Markus Aro

Juhani Hynynen
Pauli Isaksson
Timi Kohonen
Jürgen Suls

TEAMWORK IN ACCENTURE FINLAND & GLOBAL

Report
Multicultural Teamwork
BUS1TN002
2010
 REPORT 2

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................................3

2 ACCENTURE..........................................................................................................................3

3 HISTORY OF ACCENTURE.................................................................................................3

4 MULTICULTURAL ANALYSIS...........................................................................................5

4.1 Longpest Analysis on Accenture.....................................................................5

4.2 Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions......................................................................5

5 COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE..................................................................................7

6 RELIGION AND WORKING.................................................................................................8

7 CULTURE AND VALUES IN ACCENTURE.......................................................................9

8 CONCLUSION......................................................................................................................10

REFERENCES..........................................................................................................................11
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1 INTRODUCTION

How do people in a multicultural company with different backgrounds, languages,

religions, have an optimal working environment and deal with problems caused by these
differences?
Another part we were also interested in is why a company would welcome people from
different cultures and nationalities.

The research of the subject contained an interviewing of an Accenture employee and

collecting information on various Accenture websites.

2 ACCENTURE

Accenture Plc is one of the leading management consulting and technology outsourcing
companies in the world. They also say it is the largest consulting firm in the world and a
global player within the technology consulting industry.
Accenture is goal is to collaborate with clients to help them become high-performance
businesses and governments. They try to achieve this by combining experience,
comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive
research on the world's most successful companies.

Accenture has offices in more than 200 locations in 120 countries with a total of 200,000
employees. They have different headquarters around the world, the company headquarter
resides in Ireland, mostly for tax and legal purposes, but their global headquarters are
located in New York.

3 HISTORY OF ACCENTURE

Accenture is a multinational company and it is one of the world's largest management

consulting, technology consulting and technology outsourcing companies in the world.
Accenture was founded in its current form in 1989 as Andersen Consulting but the
company's roots go all the way back to 1953 when it was a business and consulting
division of accounting firm Arthur Andersen. The company changed its name to
Accenture in 2001. The name Accenture supposedly comes from ”Accent on the future”.
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The new name was a suggestion by an employee from the company's Oslo office and the
company liked the name, because it did not offend any countries Accenture operates in.

The company's headquarters were originally located in Bermuda, but they have since
relocated to Ireland. The New York and Chicago offices are the biggest offices in
Accenture and are basically the base of operations instead of the headquarters in Ireland.
Accenture's organizational structure is split into five groups (communication- and high-
tech, financial industry, public services, industrial production and trade, basic industries)
and to four employee groups (consulting, solutions, services and enterprise). They have
approximately 200,000 employees in more than 120 countries in which they operate in.
In recent years the company has generated revenues of over US$20 billion every
financial year and the numbers are still on the rise.

Since the inception of the company in its current form in 1989, the company has in their
own words, been governed by values. They have a list of six primary values which they
operate by: Stewardship (building a legacy for future generations and carrying the
responsibility for every action), best people (recruiting the best talents and developing the
employees as well as the employer), client value creation (building long-lasting
relationships with clients and developing their operations), one global network (creating
multinational teams that produce the same high level of service everywhere), respect for
the individual (creating a welcoming and an interesting environment for everybody) and
integrity (building trust with clients by operating ethically and by being open and fair,
admitting mistakes and learning from them and giving credit to those who deserve it).

When recruiting new employees or getting new clients, the decision to accept them into
Accenture has never been affected by race or religion or the cultural background of the
individual or the country of the client company. Accenture has always been against
racism and they have a code of business ethics the operate by. The code of business
ethics was just recently revised in September of 2010. In the code the aspects of conduct
that are imperative to all employees are highlighted and Accenture is always thriwing to
better their conduct of business. Accenture has also been recognized as a great
environment to work in by outside studies. A study by the Great Place to Work Institute
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has picked Accenture's Finland's office as the best company to work at in Finland in the
category of large companies for four years in a row (2007 – 2010).

4 MULTICULTURAL ANALYSIS

4.1 Longpest Analysis on Accenture

Researched on what levels Accenture is being influenced by external environments, .

local political environment, national political environment and global political
environment, and thus changed elements in the organization.

