How we transformed asset management at Accenture

With more than a half-million people around the world, you can imagine that managing IT and workplace assets at Accenture can be a complex undertaking. Multiple solutions. Time-consuming manual processes. Inconsistent information across teams. The inability to obtain a view of our assets globally convinced us that we had to migrate 10 million+ assets valued at more than $2 billion to a central platform.

We needed a simpler approach to better manage all of these resources. We needed standardization. And we needed consistency. Then we could retire aging solutions and dramatically slash manual processes and reduce operating costs. In short, we needed an efficient, intelligent enterprise asset management (EAM) solution.

The journey

Along our digital transformation journey at Accenture, we discovered a clear need for central and digital platform for our service management tools and capabilities. We chose ServiceNow for IT service management as the foundation for digital transformation for service management. We saw great potential in the solution’s functionality, cloud-based architecture and platform-as-a-service offerings. It made sense to take advantage of ServiceNow capabilities for our EAM needs as well.

Our journey’s success depended on taking a collaborative approach. So we teamed our seasoned global IT people with enterprise stakeholders and an intelligent asset management group that had EAM capabilities and process design skills to lay the groundwork for an EAM transformation. Working through this process involved more than 200 stakeholders from 51 countries around the world.

We began by laying out a foundation, which required rationalizing processes and data, and establishing core integrations. Initially, we migrated 800,000 assets from a variety of locally managed tools to the ServiceNow platform, with a goal to move a total of 8 million by the end of the three-year roadmap. By rationalizing data and putting in system controls, we helped drive standardization and data integrity across all asset types. As part of this initial step, our team automated data governance controls and legal compliance, and established global ownership of data governance.

An intelligent, automated solution

We built integrations with ServiceNow and core platforms to drive automation with SAP Ariba (for asset procurement) and a single global SAP system instance (for financial data). This created an integrated, end-to-end asset management lifecycle with assets tracked from procurement to disposal, with real-time audit and reconciliation capabilities.

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A tailored, interactive, mobile-friendly service portal allows users to monitor and change assets, check activities and reprint asset tags, among other benefits. Role-based dashboards provide real-time reporting to govern data and allow managers to track all assets, confirm data governance and accurately forecast stocks that need refreshing. A powerful mobile app allows users to register, manage and audit assets from anywhere using QR codes, bar codes and other tools.

Enabling agility when it’s needed most

Our EAM solution has been instrumental in helping us stay flexible and resilient, particularly through the COVID-19 crisis. As workflow demands shifted very quickly, we were able to respond just as quickly. We were able to secure laptops and desktops for our people rapidly, enabling them to transition smoothly from the office to work from home. Also, our solution was just as critical in helping us supply remote technology support and continue operations seamlessly while complying with our policies.

And, perhaps more important, we’re confidently prepared for when our people can return to their regular workplaces. Among other critical tools, after lockdown restrictions are removed, our EAM solution enables an automated, mobile solution to check-in workplace and technology assets.

We are transforming the way we track and manage our global assets—hardware, software and workplace. This single, integrated solution significantly streamlines the process and helps us manage the lifecycle of all our assets—from beginning to end.

Interested in learning more? Read the full case study.