How Accenture enables effective remote working
March 31, 2020
The nature of Accenture’s services and our work with clients necessitates remote working every day—for a large part of our more than 500,000 people around the world. For many years now, our global IT organization has intently led a digital worker program to equip our people with leading capabilities to be efficient and productive wherever they are—helping them connect, create, and collaborate on the go.
In unprecedented times such as these, our efforts are allowing us to keep our global workforce productive without disruption. We’ve learned a lot about remote working over the years, including which capabilities to deploy and how to promote successful adoption among employees. We’re sharing our experiences and insights to help you at a time when your organization is likely relying on remote work like never before to help keep work going.
Key steps include:
Shape a strategy for digital working
Accenture’s digital worker strategy has been to move away from traditional, PC-centric ways of working to more mobile ways with mobile apps, cloud-based capabilities, and providing our people access to some of the newest technology as it becomes available. Additionally, instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, we deploy capabilities that focus on user need, experience and engagement, and capabilities that are integrated and seamless. Applying this strategy, we believe, allows users to do their best work wherever they are and on whatever device. Listen to our podcast for more about our digital worker strategy.
Take advantage of cloud-based Microsoft Office 365
Like many companies, Accenture runs on Microsoft. Moving our Microsoft technologies from on premise to a cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) for Office 365 almost a decade ago enables us to today deliver new Office capabilities to Accenture people at speed. Our people also can work in leading ways, such as working in a browser with content that is mostly in the cloud and being able to collaborate simultaneously on documents in the cloud.
Collaborate and communicate with capabilities like Microsoft Teams
Last year, Accenture deployed Microsoft Teams company-wide, and today Accenture is among the world’s largest users of Teams. Teams is our new “digital cockpit,” providing a new generation of technology for communicating, chatting, file sharing, conferencing and more—all supporting enhanced collaboration among Accenture and with our clients.
The move to Teams also builds on Accenture’s significant investments in social, mobile, pervasive video, broadcasting and secure network. The collaboration as-a-service model helps Accenture deliver new features to our people fast—they no longer have to wait for the latest release of Office or Teams, as in the past.
For organizations that are turning to Teams in this unprecedented period of remote working, we’ve set up a Teams Resource Center to help. It includes some terrific training resources.
Use OneDrive for Business for storage and security
Microsoft OneDrive for Business fits with several of Accenture’s IT strategic directions—being cloud first, enhancing security and empowering our people to work “in the New.” Also, OneDrive cloud storage can to scale to meet Accenture’s needs. Our people access OneDrive through company-provided PCs and IT-managed tablets and mobile phones. A compelling benefit of OneDrive is moving files off laptops to secure cloud storage, which helps reduce the risk of data loss and data theft.
Develop company mobile apps
Our global IT teams develop mobile apps to materially improve the working lives and experiences of our people with seamless solutions across websites, devices, and touch-points as they do their work using several types of devices.
A new Accenture Support mobile app lets employees submit support requests, check on the status of cases, and view approvals when on the go rather than waiting to do these activities when in an office or home location. Another app, Accenture NOW, shows the day’s top company news, as well as an employee’s upcoming key conference calls and meetings, and important recent e-mails. It is also a gateway for booking a flight, reserving a workspace at an Accenture office, and filling out time-and-expense reports.
Accenture today is heavily a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) company with some Accenture country locations providing company-issued devices in combination with using Microsoft Intune mobile application management (MAM) for downloading and using Accenture apps.
Adopt new ways to learn new IT
Accenture considers learning and behavior change as a critical part of the rollout of a new or enhanced technology solution. We are transforming our learning culture and enabling behavior change around IT adoption to make it easy, intuitive, and even fun. We push the creativity envelope with videos, storytelling, TV-like series and gamification. We listen to our users and use analytics to continuously improve on learning and adoption.
Develop digital workplaces
Accenture is also developing Accenture digital workplaces. We’re striving to provide a unified employee experience across workplace services by creating a more ubiquitous landscape of technology and service offerings. We want our people to have a consistent experience regardless of location. Above all else, Accenture workplaces also need to continue to be safe and secure in a non-invasive way. Read more about how we’re transforming our workplaces and about Accenture’s Digital Workplace and Collaboration services.
Last, but not least, check out Accenture Group Chief – Technology and Chief Technology Officer Paul Daugherty’s call to fellow techies to be the role model now in taking digital ways of working to the next level. Now is the time to lead and teach your organizations.
