Accenture’s India headcount to hit 35,000

[OhioChick]

Issue Date: March 1, 2007, Posted On: 2/28/2007

NEW YORK — The tipping point has arrived. For the first time, a major Western outsourcer will have more employees working in India than in the United States.

Accenture Ltd., the world's largest consulting firm, plans to boost its headcount on the subcontinent by 30 percent to 35,000 by August 31, chief executive officer William Green said recently.

Accenture currently employs 27,000 people — roughly 19 percent of its global workforce — in six Indian cities: Bangalore, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune and Chennai. By comparison, the company has between 31,000 and 32,000 workers in the United States.

"At 35,000 people at the end of our fiscal year, India will become the largest country for Accenture, passing the United States," Green told reporters in Bangalore in late January. "Though we continue to hire in other locations too, the recruitment will be highest in the subcontinent, as India has become a critical part of the Accenture world and integral to our growth strategy."

http://www.indusbusinessjournal.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=Publishing&mod=Publications%3A%3AArticle&mid=8F3A7027421841978F18BE895F87F791&tier=4&id=DCD24449788B45789239487FCED4924E

[ChromeFoundry]

1. they best be prepared for the bubble to burst

It did here, and it will there. It is only a matter of time.

[Fredda Weinberg]

2. Keynes taught us to smooth the market

We won't suffer another depression. The economic paradigm is shifting and we're slowly, painfully adapting. History will judge how we care for each other through these times.

[ShockediSay]

3. if corporations can outsource work why can't we buy Canadian pharmaceuticals

outsourcing our supply to find a cheaper source?

[WorldResident]

18. Because Republicans really are backwards protectionists at heart

:)

[sadiesworld]

28. They protect corporate profits, not workers...

not that the dems are much better.

[roamer65]

4. I , for one, am getting sick of exporting our jobs to these countries.

Screw this free trade nonsense. It's time for FAIR trade.

[progressive_realist]

5. Accenture has the right model, IMO

They have the ability to shift their workforce almost anywhere in the world. Unlike other companies, however, they aren't just using India for back-office and support work. As the article mentions, they are using four Indian managers to expand their China operations.

Another telling point is that there is nary a mention of layoffs in the article. What they are doing seems to be working to all their employees' advantage. I also think that this kind of distribution of white-collar labor is not only inevitable, but desirable, in a world with the capital fluidity that we have. It is a self-correcting process, as wages steadily rise in the "low-cost" countries. Eventually, the wage differential will be erased and the forces of capital will no longer be able to pit one set of workers against another.

As it happens, I work extensively with Accenture, including their India staff. I have no complaints.

[aquart]

6. How nice for you.

[Skittles]

16. get it, aquart?

he's a REALIST! We are just f***ing DREAMERS.

[progressive_realist]

29. Actually, I'm referring to the political sense of "realist"

Meaning someone who thinks that the ends sometimes justify the means. In no way do I mean to imply that I have a more accurate picture of reality than idealists do. It just happens to be the perspective that most suits my personality. Apologies if I caused offense.

I fully recognize that realism is a slippery slope on which you can easily lose all sense of right and wrong. Nonetheless, it is my chosen point of view.

[kickysnana]

7. Just what does Accenture actually do?

DU Archives have tons of articles on their bait and switch, inability to deliver product, skirting legalities by holding indians on boats just outside US jurisdiction. Escorted out of some of this nations leading companies and governmental organizations (including the State of MN) however with a huge preditory legal team to make sure nobody can get redress for the messes they make. Does the sales team actually blackmail people in companies or merely buy them off to allow them in after their horrible track record?

Formerly Arthur Anderson Consulting (Enron). Recently involved in voting especially military. Were they the ones who put the back door software in so many companies? The software the Canadians were investigation tying back to Mossed.

Has anyone ever said we have an Aceenture product and we like it?

I think India is a great place for you guys to be.

[ChromeFoundry]

9. I know of none...

"Has anyone ever said we have an Accenture product and we like it?"

