Today’s market can be summed up largely in one word: cost. One of the key areas to target for improved cost management—and performance— is literally at the reach of CIOs’ fingertips: the network. Unforeseen innovations are rapidly changing the face of the network technology market. From virtualization to social networks to cloud computing and software as a service (SaaS), the network is at the heart of a revolution in how people communicate and, ultimately, how organizations can operate with greater efficiency and agility.

In a market where cost management is king, new and emerging network technologies offer attractive ways to reduce total cost of ownership and increase productivity through improved support of business processes. An Accenture Unified Communications Survey, conducted in January 2008, found that not only did 65 percent of those IT executives surveyed believe that advanced communications technologies increase productivity and enhance customer service, but also that 73 percent believe that the estimated percentage improvement would be 20 percent or greater.

To help fully realize the promise of network technologies, IT has to work hand in hand with the business to implement a long-term strategy that is flexible and enables business growth and high performance. Drawing upon our extensive industry experience and work with Fortune Global 100 companies, Accenture’s Network Technology group works with clients to bridge that gap—to help IT become an enabler of high performance by getting the most out of unified communications and collaboration technologies.

In today's market, superior technology is available to all. Superior results, however, are limited to the few who can make technology work within their unique business context. Accenture’s Network Technology group helps clients understand and determine how to capitalize on these emerging trends in a way that can help improve security, operational efficiency, and productivity and business value.

Balancing competing needs—a daunting challenge for today’s CIO
Today’s CIO is under intense pressure to operate the infrastructure as efficiently and effectively as possible. This is a daunting challenge in many ways because it requires flexibly balancing competing needs—providing leading technology to seamlessly support business processes while tightly managing costs.

In particular, eight business change drivers that today’s CIOs are grappling with include:

• Globalization
• Mobile workforce
• Collaboration
• Productivity
• Cost management
• Information security
• Aging workforce
• “Green” or environmentally conscious operation

Reconciling all these conflicting pressures while driving the organization toward achieving high performance is a tough task for the CIO. The good news is that a hybrid of existing and new technologies can help the CIO deliver on every count—by tackling business-critical issues while boosting return on investment, keeping a tight rein on costs and managing the impact of these eight overarching change drivers. In effect, it’s about more fully leveraging existing technologies and introducing new ones only as required.

Network key offerings
Serving the network technology needs of clients for more than 20 years, we offer an extensive base of practical network solutions implementation experience and industry knowledge through our deeply skilled global network of professionals. Our focus is on helping clients optimize their network operations to increase productivity, reduce operating costs and, ultimately, achieve high performance.

Working with clients in all industries around the world, we have experience in applying a wide range of network technologies within the unique business context of each organization. Among the technologies we have experience with are: wireless, wireline, satellite, converged next-generation networks, everything-over-Internet Protocol (IP), core networking, unified communications and collaboration, and cloud computing.

In effect, we can help your organization identify options for making the right investment decisions when business conditions are turbulent or innovation is needed to fuel growth and create competitive advantage. To this end, we offer six key Network Technology services backed by a proven track record of delivering business results:

Customer Contact Transformation— Creates a differentiated service experience to improve customer loyalty by more efficiently and effectively managing customer interactions. Uses advanced analytics to provide deep insights into changing customer needs and wants. Identifies appropriate technologies for enabling a variety of customer service options and improvements in agent effectiveness. Uses innovative business continuity solutions to help maintain service reliability.

Unified Communications & Collaboration Services— Enables new ways of working that encourage increased communication and collaboration not only among employees but also between an enterprise and its business partners. Helps reduce costs and improve performance by applying leading communication and collaboration technology capabilities, such as IP telephony transformation, telepresence, IP contact center transformation, unified communications and Web 2.0 collaboration. Helps develop an understanding of current user behaviors to facilitate the adoption of available technology capabilities.

Infrastructure Transformation— Facilitates the integration of the network infrastructure with key business processes and applications to improve usability and productivity. Uses IP network technology, cloud computing and SaaS models to support efficient integration and transfer of data, facsimile, voice and video communications traffic over a single, converged network platform. Helps develop an understanding of how network technology supports applications, and business processes and goals to drive greater business agility, revenue growth and cost reduction.

Wireless—Addresses business mobility needs, using a wide range of wireless technologies (Wi-Fi, 2G/3G/4G cellular, WiMAX, short-range wireless and devices) and strategic partnerships with leading technology suppliers. Helps organizations secure and control their wireless projects, including strategy and concept, business case, requirements and design, deployment and piloting, and ongoing operations phases.

Network Optimization—Provides a comprehensive suite of network strategy, performance optimization and cost management services designed to proactively assess, manage and help clients reduce infrastructure costs. Helps deliver cost savings by targeting the different aspects of an organization’s network, including business requirements, technical architecture, operating and support model, sourcing model and finance.

Network Service Management— Addresses the efficiency and performance challenges that enterprises experience in managing network infrastructure by helping to align network operations people, processes and tools. Encompasses the design, implementation and execution of the ongoing processes of planning, managing, monitoring and reporting on the enterprise-converged network and unified communications infrastructures to effectively line up IT and business service levels.

Beyond technology consulting: Accenture can help address clients’ wide-ranging management consulting and outsourcing needs
Accenture can help clients improve network performance by bringing the knowledge and experience of our management consulting and outsourcing offerings. In effect, we can offer strategic and practical business insights based on ongoing research into what distinguishes highperformance organizations, extensive solution implementation experience, tested methods, leading practices and global delivery capabilities across all industries and business functions.

The Accenture Network Technology difference
Our Network Technology group draws upon the strength of Accenture to help bring clients industry-leading business strategies, technologies and sourcing models. When you work with Accenture, you gain access to specialists and solution delivery assets in several key groups, including:

• Accenture Global Delivery Network— Our delivery centers provide onsite and offsite resources as well as resources in more cost-effective geographies to facilitate reliable, efficient solution delivery and provide ongoing system support and maintenance for clients.

• Accenture Deployment Services— Using automated tools and processes, we can help improve information reliability and effectively accelerate large, multisite deployments. We leverage our client site presence in addition to our global delivery center network-tested and standardized methods, assets and tools, and highly skilled business and technology workforce.
  
  
• Accenture Technology Consulting— As part of our integrated Accenture Technology Consulting organization, our Network Technology group strategically aligns IT solutions to help clients attain their overarching business objectives, improve investment return and achieve high performance.
  
  
• Accenture Technology Labs— Our dedicated technology research and development organization explores how our clients can leverage new and emerging technologies in the marketplace to achieve high performance.
  
  
• Alliances—Our network of established alliances with leading technology providers extends our Network Technology solution delivery capabilities. Through the insights of our alliances and experience working with a wide range of technology providers, we can objectively evaluate and recommend technologies to address your organization’s specific needs.

Network performance discussion
To learn more and discuss how Accenture can help your organization reduce costs and achieve high performance within your network, please contact the Accenture Network Technology group global lead:

Shahid Ahmed, +1 312 693 6484, shahid.ahmed@accenture.com