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Executive Summary

There are a lot of companies to choose from when it comes to the procurement of consultancy services.
We cover the essential considerations.

Introduction

The consulting space is filled with companies that very much focus on illusory or trendy items rather than the basics that impact improving the area in question. We cover one company, Accenture, and how misleading the information on their website is on what they claim to provide.

Analysis of Accenture’s Supply Chain Consulting

These screenshots were taken from Accenture’s website.

Accenture discusses many things that aren’t directly related to supply chain management.

All of Accenture’s website pages on its consulting offering are like this. Everything is about “transformation” or “turning process friction into flow.”

When we drill down, we are taken to more high-level coverage. Why is Accenture so disinterested in discussing or presenting specifics around supply chain consulting on their website?

Accenture Tips Its Financial Bias

This is Accenture’s comment on systems.

Accenture’s Procurement function is transforming to deliver value above and beyond what is expected of traditional procurement. We’ve shifted our focus past the traditional role of managing transactional compliance to also becoming a partner to our business functions, enabling Accenture’s bottom line. It’s the reason we changed our name to Procurement Plus several years ago.

Our systems landscape is SAP® Ariba® On Demand and a single global instance of SAP S/4HANA®. Our journey involves standardizing, simplifying and automating the elements of traditional procurement by digitizing processes, moving to a frictionless buying experience and developing analytics to enable intelligent procurement supported by data-driven decisions. – Accenture

For all clients? Accenture has an extensive SAP practice where they make large amounts of money, so they will likely try to push SAP S/4HANA on their clients. However, Ariba is far better for indirect procurement (buying small things for consumption and not generating revenue) than indirect procurement.

This means that Accenture’s supply chain consulting comes with a high financial bias where Accenture will want to push SAP systems on companies that reach out to them.

Our Approach and Verification Capability

The type of information published by Accenture is not what we find useful, which means the consulting firm is very comfortable beating around the bush and making things up rather than addressing core issues.

We have a great deal of experience in many types of consulting, so we can both analyze consulting company material, and interview consulting firms.

Our Independence

One of the most important questions that you should have is regarding our independence from the influence of software vendors. And here, we rate exceptionally well. We have no relationships with any vendors or any other third parties.
Unlike virtually all consulting firms like Deloitte, Accenture, or Infosys, or IT research entities like Gartner, Forrester, or IDC, Brightwork takes no money from any vendor.
As an unbiased entity (for instance, that is not both selling consulting projects while also offering Consulting services) we can offer entirely unbiased advice.
The problems with the lack of independence in the IT research space are covered in our article The Brightwork Research & Analysis Rating of IT Analysts Like Gartner, Forrester, and More.

Background on Our Primary Analyst

Our primary analyst is Shaun Snapp. However, we also bring in other experts that fit the needs of the support. However, Shaun Snapp writes the analysis, incorporating the specialists of this type if they are necessary.

Shaun Snapp performs research for Brightwork Research & Analysis. Brightwork Research & Analysis covers many IT topics ranging from databases to open-source software.
After many years as an implementation consultant, Shaun Snapp migrated to being a researcher. He usually works in project advisement and performing analysis for things like IT acquisitions and project planning.
Brightwork Research & Analysis is known for publishing information around the enterprise software space that is not covered elsewhere.

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