In an industry that already puts the two companies in close proximity
with the other, SAP and Accenture
strengthened their ties with an arrangement to marry their software and
consultancy businesses in the financial community.
The question is: will both remain faithful when cheating will seal the
deal?
Accenture and SAP are certainly putting a lot of attention to the
arrangement, combining 800 people from offices in Spain, Germany and the
United States. According to officials, the merged teams will work
together — both virtually and in the same offices — to improve both
the financial software SAP sells and the implementation services
Accenture provides.
They’re targeting banks and insurance companies, both of which have a
vested interest in improving workflow to decrease operational costs.
Henning Kagermann, SAP chief executive officer, said the new
relationship will “create compelling offerings” to gain a competitive
edge.
“By expanding our relationship to jointly serve banking and insurance
companies, SAP and Accenture will offer customers unparalleled
industry-expertise combined with a broader range of solutions, greater
implementation flexibility and lower risk,” he said.
Joe Forehand, Accenture chairman and CEO, mirrored those comments,
saying: “Through these innovative solutions and services, we continue
to help our clients become high-performance businesses.”
Officials at Accenture and SAP minimized the idea of signing a deal
without the other included, saying the demand in the banking and
financial industry is for a pre-packaged solution — one that includes
software and services.
“I think that none of the companies believe in exclusivity as a way to
win projects,” said Jim Hagemann Snabe, SAP chief operating officer,
financial and public sector business solutions group. “At the end of
the day, it’s a customer choice. (But) if we’re good enough together,
I’m sure we can show substantial benefits of our collaboration.
“We have proof of concept; both our companies have over 100
installations in banking and insurance companies,” he continued. “We
have proof of concept in working with the core processes of banks and
insurance companies. It’s the enablement of bringing applications from
SAP and Accenture for the customer, to create a more dynamic and
cost-efficient product.”
Traditional companies these days are looking to perform system upgrades
across the board. This week, an IBM
survey showed retail companies — which also have a heavy amount of
customer-facing systems — are slowly coming out of their shells and
purchasing software and solutions that tie together and improve the
front-end and the back-end of the corporation.
“There is a very, very large group of banking and insurance companies
that are looking to replace older transaction systems and the
back-office systems, that’s what we’re trying to get to,” said Dave
Hollander, Accenture financial services group partner. “I think we need
to be compelling and different from the other platform and services
companies that are out there.”