For the political part it became clear that is was influenced in 2009 when Accenture
moved its headquarters from Bermuda to Ireland. The reason was that Ireland has a more
stable political environment with a legal infrastructure. Also, Ireland has a more
sophisticated, well-developed corporate, legal and regulatory environment than Bermuda.

The economic reasons for moving to Ireland is because the country has a long history of
international investment and long-established commercial relationships, trade agreements
and tax treaties with other countries where Accenture does business.

4.2 Hofstede’s Cultural Dimensions

Below you can find the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions that apply to Accenture.

The Power Distance (PD) in Accenture is high. In the organization you can see very well
that there is a centralized, top-down control. This is needed because of the organization’s
size and to control the activities in the company.

The Self aspect of individualism and collectivism in Accenture tends to go more to the
Individualism, but Collectivism is also clearly present. The organization supports
individual growth and thinks that the rights are very important. But the group is also very
important because Accenture focuses on teamwork.
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The traditional gender roles are less present in Accenture and the organization thrives to
remove these traditional gender roles by supporting women in the organization so their
number can grow in the company and that they can also achieve higher positions.

The Long- versus Short-term Orientation (LTO) is also very high on this element. They
invest a lot in the future and are very persevering.
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5 COMMUNICATION AND CULTURE

The official business language of the office in Helsinki is English, which is also the
language used when communicating with other companies or Accenture offices in
Finland and abroad. The reason for this is quite easy, English is considered to be the
language of business. It saves a lot of time and money if a company uses only one
official language instead of operating in a multilangual environment. (Aro, M.
14.10.2010)

One of the requirements for working in the Helsinki office of Accenture is that you speak
fluent English. Suprisingly, it is not very important that you can speak Finnish. Because
of this you can see that English is indeed very important in a global company like
Accenture if speaking the native language of the country where the office reside isn’t
even necessary. Unofficialy employees can speak whatever language they prefere when
talking internally. (Aro, M. 14.10.2010)

Accenture has made it very sure that all Accenture offices have the same methods of
working so that the exchange of information and communication between locations goes
as smoothly as possible. For this they have global policies and tools that affect all. With
this method they can minimize bad communications and problems caused by different
cutural backgrounds. (Aro, M. 14.10.2010)

The company is very active in their search for a great diversity and inclusion in
Accenture teams all over the world. This is one of their top priorities, because they
believe this will benifit them greatly in providing good services and in strengthening
their position on the market. Accenture says that if they combine multiple perspectives
from their inclusive and global culture with their common values and methodologies,
they can differ themself from other consulting firms. Accenture realizes that all people
bring distinct experiences, talents and culture to their work, and they capitalize on that
diversity collaborating with themselves so that Accenture can help their clients achieve
higher performance. (Accenture 2010a.)
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6 RELIGION AND WORKING

It is stated on Accenture´s website that Accenture does not discriminate on the basis of
religion (among other things) and that “all matters related to employment are decided on
the basis of qualifications, merit and business need”. So it concludes in itself that when
Accenture employees work together they should judge each other on the basis of their
skills working-wise.

If employees feels as if they are being harassed or discriminated because of their religion
it is encouraged and written in Accenture´s global code of conduct that they have every
right to report that forward and one should have no fears about retaliation when doing so.
Accenture puts a high emphasis on being able to provide their workers a professional and
friendly working environment despite of their background.
Accenture sees having different religions as an opportunity rather than an obstacle and
the company thinks that diversity is their key ingredient in maintaining high performance
now and in the future.

Since Accenture is a global company it is a given that people from different religions will
come together in a way or another. To make Accenture an ideal place for people with
different religious backgrounds to work together the company has established networks
for religions and believes (among others). These kinds of networks give their employees
ways of getting involved and ways to celebrate their diversity: the company´s objective is
to make their employees feel they are accepted. For example: In UK Accenture runs
activities that educate on the different beliefs employees have and what impact these
believes might have and they have also specific interest groups for many different
religions such as Buddhist, Christina, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh. In addition to all
this Accenture also provides funding and support for external organizations that have
similar goals.

