How we reinvented sales to drive extraordinary change

Sales at Accenture used to look quite different. Our sales teams were operating with less coordination, remote work was the exception rather than the rule, and for many of our clients, digital transformation was still on the horizon.

In March 2020, right before the pandemic was declared, we began our sales transformation. With everything that has happened since then, it can be hard to appreciate the magnitude of what we’ve accomplished. We’ve reimagined sales, enhancing digital tools and processes across our business, strengthening how we attract, develop and enable talent; and creating a sales culture and capability that are unrivaled.

Today, we have a resilient, agile and interconnected community that is raising the bar for our competitors and driving sustainable growth for our company and our clients.

How did we do it?

While we couldn’t have anticipated the challenges that 2020 would bring, our sales transformation was critical to our success during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. Our people quickly adapted to the new reality, supported by our new sales architecture and innovative tools, practices and capabilities that allowed us to thrive – even at a distance.

We took a multifaceted approach to our sales transformation, reshaping our community to meet the unique needs of our company, people and clients:

• Building innovation through strong leadership: We’ve created a consistent leadership structure across our three Markets, with one sales lead in each Market and dedicated sales professionals at the regional and service levels. Now we can bring the best of Accenture to meet our clients’ needs, regardless of where we’re located.
• Harnessing data and talent to grow: Data is at the heart of our sales transformation. Our sales teams have embraced an intelligent approach to selling, using enhanced digital tools to identify and pursue opportunities with clients. For example, we use a tool that combines customer and third-party data into a single source of truth, giving us access to deeper and more comprehensive insights during deal pursuits.
• Cultivating careers by embracing potential: Our people are our most valuable resource. As part of our sales transformation, we’ve introduced a new careers framework that supports the individual goals of our people, while helping us attract top talent. This includes curated learning and development offerings, competitive incentives and rewards, and the flexibility to explore career opportunities within and outside of sales. We’ve also created a dedicated career path in sales for people who are just starting their careers, as well as a specialized sales development program to help them succeed.
• Leveraging human expertise & best practices: We combined 14 core services areas to form our Sales & Pricing Performance (S&PP) organization, creating a unified process for delivering enablement capabilities to sales teams around the world.
• Building the right teams to command complexity: Selling more large and complex deals is an important part of our growth strategy, but it takes very specialized skills and experience to manage these transactions. In early 2020, we brought together some of our highest-performing sales leaders to form the Market Maker organization. Together with Enterprise Solution Architects, Transformation Directors and Client Account Leads – as well as experts across finance, marketing and legal – our Market Makers have helped us double the number of large deals we sold between FY20 and FY21.

Evolving to succeed in a dynamic environment

By any measure, our sales transformation has been a huge success. Not only did we grow our portfolio of potential deals to record levels, but we’re substantially outperforming many of our peers.

The pace of change is not slowing down – and neither are we. We’ll continue evolving to meet the needs of this dynamic environment, while helping our clients modernize, embrace new digital technologies and build a foundation for success in the future.

I invite you to check out our case study for a more in-depth look at our sales transformation and to learn how we can help your company reimagine sales.