Full Description

Accenture plc is a management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. The Company helps clients improve operational performance, deliver their products and services, increase revenues in markets and identify and enter new markets. Its business is organized in five operating groups: Communications & High Tech, Financial Services, Health & Public Service, Products and Resources. In October 2009, the Company acquired Symbian Professional Services from Nokia Corporation.

Communications & High Tech

The Company is a provider of management consulting, technology, systems integration and outsourcing services and solutions to the communications, electronics, high technology, media and entertainment industries. The communications and high tech professionals help the clients to improve the business results to improve their business results through industry-specific solutions and by seizing the opportunities made possible by the convergence of communications, computing and content.

The communications industry group serves global wire line, wireless, cable and satellite communications network operators and service providers. The Company provides a range of services designed to help the communications clients improve margins, improve asset utilization, improve customer retention, improve revenues, reduce overall costs and accelerate sales cycles. It offers a suite of reusable solutions, called Accenture Communications Solutions, designed to address business and operational issues related to broadband and Internet protocol-based networks and services, including business intelligence, billing transformation, customer contact transformation, sales force transformation, service fulfillment and network optimization. During the fiscal year ended August 31, 2009 (fiscal 2009), the communications industry group represented approximately 59% of the Communications & High Tech operating group’s net revenues.

The Electronics & High Tech industry group serves the communications technology, consumer technology, enterprise technology, semiconductor, software and aerospace/defense segments. This industry group provides services in areas, such as strategy, enterprise resource management, customer relationship management, sales transformation, supply chain management, software development, human performance, and merger/acquisition activities, including post-merger integration. It also offer a range of reusable solutions, designed to address the industry’s business and operational challenges, such as new product innovation and development, customer service and support, sales and marketing, and globalization. The Electronics & High Tech industry group represented approximately 33% of the Communications & High Tech operating group’s net revenues in fiscal 2009.

The Media & Entertainment industry group serves the broadcast, entertainment (television, music and movie), print, publishing and portal industries. The Company provides a range of services, including digital content solutions designed to help companies effectively manage, distribute and protect content across numerous media channels. These include Accenture Digital Media Services, which provide a solution set designed to help content owners and distributors adapt their organizations’ business processes and systems to stay ahead of the demand for digital content and services.

Financial Services

The Financial Services group focuses on the opportunities created by the client’s needs to adapt to changing market conditions, including cost pressures, industry consolidation, regulatory changes, the creation of common industry standards and protocols, and the move to a more integrated industry model. The Financial Services operating group consists of banking, capital markets and insurance.

The banking industry group works with retail and commercial banks, and diversified financial enterprises. It helps the organizations develop and execute strategies to target, acquire and retain customer, expand product and service offerings, comply with new regulatory initiatives, and leverage new technologies and distribution channels. The banking industry group represented approximately 56% of the Financial Services operating group’s net revenues in fiscal 2009.

The capital markets industry group helps investment banks, broker/dealers, asset-management firms, depositories, exchanges, and clearing and settlement organizations transform their businesses to increase competitiveness. The insurance industry group helps property and casualty insurers, life insurers, reinsurance firms and insurance brokers improve business processes, modernize their technologies and improve the quality and consistency of risk selection decisions. The Company offers a claims management capability that enables insurers to provide better customer service, as well as insurance policy administration technology solutions that enable insurers to bring products to market more quickly and reduce costs. It also provides a variety of outsourcing solutions to help insurers improve working capital and cash flow, deliver permanent cost savings and enhance long-term growth. Its Insurance industry group represented approximately 31% of the Financial Services operating group’s net revenues in fiscal 2009.

Health & Public Service

The Company’s Health & Public Service operating group comprises industry groups, such as Health and Public Service. Its Health industry group works with healthcare providers, government health departments, policy-making authorities/regulators, managed care organizations, health insurers and other industry-related organizations to improve the quality, accessibility and affordability of healthcare. The Company’s key offerings address a variety of areas, including electronic health records and health information exchanges, back-office services for hospitals and health plans, sales and marketing, core administration services, health management services, claims excellence/cost containment, and corporate functions, including human resources, finance, procurement and information technology (IT).

The public service industry group provides services to help public-service entities globally to improve the social and economic conditions of their citizens. The public-service marketplace is transforming, and traditional governmental entities are working increasingly with the third sector, including non-governmental organizations, community-based organizations, educational institutions, charities and non-profit organizations to deliver services and benefits to citizens. The Company works with the defense, revenue, human services, health, postal, and justice and public-safety authorities or agencies, and the clients are generally national, state or local-level government organizations, as well as pan-geographic organizations. The Company’s work with clients in the United States federal government represented approximately 36% of its Public Service operating group’s net revenues in fiscal 2009.

Products

The Products operating group comprises the automotive, consumer goods and services, life sciences, industrial equipment, retail, and Infrastructure and Transportation Services. The automotive industry group works with the auto manufacturers, suppliers, dealers, retailers and service providers. Professionals in this industry group help clients develop and implement solutions focused on product development and commercialization, customer service and retention, channel strategy and management, branding, buyer-driven business models, cost reduction, customer relationship management and integrated supplier partnerships.

