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CASE STUDY
How Accenture Does IT

A new approach to pricing

Accenture’s Manage myPrice platform enables differentiated, informed, market-relevant pricing

Call for change

Today’s world of constant change means that Accenture needs to change with it. That includes the services we offer and their associated pricing. As part of a company-wide program to digitize our business services, we refreshed our pricing approach to one that is more optimal for our clients and Accenture.

Pricing is one component among many in Accenture’s multi-year journey to digitally transform our business services. We’re building a digital business services suite of intelligent applications and tools that streamlines, integrates and automates client account services and business management. Its breadth is extensive: 20 applications that span the sell-manage-deliver process to simplify and improve how teams work.

Before making this change, our pricing approach had become dated and less relevant, requiring client teams to manually draw on specific pricing resources and manually reenter information as it was exchanged. It was clear that Accenture needed a company-wide pricing approach that would allow solutions to be priced in a way that is more relevant to today’s market, quickly and efficiently—a solution that would also provide flexibility and adaptability to changing conditions.

"Manage myPrice is yet another vital component in streamlining Accenture’s client account processes."

— LEE BALAN, Managing Director – Sales & Pricing Performance, Accenture

When tech meets human ingenuity

In response, we developed Manage myPrice, a new pricing platform that offers differentiated pricing solutions based on group-specific attributes across services. Each Accenture service group defined a unique pricing approach that works for its specific area of business and can build its price based on how it sells to the market.

Rather than simply automating the pricing process, Manage myPrice reinforced and supported the differentiated pricing approaches by area of business to focus on value Accenture creates and delivers rather than simply on a profitability target. Manage myPrice digitally facilitates informed pricing, drawing on data from other sources. It builds a market-relevant starting price point based on third-party competitive intelligence, historical Accenture opportunities and market-centric targets.

Getting to this outcome, however, was more than simply building a technology solution. Implementing an enterprise-wide pricing solution required extensive effort to define not only a new pricing approach, but also required engaging our teams to make the change.

Secured sponsorship and business engagement
Fundamental to the successful rollout of Manage myPrice was establishing support at senior levels across all of Accenture’s organizations. In order to secure their support, we organized forums tailored specifically to each stakeholder group to get a better understanding of their individual pricing needs.

Started small, then expanded
We began development with a small segment of Accenture’s business that was mature and had the most leadership engaged, before expanding to other parts of the business. Looking at the commonalities between the various pricing approaches, we built the foundation of the Manage myPrice application. With the foundation in place, we then enabled each service to achieve market-relevant pricing through differentiated service-specific attributes and functions.

Enabled integration
The beauty of Accenture’s “Manage my” suite of cloud-based, intelligent (or data-driven) applications and tools is that it unleashes the power of integration and consistency. Manage myPrice, for example, is synced directly into Manage mySales, Accenture’s digital, analytics-driven sales platform, and into Manage myEngagements, Accenture’s digital delivery management platform.

With technologies working across platforms, solutions are integrated and connected. This means deal teams only need to enter information once and manage it in the originating system. This process enables connections among applications and maintains data consistently throughout the life span of a sales opportunity.

Created a common platform
Manage myPrice is also a common source for pricing data. Having all the pricing data in one platform allows various Accenture leads to review their business trends. They also have visibility to more granular pricing data points surrounding the work that they are selling.

Performed agile delivery, then scaled
Our program team followed a minimum viable product model delivery approach to quickly stand up the Manage myPrice application. To keep our delivery agile, we defined processes to allow for quicker build and test turnaround and off-cycle deployments to production. As we iterated, we adopted end-user feedback to improve pricing profitability, productivity and predictability.

Fostered adoption
Simply implementing a new technology does not always equal success. In designing Manage myPrice, we considered learning and behavior change as a critical part of the rollout. We helped our people understand the “why” not just the “how” behind Manage myPrice by providing an entire suite of audience-specific training and ongoing support—all of which were key to a successful adoption plan. Another key component was the inclusion of business stakeholders. By engaging them, we created a change network across the company that fostered change in ways that mattered to users.

A valuable difference

Manage myPrice strategically shifts Accenture’s pricing process for most services by providing a single platform fit for purpose offering pricing that’s digitally enabled, differentiated by business area, and value-driven. More specifically, it supports profitable pricing behaviors by offering market-based rates along with price and margin targets. On the intelligent front, Manage myPrice offers real-time insights and metrics including competitive intelligence.

Clients benefit from buying services that are competitively priced with the market and reflective of partnering relationships, among other factors. Accenture benefits by moving to an enterprise-wide solution that drastically reduces the time to price—from hours and days to minutes.

On its own, Manage myPrice is powerful. But it’s even more powerful when it’s working with Accenture’s entire “Manage my” suite of applications. Client account teams can better deliver Accenture’s best capabilities to serve clients and more directly influence the direction, growth and profitability of Accenture’s business. Teams work faster and more effectively, winning work more quickly and profitably.

"We’ve significantly changed the way we think about pricing our strategy and consulting work—moving away from cost pricing to fit-for-purpose pricing."

— MICHELLE MAHONEY, Director – Global Pricing Center of Excellence, Accenture

Meet the team

Lee Balan

Managing Director – Sales & Pricing Performance
LinkedIn

Olga Gonzalez

Managing Director – Global IT, IT Research & Innovation
LinkedIn

Shane Marshall

Managing Director – Global IT, Client & Market Technology
LinkedIn

Stephen Nicolls

Managing Director – Global IT, Client & Market Technology
LinkedIn

Michelle Mahoney

Director – Sales & Pricing Performance, Global Pricing Center of Excellence
LinkedIn

Pamela O'Connor

Director – Global IT, Client & Market Technology
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