The project I am currently on was originally off-shored to save on labor costs. After going a year over its time-line and still not having a functional product, the company pulled the project and developed it on-shore, with a combination of in-house employees and external consultants on-site. The major portion of the following year was code cleanup. The code developed in India was atrocious, insecure and non-scalable (slow). The one positive that comes from many of these companies off-shoring projects, is they generally come back because of dismal failure. I have made a living for the past 6 years cleaning up failed off-shore projects. Not many companies have yielded financial gains by attempting to split a project between the states and India that I am aware of... and the ones that fail are never advertised!

[Skittles]

14. tell me about it, Chrome

I'm in the know too and all I can say is you get what you pay for

[OhioChick]

15. How right you are. n/t

[progressive_realist]

30. In a way, you are right

I did some research today, after I posted my comment, and Accenture does indeed have a very poor reputation in the business world. And they have been laying off U.S. workers, even though the article in the O.P does not mention that.

So it was, perhaps, a poor choice of a place to break out my soapbox. However, there is a point I was trying to make -- a reason for being neither anti-outsourcing nor anti-immigration. I am not a nativist. I fail to understand why it is morally preferable for an American to be able to support his/her family rather than an Indian be able to support his/her family. The Indians (and others) working for Accenture are not sweatshop workers toiling for pennies a day. They are white-collar professionals earning middle-class incomes. And in my experience they are no different from American workers. Some are very intelligent and motivated; some are not so. It's no different in my office back here in the States.

My admiration for Accenture is based purely on their ability to take advantage of the system. We Americans (excluding the small handful who found a way to opt out of the system) have set up a global economy in which survival and growth are the sole measures of success. Given this environment, Accenture has done exactly what they needed to in order to thrive. I view companies like Accenture, Walmart, and Monsanto as symptoms, not causes, of the problems our brand of capitalism has created.

The corporatist system is now shifting wealth to countries like India and China that have in modern times been very poor. However, these countries were previously centers of commerce and culture. I tend to think of the contemporary shifts as reparations for the damage caused by Western colonialism and imperialism. As long as Americans were sitting comfortably at the top of the economic hierarchy, blindly living lives of relative luxury, we were never going to acknowledge that our comfort came at the expense of millions of other people. Now that we are losing our privileged position, I think we are going to have to come to terms with the inherent unjustness and unsustainability of the system that we set up.

I don't believe there is any such thing as a free market. I think government and other civic and social institutions determine which economic decisions are advantageous. We created an avaricious and amoral system and we have the responsibility to fix it. But pointing fingers at those who have learned how to play the game isn't going to do anyone any good.

[fasttense]

32. Well, your overall point is accurate progressive_realist

Just because Accenture has learned to play an immoral game better than other corporations, does not make them worthy of note. But the real problem is this insidious idea that we are helping India or China by allowing our corrupt corporations to use them as cheap labor.

Lou Dobbs did some research a month or so back that indicated average wages actually dropped when corporation outsourced their labor to other countries. That is, the average wage in India and Mexico was actually higher before all the corporations started feeding off the labor of the poor through NAFTA and other "free trade" agreements. So outsourcing only makes a few people really, really wealthy while lowering the overall wages of everyone else. Now he only provided numbers for people in Mexico and India, so I'm not sure what affect it is having on China.

Another issue I have with the specifics of your argument is that you believe eventually every wage earner, no matter what country, will be making about the same money. Why would that happen? It has been proven time and time again that human kind is not consistent and social problems crop up continuously. What I see happening is corporations moving from one cheap labor pool to another, taking advantage of social problems in local areas. For example a terrible illness kills off half the adult population in a local are, leaving thousands of children to fend for themselves. In comes Accenture, or any other corrupt corporation, and offerers those children half the adult wages. The children jump at the chance and undercut the cost of labor for adults worldwide. There will always be social problems and allowing corporations to have free access to feed off of them will not raise all ships. It will merely lower the majority of people's wages while making a handful of people very, very wealthy.

