Company Overview

Accenture has made a name for itself as one of the world's leading management consulting and technology services companies. Formally established in 1989 by a group of partners from the consulting division of the various Arthur Andersen firms around the world, Accenture began life as Andersen Consulting.

Some things have certainly changed since 1989: Arthur Andersen is no more, the Internet boom has come and gone, and Andersen Consulting became Accenture and went public. But there's one thing that's stayed the same: The firm is still focused on delivering top-notch consulting and technology services to organizations all over the world. Until its incorporation in 2001, the company operated as a group of more than 40 locally owned partnerships in more than 40 countries. Now, offices operate with autonomy under the Accenture umbrella. A central management team oversees firm-wide operations and is led by William Green, a 29-year veteran of the company. He took over from Joe Forehand, who led Accenture through its 2001 public offering and subsequent period of strong growth. Today, Accenture is a consulting behemoth with nearly 160,000 employees toiling away in more than 150 offices in 50 countries (Accenture's partners control about 35 percent of the company's voting shares of stock). The firm's traditional stronghold is systems integration, but it also lays claim to formidable strategy, technology consulting, human resources, and outsourcing practices.

Accenture's client roster straddles a multitude of industries and is a veritable who's who list, including British Air, T-Mobile, and Microsoft.

In addition to a sizeable percentage of Fortune 500 companies, Accenture also works with a wide range of governmental and nonprofit organizations. Scoring massive projects with high-profile organizations is the name of the game at Accenture. It made headlines in June 2004 when it led an alliance of firms that was awarded a Department of Homeland Security contract worth $10 billion. In June 2006, it won a seven-year contract to provide services for consumer goods giant Unilever in more than one hundred countries; it also garnered a $69 million contract to help the U.S. Department of Defense's National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which provides charts, mapping, and environmental data that can be used in combat. The firm's systems integration and business process outsourcing (BPO) units have been growing especially fast over the past two years or so. (BPO is a buzz phrase encompassing such areas as recruiting and employee development, pay systems, and various financial operations.) In 2005, Accenture purchased Capgemini's North American health business for $175 million, boosting its services for hospitals and health care systems. In 2006, it expanded its BPO unit by acquiring assets of Savista BPO, a Wichita, Kansas-based company that targets midsized businesses with fewer than 12,000 employees. It also announced plans to buy Advantium and Meridian Informed Purchasing, firms that help companies recover lost profitability by identifying overpayment and other discrepancies. Of course, the sputtering economy hit consulting companies hard, and Accenture was no exception. In fact, as one of the few public consulting firms, it's particularly sensitive to trends in the economy. For the first few years of this decade, it introduced successive waves of layoffs and slowed down its recruiting efforts. Employees worked longer and networked harder to make sure they wouldn't find themselves "unstaffed," or without a project, and thus more vulnerable to getting laid off. Says one insider, "In the bad times, you get a sense of your internal worth. The best people, in theory, wouldn't ever be available for a project because if you're out there networking, you'll never be unstaffed." Insiders report that the mood has changed since mid-2003. The firm has "turned the taps back on," for new hires, says an insider, and skilled analysts and consultants again find themselves in demand for projects. In 2005, the workforce grew by 23 percent over the previous year to 123,000 people (the company now has more than 150,000 employees). But growth has brought different issues. One former insider says that while morale is good, it's easy to get lost in the crowd. "The company's gotten very large," the former insider says. "It's easy to get lost and miss out on the great projects." A current insider says that to meet surging demand over the past two years the company has brought on a number of people with industry expertise but less consulting experience. They've faced a steep learning curve in project management. "Morale is very good," the insider says, adding, "Finding enough people to do the work is one of the biggest issues."

Increased hiring stemmed directly from the rebound in the economy a couple of years ago and, in particular, the industry sectors that Accenture serves. The company's revenue rose to more than $21 billion in the 2007 fiscal year, up 17.7 percent over the previous year. Revenue in 2005 grew in double digits over 2004 in all three of its geographic regions, and revenue in the Asia-Pacific region surpassed $1 billion for the first time (Accenture's workforce in China grew by 53 percent in 2005). Consulting revenue increased 11 percent last year over 2004. Meanwhile, the firm is increasingly focused on outsourcing, taking over whole IT or human resources functions for clients. And in keeping with the trend rippling throughout the rest of corporate America, it's helping companies move some of their operations offshore. Two years ago, Accenture ramped up hiring in overseas markets, especially Great Britain, where the company was executing a huge project for the government's Department of Work and Pensions. But more recently, Accenture has been hiring about equally in the U.S. and overseas. But Accenture isn't content with the status quo. In 2005, it launched Horizon 2012, a firm-wide initiative for leading executives to explore ways to accelerate the company's growth. With the current brighter business outlook, people don't feel the need to put in overtime just to keep their jobs. But make no mistake, the work is demanding. And the firm attracts the kind of people who like to reach for high hurdles. "One plus about working here is the kind of personality traits you can pick up-people here are at the top of their game, [type A's], go-getters," says one insider. Accenture tries to keep things from getting too intense. It maintains open lines of communication between onsite employees and home base operations through regular emails, team and industry-specific meetings, and local get-togethers. Every employee has a career counselor who works as an advocate when it comes to staffing. The company also commits a ton of resources to training, and passes on to its employees discounts on services such as cell phones. And, of course, there's the prestige: Accenture ranked third in its industry in Fortune's 2008 list of "America's Most Admired Companies."

One insider says, "Accenture can be a great place to have a career—you'll have the resources and clout of a huge company behind you—but it's not for everyone."

Due in part to its university recruitment, Accenture has a youthful collegiate environment in which employees have the energy to work hard as projects intensify, as well as the chance to relax with each other and interact socially. It's not unusual for local offices or project teams to play softball or share dinner together. On the job, insiders report that Accenture's a positive and cooperative place. The atmosphere might get a little heavier when promotions are being decided, but the ability to work well with one's colleagues is a point of pride at the firm. "There's a culture of sharing. If someone happens to be an expert in Java for instance, I feel I can pick up the phone even if I've never talked to them before, and they'll feel an extensive obligation, an esprit de corps, to help me out," says an insider.

The firm takes career development seriously: It spent $546 million on professional development in 2005. Also that year, as part of its effort to help its managers improve, it created the senior executive career model, a program that hones leadership skills through seminars, lectures, and other educational initiatives. And Accenture wins kudos on the diversity front: Last year it was named to DiversityInc's list of "Top 50 Companies for Diversity" and Working Mother magazine's "100 Best Companies."

Estimated Average Compensation, 2006-07

Undergrad Hires: Starting salary: $60,000-70,000 and up Signing bonus: none MBA Hires: Starting salary: $111,000 (average listed by Consultants News survey of graduates of the ten leading MBA programs as listed by U.S. News & World Report) Signing bonus: $10,000 to $15,000 Midcareer Hires: Starting salary: $100,000 and up; depends a lot on experience Signing bonus: none to $30,000, depending on experience Source: WetFeet estimates; Accenture does not release compensation data.