Driving an intelligent enterprise

Accenture is an intelligent enterprise. We are an enterprise that is automated (platform delivered), intelligent (driven by AI, machine learning, and applied data science), and insight driven (business focused, visual, actionable, and real time)—all at huge scale. The aim is to deliver insights for our people to answer key business questions so that they can take action at the moment of need.

Being “intelligent” is an ongoing journey for Accenture. We are in the midst of a multiyear transformation that our CIO Applied Intelligence organization in internal IT is driving. This organization includes data scientists, user experience experts, and software engineers who partner with Accenture business stakeholders to build advanced analytics solutions. As a result, we are moving away from operating with information in data silos, lags in reporting outcomes, and “rear window” views of what happened and toward interconnected decision making, an interactive enterprise experience, and real-time insights to support better operational decisions.

The products we’re building are helping Accenture employees better address such questions as, “Have I optimized the mix of experts for my latest project?,” “Am I hitting my sales goals, and if not, why?,” “Will debt allow more flexibility to finance Accenture initiatives?,” and “How do I drive workplace optimization across our global offices?”

It’s all pretty exciting stuff. How does this play out in real life, you may ask? We have answers.

Real-life solutions in production

Across Accenture’s business, our CIO Applied Intelligence organization has a number of initiatives in the works. Some of the intelligent products deployed that Accenture people are already using today include:

Sales win probability prediction – This product has a machine learning model at its core that scores and predicts the probability of winning business opportunities in the sales cycle. The insights enable Accenture sales teams to focus on opportunities more likely to be sold and walk away from investing business development cost in opportunities more likely to be lost. Improved probability prediction helps convert opportunities into clients for Accenture. 

Expense reporting compliance – We developed an anomaly detection solution for Accenture’s expense reporting system to augment our existing rule-based analytics. The final product helps address the high volume of expenses reported that trigger as false positives. A high number of these cases are ultimately compliant, resulting in an inefficient use of audit time by our Compliance Team. The product now reduces the number of false positives in the anomalies being detected, improving audit efficiency and redirecting time to more questionable claims. A CIO Applied Intelligence team continues to further optimize the anomaly detection model for expense compliance and apply new deep-learning models to improve accuracy and business insight.  

Procurement general ledger recommendation – This product improves efficiency in purchase requisitioning and non-purchase order invoice processing by using predictive analytics and automating the recommendation of general ledger accounts to Accenture buyers at the point of purchase. Predictive analytics, embedded as AI, and automation better prepare buyers who are less familiar with accounting to be more accurate with their purchases and significantly streamline subsequent accounts payable accuracy, time, and cost.

 Opportunity for new value

The analytics products that we are developing are advancing Accenture’s transformation journey to becoming an enterprise that is automated, intelligent, and insight-driven. Accenture envisions this future digital-insight culture as one that delivers new value in many ways. Accenture’s reporting landscape will become simplified. There will be broader insights into business performance as all business dimensions will be supported with digital insights—anywhere. Our people will put more focus on decision over administration. In all, intelligent insight will transform how Accenture does business.