The third problem is the market. The majority of the people in Mexico and India do not make enough money to purchase the goods they help produce. When the US middle class has finally used up all their capitol and savings, who will be there to buy these cheaper products? Corporation outsourcing has already lowered the average wages in most countries they exploit. Where will this very wealthy mass market come from when the US middle class is reduced to the minuscule wages of under developed nations?

[ChromeFoundry]

8. "Eventually, the wage differential will be erased...

...and the forces of capital will no longer be able to pit one set of workers against another."

Then there is no reason for corporations to offshore work.

Capital will always be an issue because we will be back to the quality of work issues. Poor code costs a lot of money.

[Skittles]

13. thats sounds like repuke corporate whore-speak

ask the REAL American wokers left in the company who have to deal with the offshore folk how DESIRABLE this garbage is.......my bet is you are benefitting financially from exploiting workers overseas and THAT'S why you have "no complaints".

[slackmaster]

21. Accenture's model is to dig in and keep billing their clients as much as possible

My billing rate was $165 per hour - That's what Andersen Consulting charged Chevron when I was working on a contract there.

My salary was $35,000 per year.

[brentspeak]

27. "Eventually, wage differential will be erased and the forces of capital..."

Where's that smiley for 'hysterical laughter'?

Have you considered moving to India or China -- permanently?

[progressive_realist]

31. Yes, I have considered moving to India or China.

And I will if a good opportunity arises. I sincerely believe that Americans, Indians, Chinese, and everyone else should earn equal wages for equal work. The alternative, in my mind, is the belief that Americans are inherently superior to non-Americans and therefore deserve more. I am not OK with that.

There are problems with offshoring, mostly related to differing environmental and labor standards, but the mere substitution of Indian jobs for American jobs is not in the least bit evil, IMO.

[onehandle]

10. Accenture's #1 job is shipping White Collar American jobs overseas.

"Our main job is outsourcing." -their CEO

Accenture will be the Enron of 2011. Trust me.

[Gman]

11. Accenture used to be part of the Arthur Anderson accounting firm

(IIRC) of Enron auditing fame, although they split from AA in '01.

From Wikipedia:

Tax haven headquarters

In October 2002, the Congressional General Accounting Office (GAO) identified Accenture as one of four publicly-traded federal contractors that were incorporated in a tax haven country. <1> The other three, unlike Accenture, were incorporated in the United States before they re-incorporated in a tax haven country, thereby lowering their U.S. taxes. Still, critics have panned Accenture's incorporation in Bermuda, generally because they viewed Accenture as having been a U.S.-based company trying to avoid U.S. taxes. The GAO itself did not characterize Accenture as having been a U.S.-based company; it stated that "prior to incorporating in Bermuda, Accenture was operating as a series of related partnerships and corporations under the control of its partners through the mechanism of contracts with a Swiss coordinating entity."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accenture

[onehandle]

33. Lou Dobbs refers to them as a, "Foreign Company." nt

[bleedingheart]

12. Accenture is a shitty company and their hiring practices are like this

For every one competent person they hire, they add about 20 incompetents. (This was the case before they outsourced to India and I am sure that with the low pay level of Indian workers it is now a 1-50 ratio).

The folks I know who have worked for them in the past, have found themselves overworked, underappreciated and tired of the bullshit.

I have a friend in college recruiting and they are not allowed on her campus anymore because one young man who went to work for them during a summer internship killed himself because of the bullying of the management at Accenture. The young man called her repeatedly about how they were telling him how poorly he was doing, what a disappointment he was ..etc Instead of just firing the kid and sending him home, they played head-games with him till he killed himself. What a company!

I work for a company that has had to clean up after Accenture and that experience alone has told me that their business model is just to take money away from the suckers who think that Accenture has "experts".

[Name removed]

17. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[newportdadde]

19. From a coworker - "Consultants take your watch and tell you what time it is."

[slackmaster]

22. Accenture takes it a step farther

Then they offer to sell the watch back to you.

