Accenture Named Top Outsourcing Provider by International Association of Outsourcing Professionals

IAOP’s Global Outsourcing 100® List ranks Accenture No. 1 for third consecutive year

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has been ranked No. 1 on the International Association of Outsourcing Professionals’ (IAOP®) Global Outsourcing 100list, marking the third consecutive year that Accenture has topped this ranking of the world’s best outsourcing providers.

“Identifying and recognizing the industry's best is what IAOP's Global Outsourcing 100 is all about and for Accenture to lead this list for three years running is an exceptional accomplishment.”

The Global Outsourcing 100 is designed to help companies compare and select service providers using an objective methodology. Providers are ranked on quality following a rigorously judged application process that examines 18 criteria. The final rankings are based on a weighted average of the judges’ scores on demonstrated competencies, size, growth, management capabilities and customer references.

"As the adoption of outsourcing accelerates around the globe, expanding the capabilities and commitment to excellence of outsourcing service providers is key," says Michael Corbett, Chairman, IAOP. "Identifying and recognizing the industry's best is what IAOP's Global Outsourcing 100 is all about and for Accenture to lead this list for three years running is an exceptional accomplishment."

Mike Salvino, Accenture’s group chief executive–Business Process Outsourcing, said, “For the third consecutive year, Accenture is honored to be recognized by the IAOP as the best outsourcing provider in the world. This ranking is a testament to the expertise and professionalism of the thousands of Accenture people around the world who are dedicated to delivering a broad range of outsourcing services to our clients – and to our clients who are realizing business improvement and true business value through outsourcing.”

Accenture provides application, infrastructure and business processing outsourcing services to more than 650 private- and public-sector clients across more than 30 industries.

About Accenture

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 181,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$21.58 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2009. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

About IAOP

The International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP) is the global, standard-setting organization and advocate for the outsourcing profession. With more than 100,000 customer, advisor and provider members worldwide, IAOP helps companies increase their outsourcing success rate, improve their outsourcing ROI, and expand the opportunities for outsourcing across their businesses. To learn more, visit http://www.iaop.org.

IT Outsourcing in 2010: Smaller Deals, Higher volume

by: Outsourcing Insider February 26, 2010

Last year the economic downturn caused some organizations to temporarily scale back on IT outsourcing efforts while they tackled more fundamental issues like keeping the company afloat.

This year, IT outsourcing is making a comeback... in Asia.

Dell Services (DELL) Chairman Jim Champy predicts the Asian IT outsourcing market will grow much faster in 2010. “IT outsourcing is set to rise in Asia as the region's companies begin to modernize business processes and technology systems in a build-out that could last decades. We see, as most providers do, the Asian markets growing faster - clearly more than Europe, and certainly faster than the US,” explains Mr. Champy.

Offshore service providers who made significant investments in technology-related matters may have made the right move at the right time. As firms are already taking steps to outsource some information technology functions. One of them is U.S.-based commercial aircraft equipment manufacturer, Spirit AeroSystems (SPR), where some of its employees affected by the outsourcing plan will be offered jobs with International Business Machines Corporation (IBM) or Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) –the providers taking over Spirit’s IT work, both of which have operations in Asia. Spirit spokesperson Ken Evans admits to not ruling out additional work that may be sourced out to offshore providers in the future.

A report from KPMG and the Asian-Oceanian Computing Industry forecasts that Asia will account for 26.3% of the total consumption of IT and BPO services in the next 10 years. In the last quarter of 2009, Accenture (ACN) and Capgemini expanded their presence in Asia particularly in the IT services segment. This proves that clients and partners remain attracted to the abundance of technical skills at a low cost.

KPMG’s forecast may happen in the long-run but for the time being service providers are feeling the recovery at smaller proportions but at a higher volume of job requests. According to IBM and Accenture executives, “IT consultants are probably already feeling it: the start of a rebound in business. But there's a difference this time. The rebound is coming mostly in smaller deals rather than in gigantic ones... customers are contracting for a higher volume of smaller jobs.”

Small deals comprise a significant fraction of IBM's and Accenture’s total revenue stream. So it no longer came as a surprise when Accenture acquired RiskControl, a privately held IT consulting company. The acquisition is expected to improve Accenture’s set of risk management services as it tries to gain a strong foothold in the IT offshoring market.

Interestingly, technology vendors acquired technology consulting firms at a quick pace in 2009. Others who made similar acquisitions were Affiliated Computer Services or ACS (ACS), now a Xerox (XRX) company, and Perot Systems (PER). I guess they may all be getting ready to grab a chunk of the incoming deals.

Source: Seeking Alpha