Businessmodel of Accenture

Customer Segments

Accenture has a mass market business model, with little differentiation between customer segments. The company targets its offerings at all types of organizations in need of management consulting services, including mid-size firms, large enterprises, and government agencies.

Value Proposition

Accenture offers four primary value propositions: accessibility, customization, innovation, and brand/status.

The company creates accessibility by offering a wide range of options. It has invested as much as $2.5 billion in emerging technologies and acquisitions, enabling it to add many new capabilities to its service menu. For example, in 2015 it acquired Javelin Group, enhancing its retail expertise.

The company offers customization through its knowledge and service specificity. It has offices in over 120 countries, and provides local execution and market relevance in each one. Furthermore, it operates across more than 40 sectors, with over 50% of its staff having certified industry skills or being aligned with a specific market. This enables it to provide highly tailored guidance.

The company places a strong emphasis on innovation. It maintains a research and development organization called Accenture Technology Labs that locates and develops new technologies. It also operates the Accenture Institute for High Performance, a program focused on creating cutting-edge, market-ready insights and solutions for customers.

The company has established a powerful brand as a result of its success. It is the world’s largest consulting firm in terms of revenues, and has over 375,000 employees serving customers in over 200 cities in 120 countries.  It bills itself as the largest independent technology services provider, with prominent clients such as Microsoft, HP, Oracle, and SAP.

Overall, its clients include 80% of the Global 500 and 94 members of the Fortune 100. It has maintained strong customer loyalty, with 97 of its top 100 clients having used its services for at least 10 years.

Lastly, it has won many honors, including recognition as the world’s “Most Admired Information Technology Services Company“ by Fortune for three straight years (2014-2016), one of Interbrand’s “Best Global Brands“ for 14 consecutive years (2012-2015), and one of Ethisphere’s “Most Ethical Companies” (2016).

Channels

Accenture’s main channel for acquiring clients is through the personal relationships of its partners. The company promotes its offerings through its social media pages, advertising, sponsorships of athletes, and participation in conferences.

Customer Relationships

Accenture’s customer relationship is primarily of a dedicated personal assistance nature. Customers work in-person with employees as part of consulting engagements.

That said, there is a self-service component. The company’s website includes self-help resources such as reports and infographics.

Key Activities

Accenture’s business model entails designing and producing problem-solving services for its clients.

Key Partners

Accenture maintains alliances with other firms through which it merges its expertise and capabilities with their products and services.

The goals of these partnerships are to deliver new technologies, enhance its existing service offerings, and extend its solutions to new geographies. Most of these alliances are non-exclusive.

Specific partners include Adobe Systems, Amazon Web Services, BMC Software, Dell, EMC, General Electric, Google, Hortonworks, IBM, NetSuite, and Salesforce.

Key Resources

Accenture’s main resources are its human resources, who include employees that are both industry experts and capability specialists. In 2015 alone it hired 100,000 people, including PhDs, web developers, data scientists, digital marketers, and big data specialists.

The company places a high priority on intellectual property, with more than 1,150 issued U.S. and 1,450 issued foreign patents, and over 2,400 pending patent applications worldwide as of August 2015.

Cost Structure

Accenture has a value-driven cost structure, aiming to provide a premium proposition through significant personal service and frequent service enhancements.

Its biggest cost driver is cost of services, a variable expense that mostly consists of compensation and subcontractor costs. Other major drivers are in the areas of sales/marketing and administration, both fixed costs.

Revenue Streams

Accenture has two revenue streams:

Consulting Revenues – Revenues generated from management and technology consulting and systems integration services.

Outsourcing Revenues – Revenues generated from capabilities and services provided to transition or manage the operations of business functions or client systems.