Back again!

In the seven months I have been with Accenture, I have been working on four very different projects. The second one was perhaps the most challenging; not so much from a technical perspective, but more as I was still getting to grips with the size and complexity of Accenture.

I was asked to contribute to a large outsourcing project. The project was well underway, and involved outsourcing application management for an international company. My expertise was required to help with the delivery of the business continuity requirements of the contract, both from an internal point of view and a client perspective. Thus, I had to ensure that Accenture had developed client-specific plans that for the work that was being transferred to our overseas Delivery Centres, but also had to ensure that the client was adequately covering Accenture personnel where functions were being transferred within a client site. For this latter point, I needed to provide guidance for the client to assist in their provision of suitable plans.

This was a very challenging role, not least due to the time differences between the off-shore locations, the difficulties of identifying the client business continuity personnel and assets, and the time constraints of the project itself. It was interesting to see the contractual side of the operations but, more importantly, it was a great opportunity to work with other areas of Accenture in Services and the Delivery Centres, and to see how the really big projects function. During my recruitment, and from people I had spoken to before joining Accenture, I had frequently been told about the calibre of the people that I would be working with. I think it was this project that really brought home the depth of experience and talent that does exist within the company. Having said that, it also brought home the sheer size of Accenture, and the occasional difficulties in actually finding out who you need to speak to.

This work did overlap with the project I mentioned previously – the nature of my expertise in business continuity has meant that I do tend to have more than one client at a time, although this is not the usual state of affairs in Accenture. It does not mean silly hours, just a careful coordination of a couple of days per week equivalent on each project, but it does mean careful time management and logging, and care to ensure that time and expenses were correctly allocated to the right client!

Anyway, just a short post this time….I have a client presentation I need to be working on. By the end of the next post, I might even have caught up the present day! Back soon!