Accenture Reviews in Dallas-Fort Worth, TX Area

Pros

Strong place if you start from scratch, i.e. start as an analyst out of school and grow up through the ranks to become a partner.

Cons

If you are an experienced hire, you run into issues of not having a network. A lot of Senior Execs are Accenture Lifers (i.e. their only experience is Accenture) and are very dogmatic in their beliefs.

Advice to Senior Management

Be more aware of needs of experienced hires and ADM is not the best things since sliced bread

Pros

Many options and opportunities due to size/scale

Cons

The firm is way too big

Advice to Senior Management

Need better people management training

Pros

The people are great at Accenture. Every team I've been a part of has been composed of some of the most dynamic and committed people I've ever come across. I truly leave every project with at least a handful of good friends who I'll keep in contact with and who will help my professional network grow even stronger.

I've also been very pleased with the career growth opportunities I've been given. I think that most projects will give you the opportunity to stretch yourself to really develop a new set of skills or a new level of confidence you that might not get elsewhere.

Cons

Accenture tends to push a very work-life balance focused agenda (both when recruiting and with existing employees). For the most part, I think it's a little difficult or impractical to take advantage of some of the Accenture-offered programs and approaches that would allow a consultant to achieve a better work-life balance (flexible work schedule, shared roles, etc). In my experience, I've never had a supervisor on the project suggest these as a possible option. Further, I have heard from trusted colleagues that the options have actually been dismissed or discredited when raised as a possibility in a meeting where they were trying to acheive a better balance.

Advice to Senior Management

Check your personal relationships at the door when reviewing performance and promotability. In a company this size, there will obviously be people that "slip through the net" and get promoted when they're not deserving, but some of the personal and political relationships that play into these decisions does this company a disservice.

Pros

The firm provides a great range of training options and will often support unusual requests as long as you can justify a business reason. The firm is also flexible about staffing consulting staff in the major city of choice. They will also let you relocate as long as their is a valid reason (ex: spouse got transferred). The people at the firm are generally great to work with and make the long hours bearable. Most projects are often open to flexible schedules and hours as long as the work is delivered. Receipts are not needed to receive per diems. Flex trips and expense accounts make traveling bearable.

Cons

Accenture often signs long engagements and large projects have a tendency to grab all available resources without regard for travel schedule or willingness of the employee to join the project. Compensation also tends to be below market value which is frustrating when you are stuck on a death march project. While there are a wide variety of roles across many industries, people often get locked into their first role and industry for most of your career. Senior management often preaches how people are the number one asset of the company. This is usually limited to getting their employees trained and staffed. The firm generally pays below market and demands above market performance and talent. HR will often let talented and highly ranked resources walk when they receive another job offer, even if the difference is less than 5k. As the firm has exploded in size the past years, the HR bureaucrats have continuously gained more power. While HR complains about the high attrition rate, little action is taken to correct it. HR would rather grow their recruiting department than actually try to reduce attrition.

Advice to Senior Management

If you demand above market performance the firm should pay above market rates.

Pros

Great People - this is by far the number one reason I stay. You will always have a few in management who doesn't know how to manage, or you wonder why he/she is where they are, but all in all, after 4 projects, I have always enjoyed working with the people both on the Accenture side as well as the client side. Accenture could do a better job of fostering their best people and to take a more proactive role in developing/honing their leadership skills.

Cons

No clear career growth path at the moment for those who want to grow with in the company. No focus on leadership training which is desperately needed. Many senior executives are from the Andersen days - and if we look at the Managers and Sr. Managers now - and at the type of work Accenture are doing - Accenture is looking more like a SAP tech shop than anything else.

Advice to Senior Management

On the MCIM side - management needs to invest more on developing their people on the leadership front. Hence - if Accenture wants to live up to their hype of "High Performance. Delivered.", Accenture needs to look at the capital they have, hone the leadership skills of their people - becuase in the end - this is what the clients will expect.

