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The Cobbler's Kids finally Speak, Accenture's IT Strategy
for the Future
Sooooo…. Want to hear what the cobbler’s kids finally did to fix their environment? Accenture, the
global management and information technology consulting firm which serves clients in 120 countries
with 236,000 people scattered across the globe, decided to “eat their own dog food” and implemented
their infrastructure for success.
Well, you’d better listen up, for better or worse, the Fortune 500 listens to these guys, you know the
Fortune 500, they’re the group eating your lunch in the business world. I cut it to the quick without
the consultecture (yes, a Ricker original word) language…
CIO Insight spoke with Accenture CIO Frank Modruson about how the consulting firm addresses
the complexity of today’s business environment, and what his plans are for the company’s future
IT infrastructure.
Here are some interesting take-always…
• They moved to a single ERP system worldwide.
• They have an all-IP-based voice, data, and video infrastructure. So all their applications are on the
web, all our voice traffic is over IP, and all video is over IP.
• They have 90 percent of our servers are now virtualized.
• Telepresence and desktop video has been a game changer for them.
Modruson said, “My phone isn’t really a phone anymore. It’s my laptop. It’s the same phone
number and it follows me wherever I go around the world. We view each other when we speak to
one another.
(Where’s this guy been for the past 5 years… freeze-dried?)
• They have more than 110,000 people using laptops and around 85,000 using a Smartphone.
As for the IT direction recommendations for the future…
Modruson said, “It’s critically important to leave the past behind. That means moving to an
all- IP network, embracing video and collaboration tools, tapping into social networking,
relying on business analytics tools and, as much as possible, enabling mobility. In the end,
everything has to come back to being strategic.”
Source: http://www.cioinsight.com/c/a/Expert-Voices/Accentures-Infrastructure-Overhaul-A-Single-
Version-of-the-Truth-610949/?kc=CIOMINEPNL11112011
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IT News, Served Cold with a Kick!
Remember Cheap ? inexpensive...
ricker-wasabi-roll.blogspot.com
This is exactly what I’ve been eluding to all the time, embrace that mobility is the key. No, I don’t mean
just the Smartphone’s; I mean your business in general. Position all your channels to be flexible and
nimble to rapidly share information and leverage the knowledge you already have.
This means...
1) Consolidate your data, so it can be accessed from several touch points while maintaining a
consistent message.
2) Virtualize your servers, so you can rapidly access, expand, and recover information at a whim.
3) Leverage the tools embraced by the world, i.e., Smartphone’s, iPads, and web.
4) Lose the circuit switched, Smithsonian relic you call a phone. Don’t keep wearing that fedora
hoping that it will be stylish again. Currently, many organizations say, “Well we aren’t really
phone intensive”. What you are really saying is that the phone has become so useless you can’t
rely on it anymore; it’s become your necessary evil for emergencies like a 911 call. Make it a
strategic tool again, rather than a stagnant expense. Merge messaging to a single source that
can be accessed from all sides. Your phone can be the vehicle that not only keeps in touch with
you, but in touch with your customers – automatically, i.e., upgrade your IVR system (Read my
past blurbs if you’re not nodding right now…)
5) Embrace that your marketing channels have now expanded to include the digital world. Guys,
television is not the end all. If it was, you wouldn’t be reading my blog… hmmmmm.
Nuff said…
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