Accenture: Malaysian 'Switching Economy' Worth Over US$53 Billion in Revenue

Malaysian service providers score lower than emerging market when delivering convergence between traditional and digital transactions

Kuala Lumpur, 5 May 2014 -  Most companies in Malaysia are failing at keeping their customers from switching service providers despite 98 percent of Malaysian consumers using at least one digital channel to search for information via highly-influential corporate sites. As a result, there is a potential US$53 billion of revenue at play in the market represented by the 'switching economy'*, according to new research released by Accenture (NYSE:ACN).

The research revealed that in the past year, almost 80 percent of Malaysian consumers switched service providers due to poor customer service experiences. The findings are published along with the ninth annual Accenture Global Consumer Pulse Survey, which measured the experiences of 12,867 customers in 32 countries and across 10 industries to gain insight into the changing dynamics of today's "nonstop" customers and assess consumer attitudes toward marketing, sales and customer service practices. The survey included more than 1,027 industry responses from Malaysia.

Key points highlighted in the survey include:

*         79% of Malaysian customers have switched due to poor service in at least one industry. For Malaysian customers, when switching due to poor service, both 'price' and 'customer service' are the main factors when selecting new providers.

*         Just 19% are satisfied overall with their existing service providers.

*         73% of switchers are driven by price when considering new providers putting Malaysia well above the Asia Pacific average of 67%.

*         72% of consumers who switched say companies could have done something to prevent them from switching - first contact resolution being a significantly influence on their decision to switch (52%).

*         Just 17% Malaysian customers find that their providers are very effective at delivering convergence between traditional and digital interactions. Malaysia scored lower than emerging market averages.

*         About 94% of the consumers read about companies' products and services on social media sites and close to 46% do it several times a week.

"Low levels of customer satisfaction and changing customer behaviors in the digital marketplace are driving the switching economy that presents opportunities as well as threats. When done right, the customer experience can become a source of competitive differentiation that pulls companies away from competition," said Joon Seong Lee, Managing Director, Sales & Customer Services, Accenture ASEAN.

Digital customer demands tailored experiences

Despite a high percentage of Malaysian consumers using digital technologies, there is a gap between digital use and the ability of companies to use them to improve customer experiences. Malaysia scored lower than emerging marketaverages at just 17% customers finding the service providers effective in this area.

In this respect, the retail industry is most popular for its loyalty programs in Malaysia with 54 percent consumers participating in at least one programme displaying 68 percent persuasion efficiency. The Property and Casualty Insurance and Cable/Satellite industries witnessed the lowestparticipation levels. While best deals and tailored programmes are successful at persuading consumers to stick to loyalty programmes, these are the very reasons people find them ineffective. It could mean that the competitors in the market are equally weak in offering better deals.

Lee emphasised that improvement is not only digital capability; success in the age of the nonstop customer does not all come down to digital.

Knowledgeable, polite and friendly employees who can solve customer problems effectively and the assurance of personal data protection are important customer service dimensions for more than 80 percent customers. Seamlessly integrating the digital and offline worlds give customers the ability to choose their experience and maximize control over how they interact with companies. That control extends to their personal information and how companies balance creative use of digital applications with privacy and data security.

The report found that companies that delivered valued customer experiences exhibited five common high impact capabilities, known as the customer-driven digital blueprint. These capabilities include:

1.    Hyper-relevance: Show customers the company learns from every interaction and applies it at a more personal level, including customising their channel and interaction preferences, so customers don't have to repeat themselves or hit unnecessary roadblocks. This means using predictive analytics to provide a more tailored customer experience with more customisation and personalization.

2.    Relationships at Scale: Digital gives businesses rich channels through which to communicate with customers in much more personal ways and manage relationships with customers at scale. Use digital to bring the intimacy of the corner store to all customers and then give them more convenient access and more tailored services that matter to them.

3.    Seamless Experience: Creating a seamless experience requires a multi-channel approach. Integrate information and processes that enable customers to flow easily across different channels when and how they choose.

