Accenture and Pfizer: Teaming for Tax Transformation

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With rapid growth having created challenges for its tax division, Pfizer teamed with Accenture to transform the way this division operated. Direct benefits were substantial, including a 40 percent process improvement within 12 months, but the initiative is also helping Pfizer achieve high performance.

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When Pfizer tripled its size after acquiring two other global companies, it turned to Accenture for help. Pfizer's annual revenues had skyrocketed to $50 billion, making it the world's leading research-based pharmaceutical company. Together with larger operations came a far more challenging workload for Pfizer's Corporate Tax Division, the team faced a critical decision: hire more people, or radically change the way they worked.

Working closely with Accenture, Pfizer chose to initiate an innovative transformation of the people, processes and technology supporting the entire tax function, achieving a 40 percent process improvement in the function's performance within 12 months. Today the division is successfully completing its work with roughly the same number of tax professionals it employed when the company was half its current size. Accenture's ongoing research into high-performance business suggests that mastery of a functional area, such as corporate tax, can help the organization as a whole achieve high performance.

Accenture collaborated with Pfizer to fundamentally rethink the work of its tax professionals in the United States.

The team effort resulted in a strategic vision for Pfizer Corporate Tax, with a new suite of solutions from Accenture, all integrated in the Corporate Tax Portal, a "virtual desktop" for every Pfizer tax professional. Strongly committed to Pfizer's success, Accenture drew on its deep resources and expertise to create a "virtual desktop" that for the first time brings together in a single platform all the tools required for outstanding enterprise-wide performance. Having worked extensively with Pfizer in the past, Accenture was also able to leverage its deep knowledge of the company and the pharmaceutical industry to help Pfizer move to a higher level of performance.

The Corporate Tax Portal is now the common starting place for every Pfizer professional each working day, enabling them to get the latest divisional news, see projects at a glance, access shared templates and work processes and reach all the data they need, in an efficient and effective way.

The impressive 40 percent gain in enterprise efficiency throughout the Pfizer tax function is only the first of several major benefits delivered by the Accenture Tax Enterprise Management solution. Pfizer also benefits from:

• Enhanced risk management through reduced exposure to Sarbanes-Oxley compliance concerns and tax related risks by ensuring proper documentation.
  
  
• Greater value creation through more timely and accurate tax filings, allowing better substantiation of current deductions and valuable opportunities to find new ones.
  
  
• Greater efficiency due to reduced data search time, better reuse of work documents, and superior standard processes.
  
  
• Sharper analysis because of the shift from data collection to data analysis and insight yields a superior work product and better development opportunities for tax professionals.

The value of Accenture's Tax Enterprise Management initiative is not limited to the tax function. For any company seeking higher performance throughout its finance organization, the solution is relevant and applicable to other areas of the business.

To receive more Client Successes, sign up for My Outlook, your single e-mail source for all of Accenture's latest ideas and innovation, personalized specifically to your business interests and the industry issues you face.

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