High Performance Delivered: How Accenture’s innovative strategies and marketing transformed industries [Monday Marketing Marvels]
Innovation and Diversity.
These are two key traits of Accenture that have helped them become a successful company for the past 30 years.
A Fortune Global 500 company, they have grown to serve clients in over 120 countries, becoming one of the largest consulting companies in the world.
Their smart and engaging marketing campaigns have also become a major factor in helping them become an internationally recognized consulting firm.
Founded in 1951 as the consulting arm of the Arthur Andersen accounting firm, Andersen Consulting was focused on developing new computer technology for various companies.
Seeing the potential impact of computer technology across different industries, they developed some of the first computer systems for companies such as General Electric and Bank of America. This technological integration not only provides a great amount of calculating power but also improves the operational capacity of these companies.
Andersen Consulting eventually developed their own forms of software in the decades that followed. This included systems such as the FIN-PAC (Financial Planning and Control), the Lexicon data dictionary, and METHOD-1, a comprehensive information planning and support program.
This helped them grow as a company, gaining more big-name clients while opening offices and distribution centers overseas.
In 1989, Andersen Consulting became an independent company from Andersen Worldwide Société Coopérative (AWSC), which would then lead to the company renaming itself to Accenture in 2001.
The newly-renamed company started the new millennium in a big way, becoming listed in the New York Stock Exchange. They were also included in the Fortune Global 500 for the first time in 2002.
Today, the company has more than 500,000 employees worldwide and remains committed to develop and invest new technologies such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and cybersecurity. They have also established themselves as an inclusive and diverse workplace, creating a quality work environment for their employees across the globe.
With a history of innovation in technology, Accenture is also a company that has created a number of effective and eye-catching marketing campaigns. This included groundbreaking print and television ads in 1989 that featured animals and food.
The ads that feature animals, in particular, were very striking. The animals were depicted as if they were undergoing a metamorphosis. These represented companies looking to transform themselves using technology and how Andersen Consulting can help them do so.
Another popular campaign that they launched was “High performance. Delivered.” in 2011. This was widely featured in billboards, print and mobile ads, and social media, with engaging visuals and data.
The campaign focused on Accenture’s broad range of services, highlighting how they can help companies expand their capabilities through technology. They also made use of successful case studies from their clients, showing people and prospective clients how they handle some of their biggest clients.
Overall, these campaigns show that Accenture is a firm that can transform companies digitally, maximizing their capabilities through the use of technology. They have also consistently increased their revenue for the past few years, generating USD 43.2 billion in 2019.
Their client base has also expanded to span a full range of industries. As of February 2020, this includes 91 companies listed in the Fortune Global 100, and three-quarters of the Global 500.
Accenture is also one of the largest independent technology service providers worldwide and the leading partner for companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, and Salesforce.
Accenture’s Earning Power: Valens Research vs. As-reported numbers
Accenture makes for a great case study that we come back to regularly. One great reason?
The company has proven itself to be a phenomenal earning power generator.
So, how well has Accenture been growing its business in the past years?
The research doesn’t lie—nor do the results. Earning power (the blue bars) continues to show results much higher than what traditional databases show.
The blue bars in the chart above represent Accenture’s earning power (Uniform Return On Assets). These numbers have been positive, going over 45% ten times for the past 16 years.
The global ROA average is just 6%
The orange bars are the company’s as-reported financial information. If you relied on these numbers, you won’t see the 53% adjusted ROA (return on assets, a measure of earning power) for 2019. You’d just see the company report less than half of that, at 15% as-reported ROA.
That’s what you’ll see in Yahoo Finance, Google Finance, and most other databases.
The company’s stock price also performed better than the rest of the stock market over the decade, which we can see in the blue line in the chart below. Their returns have been well above the market.
The company’s stock price also performed better than the rest of the stock market over the decade, which we can see in the blue line in the chart below. Their returns have been well above the market.
The numbers show that they are doing well and making a profit.
Technological innovation has greatly shaped today’s major companies and industries for the past few decades. Accenture has been at the forefront of that change, helping companies integrate technology into their operations, and generate successful results.
This, along with their successful marketing strategies, have helped them become one of the biggest consulting firms in the world.
About The Dynamic Marketing Communiqué’s
“Monday Marketing Marvels”
Too often, industry experts and the marketing press sing the praises of some company’s marketing strategy.
…Only for the audience to later find out that their product was a flop, or worse, that the company went bankrupt.
The true ROI in marketing can’t be separated from the business as a whole.
What good is a marketing case study if one can’t prove that the company’s efforts actually paid off?
At the end of the day, either the entire business is successful or it isn’t. And the role of marketing is always paramount to that success.
Every Monday, we publish a case study that highlights the world’s greatest marketing strategies.
However, the difference between our case studies and the numerous ones out there, is that we will always make certain that the firm really did generate and demonstrate earning power worthy of study in the first place (compliments of Valens Research’s finance group).
By looking at the true earnings of a company, we can now rely on those successful businesses to get tips and insights on what they did right.
We’ll also study the greatest marketing fails and analyze what they did wrong, or what they needed to improve on. We all make our mistakes, but better we learn from others’ mistakes—and earlier, rather than later.
Hope you found this week’s marketing marvel interesting and helpful.
Stay tuned for next week’s Monday Marketing Marvels!
Cheers,
Kyle Yu
Head of Marketing
Valens Dynamic Marketing Capabilities
Powered by Valens Research
www.valens-research.com
