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Accenture Looks To Youth Culture To Work More Efficiently And Ubiquitously

Accenture's existing employees, and those we'll be hiring in the next five to 10 years, are accustomed to interacting, both on personal and professional levels, on Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, LinkedIn, YouTube, Wikipedia, and other Web-based social networking and collaboration sites. Today's teenagers are a driving force behind communication vehicles such as texting, IMing, video chats with Web cams, and sending messages through Web-based social networking sites.

At Accenture, we sought to bring the ease of widespread social communications into our Borderless Workplace initiative -- removing the communication and collaboration barriers inherent in a company with offices located across more than 150 cities in 49 countries.

We knew that allowing our employees, our most important asset, to communicate and collaborate more effectively (with each other and with our clients) would improve productivity and increase client satisfaction. We also feel it's an important element of our ability to attract and retain the best talent.

Anywhere, Anytime, And Anyplace
Where don't we work?! We have been a "virtual company" for years, long before that term became popular. We have no official headquarters and our executive leadership team is spread across the globe.

We recently transformed our network, integrating voice and data transmissions onto a single, secure, scalable and resilient MPLS network and switching to Internet Protocol Telephony. An Accenture employee can work at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, a hotel in Athens, a client's office in Frankfurt, or her home in San Francisco as securely and effectively as she works from an Accenture office in Chicago.

Higher Than Expected Return On Investment
The perception that investing in a Borderless Workplace is very expensive and complex couldn't be further from the truth. From an infrastructure perspective, the cost savings of the underlying network transformation that enables VoIP, softphones, unified messaging, and high-end videoconferencing (called telepresence) more than pays for the rest of the project. In addition, we have enjoyed ongoing travel-related cost savings from our telepresence investment. Being environmentally friendly by reducing travel is an important added benefit, not to mention avoiding the hassles inherent to business travel.

Our Borderless Workplace capabilities also include a series of social networking capabilities to allow our people to interact more effectively. Collaboration applications such as People Pages, Accenture Encyclopedia, Accenture Media Exchange, Knowledge Exchange, and enhanced search with document previews let employees find experts, contribute knowledge capital and expertise, and benefit from mass collaboration. While it's more difficult to measure the quantitative benefits of the solutions, usage statistics and feedback from employees indicates that they're more effective in creating, delivering, and presenting proposals, being responsive to clients, and architecting, designing, and delivering solutions, etc.

Moreover, because our IT organization has established an effective, two-way dialogue with Accenture's business leaders, they understand the value to our business of the Borderless Workplace.

Only A Few Challenges
Change management was essential to the success of this initiative and was our greatest challenge.

Our IT organization can create and deploy the finest technology, but if our users don't adopt it, then it's for naught. We relied on a multichannel approach (e-mails, videos, internal meetings, etc.) to spread the word, with a goal of getting employees to maximize the new tools in their daily processes (e.g., choosing videoconferencing over travel, updating Accenture People profiles, etc.). Interestingly, a Web site we created that's devoted to collaboration technologies was accessed by more than 60,000 employees in the first few weeks. Through our communications campaign and getting employees to use the new technologies, adoption has increased.

The applications we created as part of the Borderless Workplace provide several widely used content management tools that allow employees to create, publish, and search internal documents. Because this is done in a seamless, open environment, we had to carefully think through how to best balance privacy and confidentiality issues against potential risks and resulting benefits. Accenture implemented corporate privacy standards and trusted our employees to follow Accenture's Core Values, which is our code of business ethics.

How Do You Know When You Are Finished?
It's technology, so the answer is "never!" As our business continues to grow and evolve, so too will the technologies that support our employees. The Borderless Workplace isn't a destination, it's a journey. Employees will keep adopting our communication tools. We'll discover better technologies to collaborate with clients. New tools will become common to our workflow. And I am sure we will continue to watch the early adopters -- teenagers and young professionals -- to keep tabs on the latest and greatest ways to connect and get things done!

Frank B. Modruson is Accenture's CIO. Comment below on Accenture's plans.

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