Accenture

This review is for the CIO Organization within Accenture in Chicago. The CIO Organization is the internal IT group that supports the business of Accenture from an IT standpoint.

Good people. Fun people. Work hard, play hard. Defined career path.

Methodologies from the consulting practice are followed. A lot of things are being done "right" internally: single instance of SAP, single version of the truth, single technology platform.

This review is for the CIO Organization within Accenture in Chicago. The CIO Organization is the internal IT group that supports the business of Accenture from an IT standpoint.

No mission. No goal. What problem are they trying to solve? What is the next thing they are trying to accomplish? Upgrade to the next version of SAP? Is that type of work interesting and engaging?

Career logjam. No opportunity to get promoted.

Lots of projects have off-shore teams, which requires meetings pre-8am and post-7pm (weekly if not daily). Doing that week-in and week-out takes a real toll on your personal life.

My experience was that Accenture's core values are lip service. The core value which I think is the biggest farce is "Respect for the Individual." That is laughable. Accenture doesn't care about you. Accenture is a sweat shop.

When I was there, Accenture rated all of their employees and forced them to fit into "bands." Only a small percentage were at the very top (who got the biggest raises/bonuses), then there was an "exceeds" band (larger percentage, got smaller raises/bonuses), then an "above" band (larger percentage, smaller raises/bonuses), then "meets", then "below". This rating system was borrowed from the consulting practice. I understand the desire to have this system for consulting, but I personally think it is inappropriate for an internal organization that doesn't generate revenue and is trying to run the internal IT systems of a company. It fosters and rewards actions and behavior which is damaging to the organization and culture.

Accenture's CIO has a lot of talented people who are being under-utilized because the CIO does not have a mission, a problem to solve. In my estimation, things were fine as far as running their internal IT functions. The CIO should expand their scope and apply their skills to help grow Accenture's consulting or outsourcing businesses, or help improve the operational effectiveness of their consulting or outsourcing businesses.