4.    Inherently Mobile: Learn from customers about what they want to do differently with mobile, and invest in mobile services and support capabilities that stand out to customers.

5.    Social Media: Harness social media in order to deliver up-to-the-second customer preferences, greater levels of trust, a mechanism for direct and dynamic interaction and more and more usable data upon which business decisions can be made.

Accenture Launches Integrated Digital Capability to Help Clients Accelerate Growth Through Digital Transformation

Accenture Digital brings together industry-leading digital marketing, analytics and mobility services across industries and geographic markets

Accenture’s Michael R. Sutcliff to lead Accenture Digital

Kuala Lumpur, 6 December 2013 – Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has launched Accenture Digital, a new growth platform that integrates the company’s digital assets, software and services across digital marketing, mobility and analytics to help clients unleash the power of digital to drive growth and create new sources of value.

Accenture Digital will provide clients with a comprehensive portfolio of business and technology services – from developing digital strategies to implementing digital technologies and running digital processes on behalf of clients. Through the combination of Accenture’s analytics, mobility and digital marketing capabilities – including Accenture Interactive, a recognized leader in providing digital services to chief marketing officers – Accenture Digital will help clients leverage connected and mobile devices; extract insights from data using analytics; and enrich customer experiences and interactions.

“Digital has fundamentally changed the way our clients operate – from how they interact with customers, citizens and suppliers, to how they manage their employees,” said Pierre Nanterme, Accenture’s chairman and CEO. “To achieve long-term success, every business must become digitally enabled. We have invested significantly in Accenture Interactive, analytics and mobility, and we are now launching an integrated, end-to-end digital capability to help our clients compete in this fast-changing business environment.”

Accenture Digital, which brings together 23,000 professionals, will leverage the breadth and scale of Accenture’s cloud, systems integration and enterprise application capabilities – and its global delivery network – to help clients integrate digital into all facets of their organizations and transform their businesses.

“Our ability to work seamlessly across the entire digital landscape, combined with the depth of our industry expertise and our broad global footprint, gives us a powerful competitive advantage,” said Michael R. Sutcliff, the newly appointed group chief executive – Accenture Digital. “We have assembled the right people, with the right skills and capabilities, to make Accenture the ‘go-to’ company for anything and everything digital.”

TM Forum and World’s Largest Communications and IT Companies Take Major Leap to Ease Digital Services Delivery

TM Forum’s Open Digital Steering Group expands membership to include eleven of world’s largest communications, digital and IT companies; first of many intensive collaborative meetings brings leaders together to solve digital services challenges

Singapore — April 24, 2013: As the digital-based economy continues to grow and evolve rapidly, global industry body TM Forum announced that its newly formed Open Digital Steering Group has now expanded to include 11 of the world’s largest service and solution providers, including Accenture, China Mobile Communications Corp., France Telecom-Orange, Huawei, IBM, Microsoft Corp., Oracle, Telecom Italia, Telefónica Digital, Telstra and Vodafone. The group recently hosted an intensive session in London to set in motion an aggressive plan to deliver essential tools necessary for profitable digital service delivery.

TM Forum, the global industry association with over 900 member companies from across the digital services ecosystem, is focused on removing roadblocks to delivering and operating all types of digital services, and supporting a vibrant open digital economy. Its expanded steering group provides executive guidance and support, including strategic direction and consultation to help shape TM Forum’s Digital Services Initiative.

The steering group members also act as representatives for the initiative within their own company and the industry as a whole, encouraging broader engagement and support.

In London, TM Forum brought the group’s members and other industry leaders together for a rapid collaboration-style ‘Hot House’ meeting where 35 participants from more than 20 companies took part in intensive collaboration to solve some of the most pressing industry challenges related specifically to digital services delivery. Over two days, the group set in motion plans to deliver early versions of the following tools in time for TM Forum’s flagship conference and expo, Management World 2013 in Nice, France:

 A digital services reference architecture to enable the standardized design of the critical architectural elements for the enablement of digital services

 Outlines of critical Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) needed for the end to end management of key capabilities, such as identity, payment, balance checking, charging and billing and more

 Definitions of B2B2X business models and their impact on service provider IT and operations to facilitate building rapid partnerships in the digital ecosystem, both for communications and other types of digital service providers such as cloud, content and information providers

Based on the success of the first Hot House meeting, the Forum plans to expand its use of intensive collaborative process to solve other business and operational challenges in order to expedite their delivery, ultimately producing much quicker results for TM Forum’s members and the industry at large.

