I can confirm this. My employer brought in several teams from Accenture to push through some new tech initiatives, and every one of them is basically a dumpster fire. I was doing code reviews for one of the teams, and nearly every commit would be sent back with multiple findings. Some of these commits were literally minor UI updates that someone with a few hours of Udemy HTML/CSS training could do without issues.
Yep. The executives at my employer realized the consultants were "underperforming" and cut their contracts, but this just left the in-house teams stuck with fixing or rewriting the Accenture code, piled on top of their current project work.
There's a whole industry here in America that re-shores programming contracts. They know they can't underbid Indian/foreign body shops so they just wait a few months and call back the companies who went with cheaper programmers. If the company is still around it's generally a complete re-write.
Can't confirm that, at least not in general. Worked along some accenture people for some time and most were a) very happy at their job b) more competent than the average tech worker.
Yup, working for a big telco where they were a leading software services provider there was this insider joke that when their software inevitably crashes and burns and the client complains, they'll just have their lawyers respond with: but there was no requirement the software should work. And they'd happily accept insanely expensive change requests to fix their own bugs.
You'll start with competent consultants; they will slowly rotate in new consultants with less competency for as long as you let them, until they are all useless at anything other than talking confidently.
You've worked for companies with halfway decent management. Unfortunately, that's not universal.
Think about if from the perspective of the consulting firm. They are charging $X per hour and paying their staff $Y per hour. Profit is $X-$Y, and their incentive is to maximize the delta. If you let them continue to increase the delta, why wouldn't they?
The other two posters perfectly describe the Accenture experience (terrible) so I am curious.
My direct experience is that they send high quality technical architects to get the deal done and the moment that happens those architects vanish and they back up the school bus and send in an army of zero competence low experience drones who are barely functional.
And that’s a good outcome compared to the offshore variant.
My direct experience is that they send high quality technical architects to get the deal done and the moment that happens those architects vanish and they back up the school bus and send in an army of zero competence low experience drones who are barely functional.
This is also my experience. Accenture was given several high value projects, and their technical architects made it seem like they had the knowledge and skills to deliver. When I spoke to one of the in-house engineers a few months later, he said the consultants had yet to deliver anything of value, and the on-going planning made it seem like the team from Accenture actually doing the work didn't even fully understand the project.
On my own project, the Accenture team took nearly an entire program increment to deliver a clearly dysfunctional plan for implementing a progressive web app based on one of our products. They submitted an MR for the plan, and after the number of review comments reached 50, they just moved on to other things.
I am sure there are some good consultants at Accenture. I just haven't worked with them.
I feel for folks affected by layoffs, but accenture is a garbage company. [1]
Some quotes from Hertz' lawsuit against accenture:
> "Accenture also failed to test the software, Hertz claims, and when it did do tests "they were seriously inadequate, to the point of being misleading." It didn't do real-world testing, we're told, and it didn’t do error handling.
> Accenture’s developers also misrepresented the extent of their testing of the code by commenting out portions of the code, so the code appeared to be working."
The sooner off-shore body shops are gone from this earth, the better.
off shore services wont go anywhere, even less if rates and inflation keeps raising in USA. Accenture, Globant and other big corpo in the tech industry are hoarders of semi-jr proffessionals. I'm from a third world country working as a contractor for tech companies, and both of the companies named are seen as the initial step of every developer, because they pay the lowest salaries in the market.
Their early pandemic estimates being wrong, this trend shouldn't surprise anyone. People look at it and scream "CONTAGION! Everything's going to hell in a handbasket!"
Please, no. This is not (yet) 2008 2.0.
Unless you're a company that made a huge bet which has yet to pay off (ahem, Meta), this doesn't really signal anything out of the ordinary.
For a 800,000 people company? Might as well be a fluctuation.
That is frankly quite modest, considering that Accenture had massive contracts with the FAANG gang. And who do you think Amazon, FB, Google & friends let go before they fired their own staff? External contractors like Accenture.
