Live data from Hacker News

Hertz paid Accenture $32M for a website that never went live (2019)

henricodolfing.com

111–120 of 422 posts

Re: Hertz paid Accenture $32M for a website that never went live (2019)

#111
post #41

You have to wonder what proportion of GDP is money sloshing around like this but not providing any real value. The consultants got their paychecks and spent their money in the real economy, but there seems to be a great deal of waste in the B2B space.

I have this theory that B2B is actually most of the economy; and, that, somehow, real people are only ancillary to that. Like a patina if human customers over a huge mound of B2B ... motion.

governement in most economies is even more Gargantuous. just for US, 37% on average (since 1970s) of gdp is governement spending ("tax" revenue+debt). here an historical gov on gdp table:

[]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen...

Re: Hertz paid Accenture $32M for a website that never went live (2019)

#112

My main question is: who hires Accenture for this kind of job, for no less than $32m??? They would be my last point of call, literally after my mum, and maybe even after my dog. At least he's cheap.

I often wonder how much it would cost to literally hire the best freelancers in the market today to build their alternative to this monstrosity

I'm not one of the best freelancers in the world, but I suspect that if I were, I would say there's no amount of money you could pay me, because I'm already making all the money I want working on projects I am interested in. The fact that, in our reality, Hertz went with Accenture, probably indicates they have other dysfunctions as well, and would be a pain to work with.

Re: Hertz paid Accenture $32M for a website that never went live (2019)

#113
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

24 year olds? Since when are they sending the senior consultants out on engagements like this! I lasted not even 6 months working in professional services, really woke me up to what "prestigious careers" really are.

The only consulting firm I've ever heard spoken of somewhat favorably is McKinsey (and then only by ex-McKinsey people)

Perhaps, but their contributions to the opiate epidemic in the US makes me dislike the company - I know I'd never work there.

Re: Hertz paid Accenture $32M for a website that never went live (2019)

#114

It’s impossible to overstate how funny the shenanigans get when you combine a technologically incompetent legacy big Co. with one of these big professional services firms. The IT consulting firm will tell you they have experience with literally everything. They’ll dig up a case study from one of their 400 offices somewhere, claiming to be experts on whatever the topic is. Meanwhile, in actuality, your project will be…

The entire business idea of these "services" is to get cheap labor, pay them $30/hr and charge clients $300/hr. Why companies go for this? Because they can't build their own IT, they have failed all the times and their CTO loves golf.

Re: Hertz paid Accenture $32M for a website that never went live (2019)

#115

Tech consulting, of the type Accenture does, is so weird. I once got staffed on a multimillion dollar project to "predict general macroeconomic activity." The story described in this article just sounds so classic. I'm consistently surprised that more consultants don't get sued.

Accenture outsourced the IT depts of major companies in the 90s, as such they are embedded in their non IT business units and can intercept sales of one off projects.

Those companies who thought IT was an annoying cost with nerdy ugly employees rather than the core efficiency driver of their business then became utterly dependent on Accenture and at best could swap them for either equivalent junk from IBM or Deloitte or went further down the toilet with TCS.

What's notable is the lawsuit, Accenture will usually eat money for a failed project in hopes of keeping Future project jectd and general reputation.

Hertz must be terminating the overall relationship.

Re: Hertz paid Accenture $32M for a website that never went live (2019)

#116
post #23
post #14

"Content Management – Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) was the tool of choice to update and revise the content that appears on the website." If you want to blow a massive development budget AEM is a great choice; otherwise I'd advise you to pick a different content system. This decision alone probably sunk multiple millions of dollars. The platform license alone for their operating scale was probably a half million or…

Why anyone would pick that over a bunch of very mature open source offerings (with much larger developer communities) is beyond me.

Would like to know what open source CMS offering has a very mature offering? Wordpress is fine for a blog/news site.

Re: Hertz paid Accenture $32M for a website that never went live (2019)

#117
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you want to blow a massive development budget AEM is a great choice; otherwise I'd advise you to pick a different content system. It’s tailor made for this. Management will always sign off because they’ve heard of Adobe.

As someone who holds a certification as an AEM Business Solutions Specialist (possibly lapsed by now) I have to agree. It's hot garbage.

Educate me: What does AEM do that a tweaked WordPress or Drupal (or even SharePoint Site Template) doesn't?

Re: Hertz paid Accenture $32M for a website that never went live (2019)

#120
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

24 year olds? Since when are they sending the senior consultants out on engagements like this! I lasted not even 6 months working in professional services, really woke me up to what "prestigious careers" really are.

The only consulting firm I've ever heard spoken of somewhat favorably is McKinsey (and then only by ex-McKinsey people)

Yeah well https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/31/world/europe/macron-franc...
Post reply on HN