“As growth of the digital economy continue to accelerate, the Forum’s Digital Services Initiative is putting a stake in the ground to solve the challenges of a vibrant, open digital ecosystem, and giving our members the tools to thrive in the digital world,” said Nik Willetts, chief strategy officer, TM Forum.

“Based on the success of recent meetings, we plan to introduce a wide range of agile collaborative formats throughout the Forum’s R&D program to create a fast-paced development environment that can keep pace with the world’s largest digital services companies.”

Earlier this year TM Forum named former BT executive, Phil Dance, as chairman of the Open Digital Steering Group, responsible for guiding the group’s work, goals and output. Phil is a TM Forum Ambassador and one of its Distinguished Fellows. He is also a former member of TM Forum’s Board of Directors, and as chief information officer at BT he was a key player in the design and development of BT’s 21st Century Network.

Don’t miss TM Forum in action at Management World in May. TM Forum’s Management World conferences and expos stand apart by offering outstanding quality and insights through expert keynotes, sessions, unrivaled networking opportunities, and TM Forum’s renowned Training and Certification programs. Register now for Management World and receive maximum savings.

For additional information or to join TM Forum, please visit the Membership section of our Website or email memberservices@tmforum.org and a local representative will respond.

Accenture Technology Vision 2013 Report Highlights Convergence of IT Trends Driving Companies to Go Digital

NEW YORK; Feb. 19, 2013 – The convergence of social media, mobile computing, analytics and the cloud is transforming the way businesses operate, and companies that adopt available technologies to “go digital” will be better positioned to take advantage of rapidly shifting business opportunities and leap ahead of the competition, according to a new report by Accenture (NYSE: ACN).

The Accenture Technology Vision 2013 report finds that because technology has become core to virtually every aspect of a business, every business is a digital business and that all senior leaders – not just CIOs — must be able to understand, embrace and drive value from new technologies that affect their organization. Today’s software, for example, has the potential to change the very business model of a company or industry in the future, according to the report.

“Organizations and their leaders need to hit the reset button on how they use technology to drive market
differentiation, deepen customer relationships, and deliver growth and profitability,” said Paul Daugherty, Accenture’s chief technology officer. “Our latest Technology Vision report finds that the technology for accomplishing these business goals is available today, but that adopting a new digital mindset is required to harness the potential. The power and reach of converging IT trends such as mobility and cloud means that business leaders need to understand the implications of a software-driven, ‘connected everything’ world.”

The Accenture Technology Vision 2013 report looks at the future of enterprise IT and makes recommendations for how companies can take advantage of technology and software to improve their competitiveness, operations and business results. These include:

Leverage Technology to Create Digital Relationships at Scale: While technology gives organizations the ability to understand their customers better than ever, most enterprises are not taking full advantage of it to build deeper, richer relationships that can improve customer loyalty significantly. While mobile computing, social networks and context-based services have increased connections with consumers, many companies have lost customer intimacy in the process. These connections have been viewed as another communication or transactional channel rather than opportunities to improve relationships.

“Businesses are at an inflection point enabled by new technologies that can take customer relationships beyond transactions and deliver more personalized interactions,” said Daugherty. “Effectively developing meaningful relationships at scale requires a real change in how companies approach these strategies and implement a new unified approach across IT and the business.”

