Accenture
Report written by
Heli Lindqvist, Ismayil Önder, Judit Sa’nta,
Sabrina D. Pick, Stefan Gabriëls
Subject
Accenture’s Cultural Dimensions
Accenture’s Cultural Dimensions
Contents
1 Basic Information ‘Accenture’ .................................................1
2 Power Distance ......................................................................2
2.1 Hierarchy.......................................................................................................... 2
2.2 Promotion ......................................................................................................... 2
3 Being vs. doing .......................................................................3
4 Individualism or group? ..........................................................3
5 Uncertainty avoidance ............................................................4
6 Femininity/ Masculinity ...........................................................4
6.1 Masculinity ....................................................................................................... 4
6.2 Femininity ......................................................................................................... 5
7 Time........................................................................................5
8 Conclusion ..............................................................................6
APPENDIX .................................................................................7
Accenture’s Cultural Dimensions
1 Basic Information ‘Accenture’
Accenture has its origins in the Arthur Andersen Group. One branch of the Andersen
Group was Andersen Consulting. In the 1980’s this branch broke up from the rest of
the company. In 2001, after Andersen took part in the Enron scandal Andersen
Consulting had to change its name. They launched a competition to get a new name
for the consulting company. It was a Danish employee who thought about their
company giving an accent on the future. That’s how Accenture was established.
Accenture is a global company that delivers consulting, outsourcing and technology
services. Their goal is to help their clients to improve their business, performance and
government. The company operates in northern and southern America, Asia Pacific,
Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
Accenture consists of five different operating groups which are
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Communications & High Tech
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Financial Services
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Port & Public Services
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Products
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Resources
Accenture is focused on working with large projects and large companies. There are
a few medium-sized companies they are working with but that is rather seldom.
Some examples of their big customers are BMW and Deutsche Bank. They have 87
companies on the global Fortune 100 list as their clients.
Accenture has almost 100.000 employees in 48 countries. The revenue in 2003 was
11.8 billion US-Dollars. The CEO of Accenture is William D. Green.
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Accenture’s Cultural Dimensions
2 Power Distance
Accenture has a high hierarchy structure. But the culture is very open, so it is easy
for people in different levels to communicate with each other. In a project, a person
on the highest level takes the responsibility. If there is more than one on this level,
the most experienced person is on lead.
2.1 Hierarchy
New employees start in the company as Analysts, usually they have just finished
university. A person works as an analyst for 2 or 3 years. Tasks for analysts consist
of research, presentations and training. If you have working experience from another
company, you can possibly start on the next level.
After that it’s common to get promoted as a Consultant. Consultants lead teams and
they have some responsibility. After three years being a consultant, you usually get
promoted depending on your performance.
The next stage is Manager, who leads the projects and also does other management
related tasks. Senior Managers have worked as managers from three to five years.
They mainly focus on sales jobs.
The highest level in the company is Associate Partner or Partner. They try to get new
customers, but it is not easy to get promoted to this level.
2.2 Promotion
People are evaluated by their performance once a year. They are ranked by their
performance, and approximately 25 % of them get promoted. The percentage of
promoted people depends on the economical situation.
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Accenture’s Cultural Dimensions
The company has a so called “upper out principle” which means that you have a
certain time available wherein you should be promoted. If a person doesn’t get
promoted during this time, the person usually wants to find a new career path.
3 Being vs. doing
The analysts do the traditional work. They do all the research, and are not in charge
of anything. In the company’s open culture analysts can give their opinions and
suggestions.
The whole company really is all about “doing”, your background doesn’t matter. This
originates from the American roots of the company.
For example people recruited are expected to have some kind of degree. But it
doesn’t matter if it’s from university or from polytechnic.
4 Individualism or group?
Teamwork is really important for Accenture because it’s all about projects. They
gather together teams for certain projects. When a project ends, they normally have a
new project with a totally different team. The projects can last from a few weeks to a
couple of years. You have different responsibilities within a team. If you make a
mistake you should immediately tell your team about that and try to solve it.
