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My life in Accenture before startups

swombat.com

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Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#71

Post by andycroll »

swombat wrote: post #16
gaius wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Individual people I judge on their merits, same as anyone, but Accenture's involvement with the UK govt has been a disaster for everyone but them. What did they charge the NHS, and what did they deliver? Ripping off a healthcare provider is pretty low.

Accenture's involvement with the NHS was a major disaster for Accenture too. I can see why they went for it - it was the kind of huge contract that a company like Accenture can't resist - but unlike the other providers, they pulled out when they realised the whole thing was doomed (and took a very hefty financial penalty to do so). FYI, they cancelled one of the twice-yearly promotion points because of the NHS debacl…

I actually read the contracts whilst in a non-programming role. There was about 6 inches of paper, all of it utterly terrifying and mostly contradictory. The NHS deal had so many things wrong with it.

When Accenture finally caved and gave up, the share price increased significantly.

Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#72

Post by bengl3rt »

I've looked into consulting as a potential career, not with a behemoth like Accenture, but with smaller more specialized boutique shops (Art & Logic) or mid-size ones (Thoughtworks).

All I really want is a wide array of domain experience in different verticals, and travel to lots of different places. However, everyone I've interacted with has painted the services business as a cruel and hierarchical (and underpaid) place.

That coupled with the fact that they seem to be so disorganized they never even get back to you has left me pretty discouraged about the space.

Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#73

Post by SkyMarshal »

SandB0x wrote: post #33
oscardelben wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Can you elaborate on review & print code ?

You know, printing. How do you back up your work?

Clay tablets, man. They last thousands of years, we're still finding them from Babylon.

Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#74

Post by arethuza »

tekp2 wrote: post #60

Interesting discussion here. A few things spring to mind: - Consulting training still has an element of programming, but I suspect that will go when Core Analyst School moves to Bangalore later this year. The value is not that those guys will ever code, but to give them a feel for the types of problems that the engineers face. - Solutions delivery (offshore or on) has pretty much taken development work off the plate…

It sounds like you work for Accenture, out of interest, have you ever worked at a startup?

[Edit: I'm not asking to be snarky, just curious as I know a few people who have worked for big consulting firms and who now work for early stage companies and who relish the difference in environment. I was curious to see if anyone has gone in the other direction.]

Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#75

Post by swombat »

gamble wrote: post #70
swombat wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not a single one of the projects I worked on or was directly aware of, in 4 years, ever used a subcontractor. That's anecdotal evidence, but it should clarify that though it no doubt happens (and happened more before there was a Solutions Workforce), it's by no means the norm to hire subcontractors to "do the real work".

I'm not talking about subcontractors. Most consultancies, including Accenture in my limited personal experience with them, staff up with new hires (preferably cheap new grads) whenever they get a new contract. When business slows down enough that people are lingering on the bench, they get fired. They are essentially high-end temp agencies.

Nope. When business gets slow, they fire the experienced people, who are much more expensive to keep around idle.

Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#76

Post by mason55 »

cubicle67 wrote: post #40

I spent a number of years working as an employee of one of the big IT outsourcers on a Australian government department (better not say which one) contract. During this time I was required to assist a team from Accenture who had won a contract to write some software that needed to be integrated with a number of systems. Accenture had "all their best people" on the job. This meant almost an entire floor of staff; mana…

> Accenture had "all their best people" on the job. This meant almost an entire floor of staff; managers, project managers, BAs, god knows what else. Oh, they also had two young devs, you know, to actually do the work.

As a dev/architect in Professional Services (not at a big 5 consulting firm), this is way off the mark. PMs and BAs do a ton of work that I either would not want to do or am not good at and while the end product is a bundle of code there is a LOT of work that goes into building it outside of straight development.

Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#77

Post by pnathan »

brendino wrote: post #58

As a current Analyst (1 year out of college now) at Accenture, I have a few points to add: Positives: - Accenture greatly helps develop one's people skills and networking skills which can help prepare you for a startup. Building these skills in college is difficult, so jumping into a professional setting right after college helps. - The work enables you to understand real-world problems that clients are facing, so yo…

- Change is slow in enterprise software. Unlike a startup where you can think of a new feature and implement it in a day, it can take months or years to go from inception to roll-out for a new feature or innovation. There are so many stakeholders that must be satisfied, and so much red tape to break. These restricitions can stifle your personal creativity.

Not unique to Accenture.

Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#78

Post by known »

edw519 wrote: post #27

My typical day working for a Big 5 firm: 7:00 - drive to client in Redlands 8:00 - arrive in Redlands 8:42 - client arrives for 8:00 meeting 8:51 - client leaves for emergency 8:52 - review project with programmer - still 18 months behind 9:15 - daily email to 6 bosses about dire status 9:38 - take call from boss #4 - debate "strategic direction" 10:20 - coffee, snack, & bitch session with lead programmer 10:45 - dri…

Writing software != Selling software

Re: My life in Accenture before startups

#79

Post by albedoa »

ido wrote: post #56
edw519 wrote: post #27

My typical day working for a Big 5 firm: 7:00 - drive to client in Redlands 8:00 - arrive in Redlands 8:42 - client arrives for 8:00 meeting 8:51 - client leaves for emergency 8:52 - review project with programmer - still 18 months behind 9:15 - daily email to 6 bosses about dire status 9:38 - take call from boss #4 - debate "strategic direction" 10:20 - coffee, snack, & bitch session with lead programmer 10:45 - dri…

7:50 - arrive at work, turn on Windows workstation 7:51 - get coffee, greet co-workers 8:10 - workstation finally up, check overnight logs You know you can just leave your windows computer on all night too, it will eventually enter sleep mode anyway (takes a few seconds the next day to "wake up") :)

I wish this were true everywhere, but as it stands, I am jealous that it only takes twenty minutes for his machine to boot.
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