Design for Analytics to Get the “Right” Data: Most of today’s enterprise software applications are designed for a specific function and capture only the data needed to complete that function. Organizations use existing data as an input to make strategic decisions – and often find that information gaps arise because important questions weren’t formulated when the applications were being designed. As a result the relevant data isn’t captured. What’s needed is a strategy that sees data more as a supply chain than a warehouse. It’s about asking the questions that need to be answered first and then designing applications for the “right” data. Companies that recognize this and make data a strategic asset that drives business outcomes will have an edge over those that view data merely as an output.

Take Advantage of Data “Velocity”: In addition to data variety and volume, companies now need to consider the third ‘V’ of data – velocity. Mobility and consumerization of IT are driving expectations for faster access to data and more insights from that data. In addition, a surge of new technologies – including high-speed data storage, in-memory computing, analytics advances, data visualization and streaming data querying – is accelerating the entire data cycle from insight to action and improving the enterprise’s ability to deal with greater data velocity. As data becomes more widely used and companies see increasing competitive advantage from faster “data to insight,” the data and analytical skills in an organization also become more critical to converting insights to action before opportunities are lost.

Make Work and Processes More Social: The pervasiveness of Web-based social technologies like Facebook® and Twitter® and video tools like SkypeTM and Google+TM Hangouts has profoundly changed the way users communicate with one another. By embedding similar collaborative tools into their business processes, enterprises can take advantage of employees’ growing comfort with social networks to gain a new level of productivity. Employees don’t necessarily need to become more social for collaboration to work; rather, it’s the work and processes that need to be more social.

Bridge the Last Mile of Virtualization With Software-Defined Networking: Controlling the flow of information in today’s digital business – where applications, systems, networks and communications channels are constantly changing – is one of the most challenging aspects of enterprise IT. While the virtualization of servers, storage and other parts of IT infrastructure has resulted in unprecedented levels of flexibility, the network has been largely untouched by virtualization until now. Software-defined networking (SDN), where the network is managed through software instead of through hardware, provides a giant leap forward in enterprise flexibility. With SDN, organizations can reconfigure the connectivity of systems without changing the physical characteristics – making it easier for businesses to manage change, integrate cloud services and get more return from their network investments.

Be Active – Not Just Defensive – With Security: Despite recent advances in security technology, safeguarding the digital business remains a challenge. The entry points for an attack are constantly expanding across more devices, more systems, more people and a broader infrastructure. As a result, optimal IT security needs to go further than prevention. Recognizing that attackers will get through, enterprises must stay one step ahead of them. IT’s core challenge is to not only stay current with the latest in security, but to get smarter about understanding and engaging the enemy and be able to adapt the enterprise’s defenses to match the threat. Security architectures need to remain flexible and incorporate “active” defenses to deal with the constantly changing field of security threats.

The Cloud Is Here – Now is the Time to Prepare the Enterprise: Technologies underpinning cloud are pervasive and here to stay, and the benefits are numerous: helping companies differentiate their business, get their products and services to market faster, enhance operational efficiency, and respond more quickly to new opportunities and challenges. The question for enterprises isn’t “why should we use cloud?” – but rather, “how should we use cloud?”

Many organizations are already embedding cloud with their legacy systems and traditional software to create “hybrid” environments. This requires a clear understanding of, and approach to, the skills, architecture, governance and security required, whether it’s the applications, platforms or IT infrastructure that’s in the cloud.

“The challenge for businesses in today’s digital landscape is to reimagine themselves in the context of an increasingly software-driven world,” said Daugherty. “To succeed, organizations must leverage IT innovations to derive insights that enable them to optimize their enterprise, take advantage of emerging opportunities, strengthen customer loyalty, and deliver better business outcomes.”

For nearly 15 years, Accenture has been looking across the enterprise landscape to identify emerging IT trends that hold the greatest potential to disrupt businesses and industries. For more information on this year’s report please visit www.accenture.com/technologyvision.

ASEAN Businesses Underplay the Power of Customer-Facing Digital Strategies and Technologies, Accenture Survey Shows

KUALA LUMPUR, February 28, 2013 –  Customer-facing digital strategies are a consideration for the majority of  businesses in ASEAN, but only a third say they are at the heart of corporate strategy, according to a new study by Accenture, which also suggests the region’s businesses are not taking full advantage of the interactive opportunities presented by digital technologies.