You only succeed as a team, but it is also important to develop and improve your
personal skills. One category of your personal ranking is about being a value creator.
The other two categories are about successful business projects and people
development. So you have to have good skills in individual and group work.
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Accenture’s Cultural Dimensions
5 Uncertainty avoidance
In a company, like Accenture, you have to be ready for some kind of uncertainty. You
never know about future projects in advance. Usually the time is only a few weeks
earlier. It might even happen that you have to leave your home country.
On the other hand you can ask for some time off if you need to for your personal
purposes, like when you are having a child. This is the way the company rewards its
employees for handling uncertainty.
Another way of rewarding their employees is to offer them trainings. In the annual
performance interview you reflect your performances and you also set goals. If your
annual budget and your career counsellor agrees you can participate in training.
6 Femininity/ Masculinity
In Accenture you will find more men than women. This is because of the strong
influence of the IT- sector. In Europe you will find a similar division in schools
studying that branch. But in Accenture, as well as in schools, there are more women
dealing with for example Human Resources matters.
6.1 Masculinity
There are a few points that make Accenture appear to be more masculine than
feminine. For example there is a big sympathy for the winners, you win when you
succeed in your work and this way you get promoted. Competition is very important
for Accenture, they are always looking for ambitious employees.
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Accenture’s Cultural Dimensions
6.2 Femininity
Accenture has a really open way of communicating. Therefore the employees
especially like to work for their company and also because they can call each other
by their first name from the beginning on.
Within projects they normally make group decisions, although there is one person
who takes the responsibility. If something is going wrong you can always talk about
that. If a problem occurs in your project team and you do not feel comfortable with
speaking up directly to your team members you have the possibility to ask your
mentor for support.
Accenture considers it important to socialize even after work. They have different
communities based on the operating groups. Typically project teams hold meetings
every Friday where they chat and discuss in more informal way. They also offer
parties but this depends on the economical situation.
7 Time
Accenture expects their employees to work long hours. They have to be aware that it
might happen that they have to work up to 70 hours a week. The basic working time
is 40 hours a week. Generally, everybody has to work more hours when they get
closer to the end of a project.
A new project is only announced a short time in advance, which means that they start
planning the details when the project has started. The projects last from a few weeks
to several years. After each project the employees are supposed to relax for a little
while. They do not have to work as hard as at the end of the project.
If you have personal goals i.e. reaching a PhD, Accenture will do its best to grant you
some flexibility. Or like the company says: “If there is a way, the way will be found”.
But getting free time really depends on the project that you had joined. And of course
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Accenture’s Cultural Dimensions
the time you ask for it beforehand is important as well. The employees have to focus
on the future and need to be able to adapt easily to changes.
8 Conclusion
Accenture is a world-wide company that gives you lots of opportunities. Whether or
not your carrier will be successful depends on your performance. The company
supports you as much as possible. After you leave the firm you will have excellent
references for making career in another company. The culture of Accenture also
recommends giving feedback. Each manager can decide on his own if and how he
will handle it.
The projects do not necessarily contain team members from the same country, a lot
of the time you will have to work together with people from different nationalities. The
employees don’t get special intercultural training but when problems occur they can
ask their mentor or even a Human Resources Representative for support.
Finally, if you are interested in open communication, an individual approach, team
work, changing tasks and international experiences, Accenture is a great company to
work for.
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APPENDIX
From: Ismayil Önder, Judit Sa´nta, Sabrina Pick, Heli Lindqvist, Stefan Gabriëls
To: Staff, Bridge Across Cultures 2004
Date: 17 November 2004
Subject: LOG
Group: Mighty Six
Intercultural Management
Introduction teambuilding
In this report we would like to give you a short feedback about our experiences during
2 weeks on an intensive, intercultural course (Bridge Across Cultures) in
Aschaffenburg, Germany. It was a great opportunity for everyone to get to know
better the differences between cultures. It was also a very good opportunity to
improve our language skills and make new friendships.
The students
The past 2 weeks we worked in a multicultural group with one Hungarian, one Dutch,
one German, one Belgian and also one Finnish person.