The consumer goods and services industry group serves food and beverage, alcoholic beverage, household goods and personal care, tobacco and fashion/apparel manufacturers worldwide. The Company provides services to its clients by addressing critical elements of success, including large-scale enterprise resource planning (ERP) strategy and implementation, sales and marketing transformation, working-capital productivity improvement, supply chain collaboration and post-merger integration.

The life sciences industry group works with pharmaceutical, biotechnology, medical products and other companies across the life-sciences value chain, providing services, such as large-scale business and technology transformation, targeted business performance improvement, and post-merger integration. Its key areas of focus include research and development, supply chain, manufacturing, marketing and sales, and select back-office functions. Additionally, it operates life sciences-specific business process and IT outsourcing services.

The industrial equipment industry group serves the industrial and electrical equipment, consumer durable and heavy equipment industries. The retail industry group serves a spectrum of retailers and distributors, including supermarkets, specialty retailers and mass-merchandise discounters. The Company provides service offerings that help clients address new ways of reaching the retail trade and consumers through precision marketing; maximize brand synergies and cost reductions in mergers and acquisitions; improve supply chain efficiencies through collaborative commerce business models, and improve the efficiency of internal operations.

The infrastructure and transportation services industry group serves companies in the airline, construction, infrastructure-management (ports, airports, railways), freight transportation, third-party logistics, hospitality, gaming, passenger rail and travel distribution industries. It helps the clients to develop and implement strategies and solutions to improve customer relationship management capabilities, operate more-efficient networks, integrate supply chains, develop procurement and electronic business marketplace strategies, manage maintenance, repair and overhaul processes and expenses.

Resources

The resources operating group serves the chemicals, energy, forest products, metals and mining, utilities and related industries. The resources operating group is comprised of chemicals, energy, natural resources and utilities. The chemicals industry group works with a range of industry segments, including petrochemicals, specialty chemicals, polymers and plastics, gases and life science companies. The energy industry group serves a range of companies in the oil and gas industry, including upstream, downstream, oil services and clean-energy companies.

The natural resources industry group serves the forest products, and metals and mining industries. The Company helps lumber, pulp, papermaking, converting and packaging companies, as well as iron, steel, aluminum, coal, copper and precious metals companies, develop and implement new business strategies, redesign business processes, manage change initiatives, and integrate processes and technologies to achieve performance. The utilities industry group works with electric, gas and water utilities. The group’s work includes helping utilities transform themselves from regulated and sometimes state-owned, local entities to international deregulated corporations, as well as developing products and service offerings to help the clients. The offerings include includes customer relationship management, workforce enablement, smart-grid development, supply chain optimization, and trading and risk management. It also provides a range of outsourced customer-care services to utilities and retail energy companies in North America. The utilities industry group represented approximately 43% of the Resources operating group’s net revenues in fiscal 2009.

Growth Platforms

The management consulting growth platform is responsible for the development and delivery of the strategic, operational, functional, industry, process and change consulting capabilities, working closely with the professionals in the operating groups. The professionals in the customer relationship management (CRM) service line help the companies to acquire, develop and retain customer relationships. It offers a range of capabilities that address every aspect of CRM, including marketing, direct and indirect sales, customer service, field support and customer contact operations.

The professionals in the finance and performance management service line work with the clients finance and business unit executives to develop financial transaction processing, risk management and business performance reporting capabilities. Among the services provided are strategic consulting on the design and structure of the finance function; the establishment of shared service centers; and the configuration of enterprise resource planning platforms for streamlining transaction processing. The professionals in the talent and organization performance service line work with clients on a range of talent management, workforce and organizational issues to deliver improved business and operational results. The process and innovation performance service line helps clients achieve measurable, lasting improvements in operational performance, innovation performance and growth. The strategy professionals combine their strategy and operations experience to help the clients turn insights into results at both the enterprise and business-unit level. The professionals in the supply chain management service line work with clients across a range of industries to develop and implement supply chain and operations strategies that enable profitable growth in new and existing markets.

Technology

The technology growth platform comprises three service areas: systems integration, technology consulting, and IT outsourcing. Systems integration consulting services and solutions include enterprise solutions and enterprise resource planning, industry and functional solutions, information management services, service-oriented architecture, custom solutions, software as a service, mobility solutions and Microsoft solutions. The Company’s technology consulting services and solutions include IT strategy and transformation, enterprise architecture, infrastructure consulting, IT security consulting, application portfolio optimization and renewal, digital solutions, research and development, and Microsoft solutions. The Company provides a range of application outsourcing and infrastructure outsourcing services and solutions.

Business Process Outsourcing

The Company’s business process outsourcing growth platform provides business processes that help clients transform their businesses, achieve higher levels of performance and results, and/or reduce costs. Through its business process outsourcing (BPO) services, it manages specific business processes or functions for clients, providing solutions that are more efficient and cost-effective than if the functions were provided in-house. It offers clients across all industries a variety of BPO services for specific business functions and/or processes, including finance and accounting, human resources, learning, procurement and customer contact.