The survey of over 400 businesses executives across six Southeast Asian markets shows that 66 percent of respondents say they face challenges in meeting customer service expectations and yet only 34 percent say customer-facing digital strategies are at the heart of their corporate strategy. At the same time, two thirds (63 percent) of responding companies complain that they face challenges in finding talent with the right digital experience.

Opportunity for more engaging digital initiatives
Southeast Asian companies are not taking full advantage of the potential of digital technologies, according to the research, and are largely using these new media for ‘broadcasting’ information, rather than engaging in any form of co-creation or dialogue with their consumers.
• 81 percent use digital channels to provide basic product or service information; and only 58 percent tap into multimedia
• 63 percent provide real-time customer service advice, but only 51 percent solicit ideas and innovations and 56 percent listen to and track customer

Those newer to digital strategy are at the beginning of the curve and so are using Web 1.0 initiatives such as websites and online advertising. See regional variations in Figure 1.

The survey shows that while almost one third (29 percent) of responding companies say they have not changed their digital spend over the past year and are not planning on changing in the next 12 months, a majority (51 percent) say they are seeing small net spend increases on customer-facing digital strategies.  Fifteen percent say they have increased and are increasing their digital spend by over 50 percent.  However, more than half (52 percent) of businesses say they are not measuring the Return on Investment of customer-facing digital activities.

“The Southeast Asia region is no longer a ‘future potential’ digital market but already has among the world’s most active digital consumers,” said Trent Mayberry, Managing Director, Technology, ASEAN, Accenture.  “Yet, our research shows that businesses have yet to make digital strategies central to their thinking and are not using the interactive kinds of technologies that the region’s technology savvy consumers would expect from them. This points to a good business case for more investment, but also for more effective measurement of the return on that investment.”

Digital divide and low digital uptake internally
According to the research, a large majority of Southeast Asian organizations (70 percent) believe there is a divide in digital knowledge between senior managers and digital natives within their company (see Figure 2).  The research suggests that digital has not been leveraged to its full potential to enable greater collaboration and flexibility among employees in the workplace; and Singapore-based companies are more likely to be ahead of the curve and Indonesia and Philippines least likely.  And while online-based communication tools and internal social media platforms appear to be the most commonly used digital tools, only 29 percent of respondents said they use them for internal collaboration to a great extent.  More than half (55 percent) said they use them only to some extent.  The research suggests that, for those that use them, their use is not being formally measured.

“Our experience tells us that the companies with the most advanced consumer facing digital strategies are also those who make use of such technologies internally,” said Marco Ryan, Managing Director, Accenture Interactive, ASEAN.  “The challenge is as much one of culture as it is one of technology. Employees who make full use of digital and social media platforms to collaborate with each other are more likely to engage more effectively with consumers.  For instance, Accenture research finds that companies looking to leverage the high social media engagement are using gamification to create differentiation.”

The Accenture study outlines a number of things for businesses to consider as a part of their efforts to improve their overall approach to digital strategies:
1. Creating a cohesive digital strategy designed to extend to employee engagement and driving innovation.
2. Driving value from data, using analytics techniques in an attempt to gain a granular understanding of customers and employees.
3. Embracing Web 2.0 capabilities, including social media applications.
4. Measuring ROI, setting clear Key Performance Indicators at the outset, including improvements to sales and customer loyalty
5. Fostering a pervasive digital culture that can recognize the varying digital appetites of the workforce.

For more details, download the Accenture Southeast Asia digital survey infographic or visit the research hub to read the reports: Surfing Southeast Asia’s Powerful Digital Wave, Playing Your Digital Cards Right, Dealing with Digital Technology’s Disruptive Impact on the Workforce and Ready for Indonesia’s Digital Future?

NEW KEY APPOINTMENTS AT TM

Telekom Malaysia Berhad (TM) is pleased to announce the appointment of Ahmad Azhar Yahya as the new Chief Executive Officer of VADS Berhad (VADS) effective 1 January 2012.

