Accenture

Last edited by lenazun on December 17, 2009 - 2:56pm

Company Snapshot:

Accenture Ltd. is the largest consulting firm in the world, incorporated in Bermuda with its main U.S. office in Chicago, Illinois. It has made the outsourcing of jobs into big business.

The company was established as the consulting wing of Arthur Andersen, Andersen Consulting, splitting off in 2000, when it changed its name to Accenture.

Number of employees worldwide:

170,000

Chief executive officer:

William D. Green

Website:

http://www.accenture.com/home/default.htm

Global Fortune 500 rank:

348

Net Income:

$1.243 billion

Total revenue:

$ 21.453 billion

Corporate accountability

Accountability overview:

A review of the company's contract performance published by the Connecticut General Assembly in September 2007 identified a number of problems, including delays, "breach of contract" (Colorado), a failure to meet contract terms (U.S. Marine Corps), cost overruns, etc. In some cases the problems identified led to early termination of the contract. (Another list of Accenture contract problems is posted here by Public Power BC).

According to the Austin Chronicle, Pentagon officials abandoned a plan to use an Internet voting system for soldiers and other Americans abroad in 2004 elections. Accenture's $22 million contract to develop SERVE (Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment) technology resulted in a system that an independent panel of scientists concluded had "fundamental security problems that leave it vulnerable to a variety of well-known cyber attacks, any one of which could be catastrophic."

Tax issues:

Tax haven headquarters

In October 2002, the Congressional General Accounting Office (GAO) identified Accenture as one of four publicly-traded federal contractors that were incorporated in a tax haven country. Accenture objected that it was different from the other three who, unlike Accenture, were incorporated in the United States before they re-incorporated in a tax haven country, thereby lowering their U.S. taxes.

Still, Rep. DeLauro and other critics say Accenture's incorporation in Bermuda should disqualify it for U.S. contracts under a provision restricting the awarding of federal contracts to companies that incorporated offshore to avoid paying their fair share of taxes, since Accenture was originally a U.S.-based company.

Labor:

One of Accenture's biggest sources of consulting income comes from encouraging governments and companies to outsource jobs in order to save money. E.g. the Texas department of Health and Human Services awarded Accenture a five-year $ 840 million contract to operate the state’s eligibility and enrollment systems for Medicaid, food stamp services and other assistance programs.

When CEO William D. Green joined the firm in 2004, he pledged to expand the firm's outsourcing business, where it was already. Green noted that Accenture's core business has been shifting from consulting to outsourcing. Although consulting still represents the lion's share of Accenture's total business--61 percent--Green said he plans to grow the outsourcing business to 50 percent of the firm's total revenues.

The company opened a technology outsourcing center in Cebu, the Philippines, in 2007.

Clients that have hired the firm to help outsource jobs, include the London Stock Exchange, Thomas Cook, state governments,

Human rights:

Voting Rights Accenture and the Florida government came under fire in 2004 for excluding convicted felons from the voter lists. The policy was enacted through an Accenture-designed system which purged almost no Hispanic voters (who tend to be Republican in Florida) but removed more than 20 000 black voters (who are overwhelmingly Democratic) from voter lists. Accenture, a major Republican campaign donor, claimed not to have noticed the flawed lists which resulted in the massive error. (See Ford Fessenden's New York Times story ‘Civil Rights Board Wants Inquiry on Florida Voter-Purge List'. Additional news and opinions can be found at http://www.civilrights.org/issues/cj/details.cfm?id=24661 and http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=464&row=1.)

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Financial information

Stock ticker symbol:

ACN

Fiscal year:

2007

Fiscal year:

2003

Major lines of business/segments:

Accenture is structured around five operating groups (Communications and High Tech; Financial Services; Products; Resources; and Public Services) comprising 17 industry groups.

Link to annual report:

http://investor.accenture.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=129731&p=irol-secbridge

Additional descriptive data

Link to full list of subsidiaries:

http://investor.accenture.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=129731&p=irol-sec