Accenture Reviews in London, UK Area

Pros

It's a good name to have on your CV and the best thing about Accenture comes when you leave the place...it opens many doors.

Cons

No meritocracy

Too many politically correct appointments

HR are very very devious as are Senior Management. Don't be surprised if nobody thanks you for working 16 hour days for 6 months in a row.

Advice to Senior Management

Make the promotion system fairer, practice what you preach, smile at your workers and show people respect. Working at Accenture is a lottery. The best people aren't promoted - the most arrogant ones are or the ones in the right place at the right time.

Pros

Good working environment
Fair pay scales
Awesome line managers (currently)

Cons

Capped salary
Pathetic bonuses and increases

Pros

Global reach, technology support and provision, people

Cons

Struggle to find appropriate projects and gather industry skills

Pros

Good perks when working offsite.
Good Brand name to have in your CV.

Cons

Pay less when compared to peers.
Internal politics.
No choice for employees regarding the projects they want to work on.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop being too commercial and care for your employees, they are the ones who are generating money for the company.

Pros

Good Benefit
Friendly Environment
Opportunity to travel.
Can move roles and gain experience

Cons

The pay is not in line with the market.
Difficult to get promoted.

Advice to Senior Management

Too much emphasis on off shoring. Off shoring centres lack the quality and experience to provide good quality information and add value. They need to by trained well and retained!

Pros

Exposure to a number of high profile clients, companies and industries. Opportunities to take on responsibilities and ownership of high quality deliverables. After work socials and team events are regular and help keep spirits high.

Cons

Promotion approach can be unfair and level of competition between peers on the same level is disheartening. Impression that management does not approve of leave even in exceptional circumstances.

Advice to Senior Management

Respect people who work in your teams and show them appreciation for good pieces of work, even after it is submitted. Make time for your team and don't cancel meetings unless absolutely necessary.

Pros

Varied mix of top global clients, seeing how they work (or don't) "under the bonnet", which would equal a lifetime in permie jobs at end-clients.
Good structured methodology & training.
Good set of work-related online tools.
Great for younger people with a travel bug.
Great mixture of roles across the lifecycle (rather than static/easily stereotyped in a traditional employer).
Can work anywhere with good online, single sign-on connectivity to most systems.
Can either be a generic consultant or a specialist (though can be difficult to swap between the two).
Good pension management & contributions.

Cons

Having to often live out of a suitcase for long periods of time, away from home Mon-Fri.
Often having little choice as to which client and where you work next (and for how long).
Being thrown in deep end often (is also a pro at times but not when happens all the time), which can put you in a difficult position with your high day rate & clients expecting specialists.
**Although appraisal/promotional laddering uses many metrics & checks-and-balances, it still fundamentally comes down to who is representing you and how much presence they have in meetings (and "squeaky wheel" people who get recognition/promoted).
**Often long hours and maybe doing 2-3 people's jobs => high stress.
**Could be so much quicker/easier if people knew advanced MS Office as this toolset used 98% of time; many just don't know how to do basics of structured information for others' consumption, let alone to process it in a repeatable, automated way.
Internal role board can make company seem like a glorified recruitment agency.
**Too much hands-on IT dev/test work is off-shore, meaning that it's now hard for new recruits to get experience & creating an on-shore skills gap (& gradually making off-shore resources more valuable & expensive).
"Jack of all trades, master of none" can make it hard when leaving Accenture in current market to get a role in an end-client (not so much another consultancy) who want "extensive experience" in something niche or other.

Advice to Senior Management

See "Cons", especially those marked with "**".

Pros

Good and competent people, good processes

Cons

Less pay compared to industry

Advice to Senior Management

Better compensation package

Pros

Excellent training ground in project management, thought leadership and professionalism. Great people to work with and interesting clients. Option to travel

Cons

Long hours. Expected to travel anywhere. Lots of talk about managing the work life balance but often not put into practice.

Advice to Senior Management

Manage the work life balance in particular travel requirements, flexible working, working from home, part time hours. Don't just talk about it.

Pros

learned loads in a very short time, good training opportunities. responsibility is given very quickly, very international, great people to work with

Cons

lack of work life balance - expect to work long hours, performance management system is not transparent and not based on performance but based on how well you can network, salary low comparedto the hours you do

Advice to Senior Management

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