This appointment will relinquish Ahmad’s role as Chief Strategy Officer of TM and it will allow Ghazali Omar, Executive Vice President, TM Enterprise, and Ahmad’s predecessor at VADS, to have more capacity and focus to pursue key and long term business opportunities in serving the total communications needs of the large enterprises operating in Malaysia.
Ahmad Azhar, 46, holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering from Oklahoma State University. He began his career in 1987 as an Engineer in Agilent Technologies (formerly known as Hewlett Packard). He then joined management consultants, Accenture in 1990 servicing a portfolio of clients in Malaysia, Asia and the Middle East in various industries from communications to high technology, oil and gas and the public sector. His experience includes strategic planning and change management, business and operations support systems, enterprise resource management, revenue and customer relationship management. He became a Partner at Accenture in 2000 before joining TM as Group Chief Information Officer on 2 August 2004. In 2008, Ahmad was appointed the Programme Director of the High-Speed Broadband Programme and contributed to the successful launch of UniFi in March 2010. He was appointed TM’s Chief Strategy Officer on 15 July 2010.

Commenting on Ahmad’s appointment, Dato’ Sri Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa, Group Chief Executive Officer, TM said, “We are excited about this new management change in the next phase in our transformation journey. TM aspires to evolve from a Voice Exchange to become an Information Exchange, and key to this is making TM the ICT/ Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) powerhouse for Malaysia. Ahmad’s experience, knowledge and skills as well as his previous role as TM’s Chief Strategy Officer, is well suited to steer VADS to the next level of ICT prominence. I would also like to express our utmost gratitude to Ghazali for his outstanding leadership in bringing both TM Enterprise and VADS to where they are today which has enabled this next phase of transformation to happen.”

“In the Enterprise and Government segments, we have seen new business opportunities opening up in ICT and BPO services where demand for these services has increased significantly over the past few years. TM Enterprise and VADS are our flag-bearers in the ICT/ BPO arena. Moving forward, TM is giving both teams the strong focus, empowerment and leadership they need to aggressively compete and together make TM the ICT/ BPO Champion as we envision,” added Dato’ Sri Zam.

With Ahmad Azhar assuming his role as the CEO of VADS, TM is also pleased to announce the appointment of Dr Farid Mohamed Sani as Chief Strategy Officer, TM beginning 1 January 2012, taking over the position from Ahmad.

Dr Farid, 36, was the Director of Investments at Khazanah Nasional Berhad (Khazanah), specialising in the telecommunications sector. He has previously sat on the TM Board of Directors as the Non-Independent Non-Executive Alternate Director to Tunku Dato’ Mahmood Fawzy Tunku Muhyiddin, as well as serving as a Board Member of Axiata Group Berhad and Celcom Axiata Berhad since April 2008. He has been with Khazanah since 2004 and has also served in Khazanah’s Transformation Management Office and the Managing Director’s Office as Senior Vice President, before assuming his current position in April 2010. Prior to that, Dr Farid was a consultant at McKinsey & Company for two years. He holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering, as well as a PhD in Chemical Engineering, all three from the University of Cambridge.

With his appointment as TM’s Chief Strategy Officer, Dr Farid will leave Khazanah Nasional and has resigned from his post as the Non-Independent Non-Executive Alternate Director of TM with effect from 15 December 2011. He has also relinquished all his positions on the Boards mentioned.

“On behalf of TM’s management, I would like to welcome Dr Farid into our Management Committee. We are confident Dr Farid will further strengthen TM’s strategic direction as he brings with him considerable knowledge and experience in strategy as well as in the telecommunications field. At the same time, we would like to thank him for his advice and guidance throughout his tenure on the TM Board. As Chief Strategy Officer, Dr Farid will play an important role contributing towards TM’s future sustainable growth. Together with the appointment of Ahmad as CEO VADS and the current management line-up, we believe TM is on an even stronger footing in our quest to realise our true potential as Malaysia’s leading new communications provider,” said Dato’ Sri Zamzamzairani.