Pros

Working with bright, talented people in diverse, ever-changing environments is a significant plus. Being deeply involved in your client, the team and the work is the best part of the Accenture experience. Corporate offices are all world-class, and consistently well-appointed worldwide. The reservation program for office space, due to the transient nature of it's employees, de-stratifies executive level perception. In other words, managers, sr. managers & sr. execs occupy the same office-type based on an online reservation system. While there is some priority assigned to executive levels by rank when resources are constrained, managers and Sr. Executives often occupy neighboring offices - which aid in networking with all levels of management.

Benefits: The vacation program (PTO based), at 9+ hours every two weeks for executives - is wonderful, in concept. Most of us would take a Friday 'off' once a month - but that time off never really materializes. Communication: Gotta buy your own toys, but you can request your business unit (via SE signoff) pick up the tab for your phone & aircard. Insurance & 401k: Nothing to brag about. 2yr vesting period for executives, moderate monthly contributions for medical & dental. The plans are industry average, I suspect. Expenses: Accenture has accounting in it's blood (I won't get into WBS) - and the only thing above your having a safe flight home from your work location is ARTES. Which is the accounting of all of your expenses and time. Everyone, I mean EVERYONE - needs to account for their time and expenses via ARTES. Here's the catch: if your salaried at $140,000 per year, and you work 10 hours per day on a project for 4 days, you only are allowed to 'bill' 8-hours per working day, as you're not hourly and therefore not allowed overtime. While some would say you could book hours Friday, whatever work you had planned Friday - or in excess of 40 hours - would be 'lost'. At its best, ARTES compliance reaches the most senior executive levels, and is one of the first disciplines instilled during orientation. At its worst, ARTES provides a grossly inaccurate record of the actual time salaried workers spend on certain projects, in excess of the extinct 8hr workday.

Cons

Onboarding experienced hires - especially in Outsourcing - is experimental - or hit & miss at best. For a firm that has tremendous strength in its methodologies for service delivery, the ramping process is not fitting to the level of respect the Accenture marquis generally commands. In my experience, some tenured management, that is, Partners that have been on board during the Andersen days, tend to view experienced hires as inferior and less-than-worthy. While not all are in this category - I've met, worked with and admire many 'lifers' that are very respectful and inquisitive of the varied backgrounds and intellectual asset value experienced hires bring to the table. In my scenario, there were, however, a couple very senior folks that were just impossible to work with (20+ years tenure) - as they had no idea how to associate with younger management types that strived to contribute and make their own mark. Oddly enough, this very phenomenon was articulated quite well in a Wetfeet publication I purchased to guide me through the hiring process. In hindsight, it was spot on. While this was an unpleasant experience, it's not typical of the organization. Accenture is a progressive company, and while there is immeasurable value in the executives that have one-liner resumes extending back to when the company was a private firm (pre-2001), Accenture executive leadership generally recognizes that there is equal value in talent that hasn't been steeped in decades-old Kool-Aid. But be warned - individual experience may vary.

Advice to Senior Management

Managing and communicating with a broad, largely virtual team is challenging at best. During my two years at Accenture, the communication regimen for my group went from 'acceptable & informative' - in that the work being performed, problems and issues were socialized with the broader team on a weekly basis to a bi-weekly and later a monthly program that often was cancelled. In my final months, virtually everyone was working in a bubble - having no idea who was working on what, what tools, people & processes could be leveraged for the greater good, what our objectives really were and how we were being evaluated. There was very little trickle down from Senior Executives to Sr. Managers.

Pros

Can find interesting projects if you build your network. Good raises at promotion years. The PEOPLE. You will work with some pretty cool people.

Cons

Travel, salary is lower than pure strategy consulting firms.

Advice to Senior Management

Start a comprehensive MBA leave/funding program for high performers.

Pros

The people are 2nd to none.

Cons

Long hours are expected whether they are necessary or not.

Advice to Senior Management

Compensate the technically skilled people. It takes skills to deliver on the promises made by the sales dept.

Pros

The different people that work for Accenture are it's best asset. The ability to "change" jobs without actually leaving the company is also a huge plus.

Cons

Working with offshore teams at all hours of the evenings

Advice to Senior Management

N/A

Pros

Brand name is good, looks good on Resume

Cons

Constant travel, no life, mandatory voluntary over time work required w/o overtime pay

Advice to Senior Management

flex time work talked about but not given or supported at all