been themes throughout Accenture’s history. The company’s history has been more than 60 years in the making—from the earliest days as a pioneer in the new world of information technology in the 1950s to its current position as a Fortune Global 500 industry leader.
Today
Today Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 233,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining experience, capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments.
For a comprehensive overview of all Accenture history posts on Blogpodium, please visit: http://www.accenture-blogpodium.nl/tag/history/page/2/