Accenture Rolls Out Private Cloud Solution in Support of SAP Applications

Solution Leverages New SAP Technologies, Lowers Costs, Boosts Performance

MADRID; Nov. 9, 2011 — Accenture (NYSE: ACN) today announced that it has developed a private cloud solution in support of SAP® applications that allows businesses and organizations to easily migrate to a lower cost, private cloud infrastructure.

The solution features a transparent migration of two key SAP solutions – the SAP ERP application and the SAP NetWeaver® Business Warehouse (SAP NetWeaver BW) component – to a managed private cloud infrastructure.

SAP ERP provides enhanced capabilities for finance, human capital management, sales, procurement, and other key enterprise functions, connecting users directly to business processes and delivering the information and capabilities needed to make decisions and take action. SAP NetWeaver BW enables users to integrate data from across the enterprise and transform it into practical, timely business information to drive sound decision making.

Accenture’s private cloud solution was unveiled at the co-located SAPPHIRE® NOW and SAP TechEd conferences being held in Madrid from Nov. 8-10. It is designed to enhance the performance of systems running SAP solutions, improve flexibility, lower costs and leverage newer SAP technologies, including analytics and mobility. The solution can be delivered in less than six months at a fixed price.

“By taking advantage of this new solution, our clients stand to realize a reduction in total cost of ownership, while also benefitting from the ability to quickly deploy new SAP solutions,” said Kevin Campbell, group chief executive, Technology, Accenture. “We’re pleased to be taking our relationship with SAP to an even greater level of commitment by sharpening and deepening our focus in this strategic growth area.”

The powerful combination of hardware and software was created and delivered through a collaboration between Accenture, SAP, Cisco, NetApp, VMWare, Red Hat and RealTech. The solution’s architecture – known as FlexPod – is comprised of Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS) and NetApp storage. With UCS, clients can move to a new category of enterprise applications from large, expensive servers to UCS, a smaller, highly efficient virtualized system powered by low-cost microprocessors.

"The UCS platform is a great example of achieving higher performance at a lower cost,” said Accenture’s Jack Sepple, global managing director of the Accenture & Cisco Business Group. "The performance, memory density and total cost of ownership differentiate UCS from any platform available today.”

Cloud platforms can enhance efficiency and performance while lowering costs, but some customers are uncomfortable moving their business-critical systems off-premise to the public cloud. Private cloud solutions offer the same benefits, while providing a level of data security and integrity found with on-premise legacy technologies. In the case of Accenture’s private cloud solution, Accenture will manage the applications and infrastructure being delivered to the client.

“Accenture and SAP possess a unique combination of skills, experience and capabilities to deliver an infrastructure transformation solution,” said Mark Willford, global managing director of Accenture’s SAP business. “We intend to help our customers maximize the performance of their SAP enterprise systems through a managed, private cloud solution.”

The solution from Accenture will initially focus on customers with mature SAP systems that are looking to improve performance, reduce costs and expand their SAP technology footprint. Components of the solution include the following:

· Infrastructure and Operating System Migration with Virtualization – delivers increased performance while lowering overall cost.

· Application and Infrastructure Management – helps companies simplify systems and applications management and move the cost off their books.

· Analytics – provides more intuitive data access and self-service capabilities for more robust reporting.

· Mobility – allows foundational access to SAP Business Suite software.

· Database Migration – positions enterprise applications for the future of in-memory technologies.

“This announcement underscores SAP’s commitment to delivering enterprise applications via the cloud in cooperation with our leading partner ecosystem,” said Dr. Chakib Bouhdary, executive vice president, chief strategy and value officer, Value Engineering, SAP Americas. “The Accenture private cloud solution will further empower our customers by providing a direct path to new innovations from SAP in areas including analytics, in-memory and mobility technology. Together with our ecosystem of partners, we can help customers transform their businesses in open and flexible ways while increasing efficiency and boosting performance.”