Accenture: Strategy by Scale

Emerging markets — in particular China, India, Russia and Brazil — are experiencing explosive economic growth and attracting attention from organizations in all industries. These countries are forcing global management, technology and outsourcing consulting company Accenture to globalize its core capabilities.

The company recognizes emerging markets are large in scale, and many have hyper-growth economies. While it continues to target geographic expansion toward mature markets, Accenture has an eye on potential in rising, high-growth markets. It is investing in differentiation and competitiveness by focusing on priority industries and initiatives. Because of these factors, India will soon surpass the United States in having the largest number of Accenture employees.

Members of Accenture’s capability development team — its learning department — believe industry expertise, geographic scope and having the best people will set the company apart from competitors. Therefore, the team works closely with the recruiting organization to analyze the quality of incoming hires and tailor on-boarding and development programs accordingly. Recruiting profiles are based on proficiency in technical competencies and demonstration of performance factors — behaviors that are consistently demonstrated by high performers.

“The main reason our learning strategy is effective is that it flows directly from our business and human capital strategies, building skills our people need to be relevant to our clients,” said Dan Bielenberg, director of capability development strategy for Accenture. “We have skilled learning professionals and a disciplined approach to determine our needs and priorities across our complex and global business, and apply the elements of our learning strategy in a way that meets their particular needs. By leveraging standard architectures across many areas, we are able to drive consistency, lower costs and focus our innovation on areas that haven’t been solved yet.”

To gather feedback on how the organization is aligning training to emerging markets’ needs, Accenture conducts a biannual business sponsor satisfaction survey. This survey gathers feedback from executive sponsors on capability development value and compares it against business leaders’ expectations. It assesses how the capability development team performs as a business partner, results delivered, the customer experience, what is done well and what could be done better.