| | By Mick James
Of all the major
firms, Accenture is
perhaps the one with the
strongest reputation as
a “grow your own”
consultancy, recruiting
large numbers of
graduates and developing
them first into
consultants and
eventually into the
partners and leaders of
the firm.
However, in recent
years this has changed
and Accenture is as much
in the market for
industry experience as
anyone else, as Angus
Wildblood, a partner in
Accenture’s Financial
Services group explains.
“To sell successfully
to clients we need
people with industry
knowledge,” he says. “We
want to build and
supplement our higher
level industry skills.”
To this end,
Accenture is looking for
experienced hires across
its financial services
group, in capital
markets, insurance and
banking, where Wildblood
is responsible for the
banking capability
group.
“That’s a subset of
people who work in
banking but focus on
being subject matter
experts either in
banking overall or in
specific areas such as
payroll or mortgage
processing.”
Without this
capability Wildblood
believes that Accenture
would struggle to
differentiate itself in
the marketplace.
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| | want access to that,” he
says. “You can get to a
level of that but you
can’t get the ‘been
there and done it’
element.”
Although Wildblood
says experience of
change projects is
helpful, it is by no
means essential.
“The sort of people
we want are those who
can differentiate
themselves in the way
they understand a
particular function,” he
says. “They do need to
demonstrate a level of
comfort with
uncertainty, to show
that they can shape
ideas and solutions –
that’s something you
either can or can’t do.”
Experience of dealing
with board-level
executives is also
helpful, says Wildblood.
“When I started at
Accenture, partners
dealt with a level of
people significantly
lower than they do now,”
he says “A significant
amount of time -
although I hate the term
- is spent dealing with
the “C-suite” rather
than people implementing
smaller systems
projects.”
To attract this level
of talent Accenture has
had to take a close look
at its internal training
and career structures.
“We’ve got much
better at integrating
senior people into the
organisation than ever
before,” says Wildblood.
“Fifteen years ago we
didn’t really do
experienced hires and | |
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| | when we did we didn’t
always look after them
in the way that we
should have.”
Wildblood says
Accenture now offers
“impressive” levels of
career support.
“We’ve made major
investments in terms of
building our capability,
both in terms of
industry training and
craft skills,” he says.
“There are now far more
people in senior parts
of the organisation who
didn’t start here -
whether you started here
or not it’s up to you
whether you succeed.”
Wildblood accepts
that Accenture’s recent
focus on building its
outsourcing business
means that consultancy
has sometimes struggled
for attention. But he
insists that consultancy
work is the intellectual
lifeblood of the
organisation.
“Accenture wouldn’t
be Accenture if we
didn’t have a point of
view,” he says. “We want
to be shaping clients’
agendas in all areas of
their business.”
Accenture’s current
approach, which it calls
“high performance
banking”, encourages
clients to simplify
their businesses on the
inside while offering a
highly differentiated
and personalised service
to customers on the
outside. It’s a model
taken from the
automotive industry,
where companies have
succeeded in developing
a small number of common | |
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| | platforms which can be
offered to the market as
different models, or
even different marques
of cars.
”We’ve looked at how
other industries do it,
and whether banks like
it or not they are an
industry,” says
Wildblood. “And if
you’re an industry you
can industrialise.”
The problem with this
model in relation to
banking is the
incredible internal
complexity they have
created in terms of
products, channels,
processes and systems.
“That’s where our
high-value consulting
model comes in - how do
you do that?” he says.
"You’ve got to be
fabulous at executing
things. Lots of banks
get lots of reports - we
see execution as a key
capability.”
Wildblood believes
this focus is a key
differentiator that
makes the firm
attractive to both
clients and recruits.
“What I like about
this firm is that it
does the whole spectrum
of ‘what’s the problem,
what’s the solution and
how do we deliver it?’”
he says. “For the last
few years ‘delivered’
has been the major point
of what we do – a
PowerPoint deck doesn’t
change anything.”
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“The issues are much
more technical now; it’s
all about how payments
operate, how sorting
works,” he says. “Buyers
are much more
sophisticated now. When
I was working in the
line for a major bank,
the conversation didn’t
last very long if I was
being sold to by people
who didn’t understand my
issues.”
One of the problems
an organisation like
Accenture faces comes
from the sheer range of
its offerings, from
business consultancy in
strategy and operations
through technical
consulting to
traditional systems
integration, plus of
course business process
outsourcing and IT
outsourcing.
“We need people with
both industry insight
and an understanding of
the toys Accenture can
bring to the party,”
says Wildblood.
“Historically,
consultants have always
had a good insight into
what we have but not
enough into the
industries we are
serving.”
In the past big firms
have tried to plus the
gap with knowledge
management (KM) systems,
but this has
limitations.
“We’re the ones who
work with banks around
the world and clients | |
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