Accenture Case Preparation Blog

Problem/Issue Statement

Since its inception, Accenture has strived to incorporate the best of the best work culture and deliver maximum value to its customers. Moreover, Accenture had standardized services, structured inter-communication between offices around the globe and maintained its excellence in IT services. Accenture did not limit its IT business to remain a support but developed it into an IT service business. Through its best practices approach, Accenture was able to transform its IT business from cost center to profit center. Amidst the entire rosy picture, in reality, Accenture is closed to a world class organization but it is not at the exact peak. Accenture has thus envisioned becoming a world class organization

What is the distinction between the problems and the symptoms?

Accenture needs to make a decision regarding COBIT 5 implementation. It needs to do so as it is essential for better governance and management of an enterprise’s IT. There was an issue relating the Applications interconnectivity, unable to access databases remotely and the company wasn’t able to get an update of the company’s status at a time.

What is the context of the problem?

The context of the problem involves the data and information maintenance, resource utilization and other IT related interests concerning the enterprise. As mention in the case Accenture has to establish effective and efficient IT services and systems and sustain the effectiveness.

What are the decision criteria?

Zara needs a cost-benefit analysis in order to make a rational decision. Will COBIT 5 prove to be a good tool to manage and maintain IT for the company or not.

List of Plausible Alternative Courses of Action

The company can choose COBIT5 as their IT infrastructure and have a better data transfer, remote data access and better technology governance and management.

The alternative solution for the company is to stay with its current infrastructure that is the same as the one introduce by Arthur Anderson. It will allow the company to avoid incurring additional costs associated with COBIT.

Evaluation of Alternatives

• Through what theoretical concepts should one evaluation of the alternatives?

We should evaluate the alternatives based on the theoretical concepts of practical implementation of latest IT infrastructure for the Accenture system. We should also look at the switching costs and the time required for the complete adoption of the new software. We will also have to find the feasibility of the new system with regards to complying with the requirements. It has to best fit in the standard framework to meet word class benchmarks.

• How does the evaluation relate to the decision criteria developed?

The evaluation should consider each and every aspect of the decision criteria developed like cost-effectiveness, compliance with the standard framework, short-term and long-term issues, etc.

• How imaginative can/should the evaluation be?

The evaluation should be based on facts and figures and not on mere intuitions.

Recommendation

• What is a quality recommendation?

The quality recommendation would be to adopt COBIT 5 and ensure growth and IT improvement throughout the company.

·   What is a logical recommendation?

A logical recommendation would be to continue with the existing IT infrastructure that are not being qualitatively affected to be more cost effective while upgrading the framework in the most recommended area. This strategy will be advantageous for Accenture to meet world class benchmarks.

Presentation

• If I were presenting, how would I sum up the case?

If I were presenting, I would sum up the case with the cost-benefit analysis of CORBIT.

• How would I “sell” the recommendation?

I would bring up some real scenario figures of costs and benefits which might represent a company like Accenture by comparing it with a similar sized IT industry and more or less similar structure. This would prove helpful in making a rational decision that works the best for the company.

• What other delivery considerations should I keep in mind?

I would keep in mind that the Accenture IT infrastructure is unique and we have to develop a customized solution for the company’s IT in order to transform it from cost-center to profit-center IT system.