[ChromeFoundry]

25. And it gives correct time, twice per day!

[bleedingheart]

38. but hey...the offer you a nicely bound manual on how to tell time

with some nifty powerpoint slides if you are willing to shell out extra...

[slackmaster]

20. Accenture is the Borg

I worked for that company for two years when it was called Andersen Consulting. I have to say that in all my years working for corporations, I have never seen a more corrupt, crooked, amoral bunch of people as the Partners, Associate Partners, and Managers there. The worst of the worst float to the top.

At the time I was hired, I was 36 - Far too old for the brainwashing to fully take over. I quit to take another techie job at a startup company, for a 40% pay increase.

I feel OK now except for an occasional whirring and clicking in my head.

[InkAddict]

23. Jobless claims at highest level in more than a year

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2750882

[cosmicdot]

24. is any US Federal, state contract work being conducted

by Accenture in India?

any of it requiring security clearances?

2005: "But three multinational vendors - Accenture, EDS and CSC - accounted for more than 80 percent of all contracts signed with federal government departments and agencies from January to April, according to research firm interData." http://www.cio.com.au/index.php/id;469259981

2006 top Federal contractors:

Accenture #24
http://www.washingtontechnology.com/top-100/2006/
and, it's not based in the US

IIRC, it was Accenture which was handpicked by Katherine Harris to replace ChoicePoint to handle the Florida voter database

[Deja Q]

26. Quality vs quantity. If corporateamerica accepts cheaply made goods,

they'll accept cheap labor too.

Talk about a state of decay...

Meanwhile, Indians have no qualms insulting and hating the USA.

Now about biting the hand that feeds... :hide:

[The Flaming Red Head]

34. Accenture is partnered with Halliburton

http://www.accenture.com/xd/xd.asp?it=enweb&xd=industries\resources\energy\case\ener_halliburton.xml

Halliburton set out on a bold mission to build a global and seamless organization from among its hundreds of subsidiaries. The company partnered with Accenture to help it transform from decentralized operation to a globally managed entity.
In such an ambitious initiative, missteps would prove costly. The Halliburton team knew they needed additional skills to achieve their goal. They quickly decided to partner with Accenture to embark on the journey.

Today, Accenture continues to provide global support for Halliburton’s applications including SAP, Siebel, Data Warehousing and other point solutions for health, safety and environment applications. The firm is involved in all major phases of Halliburton’s SAP efforts, including a systems upgrade and deployment to the acquired Dresser Industries’ business lines, which will add about 4,000 end-user.

Upping the Ante

At the time, close to 100 Halliburton employees had already transitioned to Accenture in an outsourcing arrangement with Halliburton Energy Services (HES), the company’s largest division. Accenture was handling applications management for HES. The first year of the outsourcing contract proved highly successful, with a $1.4 million reduction in application support costs. Over the next two years, service levels were maintained and costs decreased another $4.3 million.

[The Flaming Red Head]

36. Also involved in elections and voter registration

Why Accenture

We have a proven track record of delivering strategic planning, election reform program management, elections systems management, state-wide voter registration systems solutions, voting system implementation services and transformational outsourcing services and solutions to local, state and national governments around the world.

[LeftHander]

35. Accenture business model....

dubiously qualified IT "consultants" in India work for $6/hour or less.

(Estimated 1/5 of the cost of US workers)

Qualified IT consultants in U.S. start at $30/hr

Accenture LTD bills U.S. clients $200/hr

Which do you think a company that emerged out of the ashes of Enron would go with?

[slackmaster]

37. Accenture as we know it really never had any connection with Enron

The original parent company, Arthur Andersen, was effectively split into the accounting side (called Arthur Andersen) and the consulting side (Andersen Consulting) about a decade before AA ever got involved in the Enron mess. When I was there in 1994 - 1996 they were considered to be completely distinct "business units", and the separation had grown nearly to the point of open hostility by 1998.

However, the historical name association between the firms had a lot to do with Andersen Consulting's decision to re-brand itself as Accenture.

Accenture's senior management is dirty without a doubt, but they are not at all the individuals who were complicit in the Enron fiasco.