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The Accenture Company is a global company dealing in management consulting, outsourcing, and technology services. The branches of Accenture are in more than 50 countries and 200 cities worldwide, and it is among the world’s most successful companies. The Accenture IT department enables the company’s agents all over the world to collaborate for the successful business and governance output of their clients. Accenture enables its clients to adopt technology that allows them to achieve their business goals.
Strengths of the Accenture IT Department
Accenture Company is a global brand with a powerful portfolio. The firm has a track record of developing innovative products. This is an essential virtue for the company that looks forward to venturing into new categories of goods or services. Accenture also has expert personnel in a range of industries. Moreover, it has a well-fashioned technology stack which is the foundation of its analytic platform. Also, due to the heritage of the Accenture global management of services, it provides an enterprise-strength security that supports its services at all times. The company also has an already developed integrated design, build, and run environment that it offers in the market for the clients to use in the advanced analytics, apps, and solution accelerators.
Other strengths that the Accenture possess are the presence of highly skilled workforce from their learning programs and successful training, high level of customer satisfaction and return rate, strong distribution network, and its worldwide corporate social responsibility. 90% of the companies in 100 fortunes and more than half of global companies have chosen Accenture IT for consultation (Kress, 2010). The company has over 390,000 passionate employees who work in different countries to strengthen the company’s network.
Weaknesses of the Accenture IT Department
The main weakness of the Accenture Company is that it heavily relies on consulting services rather than putting equal focus on BPO and IT which adds revenues. Also, the company only favors big transformational projects and not the small-sized service projects capabilities. The company has always targeted the big clients as well as projects. Therefore, the services offered by the company do not have a great impact to the mid-market and have been a big-time weakness of the Accenture IT services within the consulting industry. The company is too comfortable with its big clients, and assumes the small market; hence the competitors utilize that opportunity to beat it. The competitors such as the Tata Consulting Services put their focus on small businesses besides the big markets. The mid-sized markets may not lead to an accruement of big profit margins; however, they greatly assist in the business branding and stability. Also, the company sometimes lacks coordination among its business units which ought to be working collaboratively. Consequently, conflicts arise due to the absence of internal coordination when dealing with clients.
Opportunities of the Accenture IT department
The company can expand its business scale to include small and mid-sized projects to attract all market levels (market development). This approach can help the company to increase its revenues further. Since the company has placed itself as a brand, its value, reputation, and stability in business performance can easily resonate with customers during difficult economic situations. Since the Accenture holds a top ranking in the global market, it has an advantage of carrying out research to establish and utilize opportunities in hot tech markets such as cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS). The IT sector in countries like India is booming and can be a great market for the Accenture IT department. Finally, the Accenture should also focus on technology and BPO, besides the outsourcing services and make their revenues equal. This step will help in better market penetration and improve diversification in times of financial crises.
Threats in the Accenture IT department
Competition has been the major threat that worries the IT department of Accenture. Companies like Capgemeni, Infosys, and IBM are the main IT firms that bring stiff competition with the Accenture (Kaikati, 2003). It requires the company to use the counter competition strategies to remain relevant in the market. Another threat is the bad financial periods, when the company experiences a major setback, during the recession period. The issue arises due to the company’s dependence on premium clients. Other threats that hinder smooth operations in the business environment include; rapid technological change which may render the company’s technological products obsolete at agile competitions and higher rates. The government policies and regulations can also threaten the performance of the company (Jeffery et al. 2017). Political decisions that various countries make can also be a hindrance on the operations of the company in one way or another. For instance, failure to abide by the technological laws in countries where particular technology are restrained or protected can result in a company facing a lawsuit.
SWOT Summary
SWOT analysis in Accenture IT department is essential in effective strategic planning. Accenture IT department can utilize SWOT analysis to establish various strategies to exploit external opportunities, build on strengths, counter threats, and eradicate weaknesses. According to Kaikati (2003), SWOT analysis enables companies to remain relevant in the competitive market environment.
- Jeffery, M., Jeffery, M., Fisher, D., Fisher, D., Granot, M., Granot, M., & Vasquez, C. (2017). Strategic IT transformation at Accenture. Kellogg School of Management Cases, 1-18.
- Kaikati, J. G. (2003). Lessons from Accenture’s 3Rs: rebranding, restructuring and repositioning. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 12(7), 477-490.
- Kress, R. E. (2010). IT Governance to Drive High Performance: Lessons from Accenture. IT Governance Ltd.