Posts by A Consultant

British Gas sues Accenture

@ Anonymous Coward

I'm not here necessarily to support Accenture, rather to redress the complete imbalance of some of the remarkably ill-informed comments (like your one about over-time payments; Accenture UK doesn't pay their staff over-time, much to their chagrin - I know, I used to sign off their invoices for a project). If you want success stories just look at their website; there seem to be lots there:

http://www.accenture.com/Global/Services/Client_Successes/

I really don't, or can't, dispute individual cases of incompetance from Accenture or any other consultancy. I'm sure there are plenty. Just give it some balance please! Your last comment about being rejected by them speaks volumes.

@ Brett Weaver

I didn't mention any successful projects because it's so obvious that you can't sustain a $20bn business when you always fail to deliver. Just go to the Accenture website for examples. However, with the general cynicism around I would bet that most people reading these comments would doubt these stories.

(http://www.accenture.com/Global/Services/Client_Successes/By_Subject/Supply_Chain_Mgmt/SiemensExcellence.htm)

I fully agree with you in that the industry in general delivers terrible results. My point is that the majority of the comments on this article focus on the supplier, and the supplier alone. It's insane to think that consultancies are the only and/or main cause of IT projects going wrong. Sure, some are culpable, but the comments are so rabid and out of kilter with reality that I feel some balance is needed. BTW I'm not necessarily a big supporter of Accenture; I've had good and bad experiences with them in the past (more good than bad it has to be said). Consultancies do require a good balance of guidance and support from the client to succeed.

I do understand that with the amount of money pumped into consultancies people expect results. But anyone with even a cursory knowledge of how to deliver large IT programs knows that throwing money at the problem and hiring a consultancy alone will not solve the problem.

Also, my point about only badly run projects make the press still stands. Do a search on The Reg's site for Accenture (and most other consultancy firms) and the vast majority of news is about how the problems projects face. I searched and it was interesting to note that even when Accenture and BAE pulled out of the Govt's Identity Card project at the tender stage there was some criticism.

Some of these comments have to be jokes...

I can't believe how ill informed some of these comments are!

- "Weren't they Anderson Consulting, rebranded (obscenely expensively) by marketing tw@s?

Answer: No

- "...can anyone name any successful Accenture project, i can recall at least 3 multi million pound projects that went awry.

Answer: Yes. Lots. The thing is, bad press about IT projects is much more interesting to read than projects which went well. It's the equivalent of Britney Spears going into rehab: Interesting. Britney Spears doing well: Not interesting.

I realise the comments section is open to all, but some of these comments are ludicrous. They're generally anecdotal "my mate told me this about Accenture..." etc. etc.

I have worked with Accenture a lot. Some of their people have been poor. Some have been phenomenal. The bottom line is that Accenture keeps on getting hired because it generally delivers and has a strong track record of delivery. The old boy network, golf course discussions and the like aren't enough to sustain this $20bn + company.

One thing many people tend to forget, and this is relevant to many UK Government projects, if the client doesn't listen and if the client thinks it knows best then in general things tend to go wrong. I don't know the details of the Centrica case but I know from other IT large programs that a client's ambition far outstrips its ability to deliver (even with a large consultancy helping). It isn't always the case either that Accenture, nor other consultancy firms "sit there and take the money". That's an incredibly short-term and short-sighted approach; one that will come back to bite you in this small industry. If that was the case Accenture could have remained on the NHS IT programme, milked it for all it was worth rather than raising the danger flags to the UK Govt and getting out.

Anonymous Coward: your comment about Accenture supposedly putting in systems they know won't work and then hitting the client for Change Requests looks like it was written for Viz's Letter Pages or straight out of an Aldridge Prior ("Hopeless Liar") story.