Student
Country
School
Education
Ismayil Önder
The Netherlands
Saxion
International Marketing
Judit Sa´nta
Hungarian
PSZF
Finances
Sabrina Pick
Germany
FHH
Business
Administration
Heli Lindqvist
Finland
Laurea
Business
Administration
Stefan Gabriëls
Belgium
HS Gent
Applied Informatics
About the course
The first day, Sunday the 7th of November, we met each other. We were divided into
different groups and the same night we tried to get to know each other better.
Everybody introduced her or himself and we made an appointment to meet each
other on the next day at the first lesson. At the first sight everybody seemed very shy,
but during the days we opened to each other. Marleen taught us how to use meeting
techniques. On the same day, Ildiko taught us how to handle with cultural
dimensions. This was a very interesting lesson, because on that moment we didn’t
know exactly how to handle with each others culture. On Tuesday the same teachers
taught us again and we learned how to communicate with different cultures and they
told us about team roles and how we could use these.
On Wednesday, Romy told us how we can improve our interpersonal skills. After that
we had a class with Harry about safety and security. This lesson was not as
interesting as the others. The problem was that we didn’t have enough time. Harry
had to present his 4 hours presentation in 1 hour. We also had an interesting day on
Friday with Kristina and Ad about how to negotiate with different groups and different
cultures. We were dealing very well until the teachers gave the others details about
the case. So we couldn’t come to a final deal. On Monday the 15th , Rogier taught us
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Intercultural Management
how to be a successful, international business person. Everyday the groups were
mixed up and we think that this was a very good idea, because we could work in
different groups.
In our opinion the best parts of the days were the nights. We could socialize and had
every night very nice programs like country presentations and country events. We
think that everybody enjoyed these programs. Our favorite was the survival game.
We were warned that the survival game would be very hard. But in reality it was not,
because we worked very well as a team. We also had a very good time on Saturday
and Sunday when we had a tour in Miltenberg with an afternoon of wine tasting. The
Bavarian Culture Night activity was also very interesting.
Positives
In this part we would like to give you positive examples about our experiences,
achievements and the main lessons we learnt within our group.
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We learned a lot about different cultures
We learned to respect different cultures
There are not as much stereotypes as before
How to negotiate
How to use oral and body language
How to express ourselves
Presentation techniques and how to use them
Business meeting techniques and how to use them in different situations
How to get and stay self confident
How to clean up your room
How to handle problems with each other (Elke)
How to deal with problems like discrimination and prejudices
We also learned how to discuss and to be more open and flexible
We supported each other to come to these conclusions
Last but not least: HOW TO MAKE PARTY AND A LOT OF FUN WITH
PEOPLE FROM DIFFERENT COUNTRIES
Negatives
In this part we would like to give you some examples of the rather uncommon
negative things that we experienced during our course.
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The tasks that were given during the lessons were not always clear.
Sometimes we had to wait and ask for more information.
Many times we wasted a lot of time because we had different opinions and it
was sometimes hard to make a final decision.
Once in a while the schedule was too busy, so that we got more tired as a
group, so it became difficult to pay a lot of attention.
During the course we made appointments, but some of us were a few times
late, so we couldn’t start working.
We only had one laptop, so we lost a bit of efficiency.
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Intercultural Management
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The folder we were given was not that clear and it was also difficult to find
specific topics because of the numbering of the pages and some chapters
were missing (no index).
We also didn’t have enough free time to socialize. We only could go to the bar
during night time.
Conclusion
After all we have to agree on one point, that this course was a great course! We were
able to solve every problem that came up, so we really could work together as a
team. We agreed almost on everything, so we didn’t have any big problems while
discussing. We hope also that this course will go on in the future, because we believe
that other students should be able to experience this kind of education as well.
Unfortunately we felt homesick sometimes but everybody was very supporting
(including the teachers), so right now we don’t want to go home anymore! The next
sentence of our group member, Judit, will show how great it was. She said to the
Dutch guys: ´I will miss your noise`!
After all, we really had a great time and we learned a lot from each other.
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