Australia will be the testbed for a
new Internet services strategy developed by global professional services
organisation PricewaterhouseCoopers
(PwC), in a joint venture with three global marketing and technology
partners.
The Internet services offering, called Determinet, brings together the core
competencies of BAM SSB, the Australian creative base for the Tokyo-based
advertising agency Dentsu, as well as the technological experience of Sun Microsystems and Microsoft.
The service is designed to combine PwC’s systems integration and consulting
experience with marketing efforts and appropriate technology into an
end-to-end Internet solution for businesses.
“Our clients are looking for new ways to reach customers, they want their
brand’s reputation maintained on the Web, they want to be able to speak to
their customers, and they want their legacy systems integrated with their
site,” said PwC IT/systems integration practice leader, Fred Balboni.
“Delivering this involves application development skills that are not a PwC
core competency.”
Determinet will provide Internet architecture planning and infrastructure
implementation, creative media design, Internet application development,
Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) with back end systems, solutions
monitoring and security.
Each Determinet partner will be contributing its expertise to what will be
a PwC-owned offering. BAM SSB will assist with marketing focus, while
Microsoft and Sun will offer technological methodologies, tools and
training that will be incorporated into PwC’s nine global solutions
delivery centres in which Internet applications will be developed.
Balboni said that because these centres will be connected through
Determinet, PwC’s own Internet architects will be able to use the resources
of 17,000 systems integrators and developers around the world. He also
believed that this link would speed up solutions development from several
months to within 24 hours for some projects, making applications more
appropriate for the ever-changing Internet environment.
PwC is currently “examining” launching Determinet in Europe and the USA,
and Balboni said that while such a move is inevitable, its timing will
be set by local market factors.