Even though the company puts the most emphasis on the employees working skills and
professionalism, at the same time it also does it´s best to guarantee that their employees
have the opportunity to make the best of their personal lives by supporting them in
practicing their individual needs such as religion.
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7 CULTURE AND VALUES IN ACCENTURE

Accenture’s Helsinki -office employs over 1100 people, and since Accenture is a global
company, there are employees of about 10 different nationalities. People from
Scandinavia, India, USA and so on are working together to accomplish common goals.
So how do these people with different backgrounds and points of view get along, and
what values Accenture promotes so that every employee knows that they and their work
is appreciated.
Accenture has six important core values and since its inception, the company has been
governed by those values. They are the following:
Client value creation: Accenture aims to enable their clients to become high-performance
businesses. They also want to create long-term relationships with their clients by being
responsive and relevant.
One global network: To deliver exceptional service to their clients all over the world,
Accenture takes advantage of global innovation, insight, collaboration and cooperation.
Respect for the individual: Accenture fosters a trusting, open and inclusive environment
so that each individual is treated in a manner that reflects values that the company
promotes.
Best people: The company wants to attract, develop and retain the most talented
employees there is to support their business. They want to challenge their workers,
demonstrate a “can-do” attitude and uphold a working environment that is collaborative
and supportive.
Integrity: To gain a status of a reliable and trustworthy company, Accenture says what
they mean and takes responsibility for their actions.
Stewardship: Accenture wants to fulfill their obligation of building a better and more
durable company for generations to come. They are helping their people, communities
and the global environment to improve and develop.
"Through the years these simple, yet powerful values have continually guided our
decision making as well as our interactions with our clients and each other" (William D.
Green, Accenture 2010).
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8 CONCLUSION

Our conclusion is that Accenture is indeed a very multicultural company. They welcome
people from different cultures and are able to change the disadvantages that a
multicultural environment brings into an advantage for the company. We believe that
these factors definitely helped Accenture to make an even bigger and better global player
on the market.
 REPORT 11

REFERENCES

Accenture career3. 2010. Working here. Teamwork and Collaboration. Quoted

17.10.2010. http://careers3.accenture.com/Careers/Global/Working-Here/Teamwork-
Collaboration.htm

Accenture 2010. About Accenture. Company overview. Our People. Inclusion and
Diversity. Quoted 17.10.2010
http://digital.virtualmarketingpartners.com/vmp/accenture/diversity-inclusion/index.php

Hofstede Geert 2009. Cultural Dimensions. Quoted 17.10.2010

http://www.geert-hofstede.com/

Accenture career3. 2010. Global Meritocracy. Quoted 17.10.2010

http://careers3.accenture.com/Careers/ASPX/GlobalMeritocracy.aspx?id=en

Accenture career3. 2010. India website. “Our focus on inclusion and diversity”. Quoted
17.10.2010. http://careers3.accenture.com/Careers/India/About-Accenture/What-We-
Believe-In/Our-Focus.htm

Accenture career3. 2010. UK website ”Networking Groups”. Quoted 17.10.2010.

http://careers3.accenture.com/Careers/UK/Why-Accenture/Corporate-
Citizenship/Diversity.htm

Accenture. 2006. Global inclusion and diversity. Quoted 17.10.2010.

http://www.accenture.com/NR/rdonlyres/3830B8BF-6F48-4817-B6C3-
C50B7E5455B9/0/111791_Diversity_v17small.pdf

Accenture. 2010. Accenture code of business ethics Quoted 22.10.2010.

http://www.accenture.com/NR/rdonlyres/8844F744-C3A8-430B-8E2E-
17F38164BB71/0/AccentureCodev5_English_219000.pdf
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Accenture. 2010. About Accenture (company overview, corporate governance,

citizenship, core values) Quoted 22.10.2010.
http://www.accenture.com/Global/About_Accenture/default.htm

Accenture. 2010. Accenture fact sheet. Quoted 22.10.2010.

http://newsroom.accenture.com/images/20020/FACTS.pdf

Accenture. 2010. About Accenture. Company overview, Core values. Quoted

23.10.2010.
http://www.accenture.com/Global/About_Accenture/Company_Overview/OurCoreValue
s.htm

Interviews
Aro M. Accenture Finland Helsinki. Records & Information Management Representative
- Finland. 14.10.2010. Interview by Aro Markus.