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

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

#171

Post by zinekeller »

xcdzvyn wrote: post #157
Hasz wrote: post #132

The big4 (D, EY, Accenture, EY) are the absolute last people I would call for any tech project, ever. I worked in one (very briefly) and could not understand why anyone with a modicum of technical experience would pick them for technical work. They can do good work for some things, like regulation, audit, tax, etc -- there's a decent chance that whoever wrote the regulation you have to comply with works for one of th…

Isn't the big 4 usually KPMG, EY, Deloitte, and PWC?

That's the big four accounting firms. They're referring to the big four consultancy firms (which arguably isn't just four, and EY happens to be in). Also, Accenture was the consulting division of Arthur Andersen (which is involved in the Enron scandal).

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

#172

Post by paranoidrobot »

As far as I can tell, this sort of over-promise, under-deliver, bill-huge thing is pretty normal for these massive consulting companies.

Their big name experts come in, tell you how you're doing it all wrong and they have the best solution around for only $X million and they can deliver in 12 months. Management nods, gives the greenlight, tells you to cooperate fully with them.

Their layers of consultants then tie up a ton of your time/resources over the next 12 months figuring out what they actually should be doing, and why what the Expert said only has a passing resemblence to what's actually needed. So there's then rounds of discussion on how this and that change will be a variance, all billable extras.

After the 12 months is up, nothing is delivered in a workable state, it gets rejected, sent back for changes. This is all more billable variances, because of course it was delivered to the approved spec, and if you squint, and really push the definitions of words then it might vaguely resemble what it is that the spec said.

I've seen this play out multiple times.

The only surprising thing here (to me) is that Hertz pulled the plug while their spend was only $32M. Well done Hertz.

I can only hope that someone learned their lesson to stop using consulting groups for this kind of thing. I won't be holding my breath on that one, though.

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

#173

Post by softveda »

dreig wrote: post #92
thechao wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But how can that be? At the end of the day some consumer must foot the bill and cover all the additional costs of B2B services. Ultimately businesses are only comfortable paying others businesses because they found a way to make money (i.e. sell to customers, somewhere down the line)

I shitload of the economy is directly or indirectly government funded. In Australia defence, health/hospital/disability/aged/mental health care (even if private), education all levels (even private), public infrastructure and construction, and government owned enterprises (Australia Post/NBN etc.). They will get their funding through budget.

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

#174

Post by auxym »

walrus01 wrote: post #43

this reminds me a bit of the canadian federal government and the phoenix payroll system. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=canada+go...

Yep, over 1 billion dollars billed by IBM for a system that caused countless errors in public servant paychecks (under and over payments). The wikipedia even references a woman's suicide that was blamed on financial difficulties following continuous underpayments.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_pay_system

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

#175

Post by Ken_At_EM »

I really don’t understand how Accenture is as big as they are or how they truly provide value to the world.

I just don’t understand it. Im not trying to be sarcastic. I’ve been scratching my head trying to understand this since I created my own consulting firm years ago.

Please, sincerely, explain it to me.

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

#177

Post by AtlasBarfed »

blululu wrote: post #166
nradov wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of those ex-McKinsey people ended up at Enron, at least for a while... http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2002/07/22/the-talent-myth

If you’re discussing Enron and consulting you could just go straight for Accenture’s predecessor: Arthur Andersen which was the responsible party.

Arthur Andersen and Andersen Consulting had an expensive divorce in 1997ish, and Andersen Consulting became Accenture.

A very wise investment (basically the Accenture partners needed to pay off the rest of the AA partnership to leave) in retrospect.

AA based on my impressions was the top of the big 6 accounting firms in size and reputation. Wow did they bite it hard in Enron. They probably all fled like rats to the rest of the former big 6, but all that hard earned reputation....

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

#178

Post by cratermoon »

malux85 wrote: post #84
Nextgrid wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there good money to be made though? If idiots are happy to pay more for shit than they do for quality work I'll happily deliver them shit.

Did you read the title? When I was at a consulting firm in London that I wont name, I was charging them 700GBP a day, and they were charging the end client 1500GBP a day (I saw this on an internal presentation slide I was not supposed to see)

Your firm was charging just over 2x, but in the US it's not uncommon to see the client billed 3x what the consultant makes. This is especially true if there are subcontractors.

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

#179

Post by walrus01 »

auxym wrote: post #174
walrus01 wrote: post #43

this reminds me a bit of the canadian federal government and the phoenix payroll system. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=canada+go...

Yep, over 1 billion dollars billed by IBM for a system that caused countless errors in public servant paychecks (under and over payments). The wikipedia even references a woman's suicide that was blamed on financial difficulties following continuous underpayments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_pay_system

people interested in this shitshow may also want to keep tabs on the federal government's new navy/coast guard frigate and icebreaker shipbuilding program, which is going to end up wildly over budget

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

#180

Post by cratermoon »

zdragnar wrote: post #140
alexose wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked alongside one of these firms on a government contract. I was impressed by how perfectly optimized they were to extract money. The team's function was to report perfect KPIs at all costs. Managers spent virtually all their time bringing in more developers. Because "delivering a usable product" wasn't incentivized (specifically the 'usable' part, or what usability even meant), it was simply a race to generate…

Actually having a usable product is missing from most government specs. Individual components get built by different teams, and nobody is responsible for making sure that they are built such that they work together. At least, that's the theory of why the insurance marketplace failed so spectacularly. Once you get to an organization of a certain size- private or public- the people with purchasing power are never the o…

> Actually having a usable product is missing from most government specs. Individual components get built by different teams, and nobody is responsible for making sure that they are built such that they work together.

That sounds like a certain "mega moon rocket" that's been under construction for some time.

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