Consulting firms margins are based on billable percentages across their staff. If you fire non-billable staff you are more profitable. This is a rational action by the market, acknowledging that this will likely make the company more profitable. (Assuming you don't believe they're letting go of so many people that their billable professionals will no longer function, but typically the slack gets picked up and things move on)
These aren't all management consultants. There's a lot of outsourced call centers, somewhat low-skill workers, systems integrators, etc. The vast majority do "real work" as opposed to just producing slideware. That said it's almost impossible to run a 800000 person company without treating your employees a bit like a herd of sheep.
Accenture do a lot of stuff. I've seen them do IT support functions for example – a whole load of boring leg-work stuff that could be automated, but might as well just be out-sourced to someone in a country with lower wages.
I'm sure for every management/marketing consultant, there are 5 developers and 20 people doing various data entry or support tasks.
Their 10% to 12% profit margin indicates they either have massive overhead, or more likely, they do not actually collect on that “$300 to $400 per hour” they charge.
Their revenue per employee shows an interesting history including what would now be considered over hiring recently... but there's also a distinct downward trend for the revenue per employee.
My experience with Accenture over the years, which may or may not be representative of the IT services branch, is that they hire for cheap at their centers in India, and bill 50x of what they pay the workers.
I have nothing against them. I understand that Accenture goes for the lowest pay possible. Quality is delivered accordingly.
Smart and experienced engineers in places like India have better things to do than working for Accenture.
It is still fascinating to see how big companies with supposedly smart people, keep overpaying for these IT mills. There is not a single one I have interacted with (Atos, Accenture, Tata), that hasn't provided a subpar service for a sky high fee.
> It is still fascinating to see how big companies with supposedly smart people, keep overpaying for these IT mills.
Blame management for this one - they still think that tech is an operational cost overhead, not a strategic long-term interest, for their companies, which is why a company like hertz paid a company like accenture $32 million for a site that was never delivered.
People cite these big numbers but the typical Tata-like reality is $70-80 an hour billed with $40-50 paid to the developer. The guy you have to wake up three or four times a day. This is much lower than the local consultancies which need at least $125 an hour with $80-90 going to the dev.
I have seen the same contractor kept around for 12 years, slapped down upon applying for FTE after ten years (GE). They would rather pay more than allow them into the FTE ranks--unless their pedigree fits. Humiliating.
I used to hire and manage contractors as an FTE and was a contractor initially at GE. As such, I participated in the yearly consultancy hourly negotiations and onboarding with HR. Had a spreadsheet with all of the consultants and their hourly rates for our division. When I hired I would only consider the $125 and up candidates.
I work at a small consultancy now where I'm a partner. We don't do any business with GE but we do contract with other large companies willing to pay our rates. And they do so happily, even through pandemics and downturns. Our consultants keep the majority of the billing rate--save for expenses like office space and other business expenses and the "sales team" (some of which also bill). FTEs overall are the lowest paid. Even the "managers." Few evaluate the deal because they reason that they get severance or will not be laid off as readily. Ignoring the fact that the contractor already built in the severance and doesn't want to go to the Christmas party.
I worked for an on-shore body shop, once upon a time. The reason why the compnay was successful was bc of the poor experience our clients had with off-shore body shops, like accenture - we fixed their work.
Given how poor the work they product is, I'll take that "retenue" and toss it in the nearest garbage can. [1]
They really are bad, I don't think people get the full extent of it until they experience it first hand.
I've been in client meetings where the devs (and managers) from an offshore Indian consultancy were in. Putting aside the huge language barrier due to the thick accent, they were barely able to comprehend English instructions. And to top it all off, they simply didn't know what they were doing (in this case Salesforce). Literally the thing they were hired as "experts" in, they couldn't do. All with zero shame throughout the whole ordeal. But the cheap price-tag and mountains of hidden technical debt were worth it for the client it seems.
After the meeting and talking with the client, I went ahead and assigned a go-getter junior from our side to research and figure out what needed to be done, handed it on a platter to them after a few hours, and they still couldn't figure it out when I asked about it weeks later.
What they were experts in, though, is re framing their failings on something or someone else. Instead of "we don't know where to find the API keys for this Salesforce API in the Salesforce GUI (and can't be bothered to google it)", they say "we would like to have a workshop about how you are integrating with our Salesforce API." where they weasel information out of others and make it seem like other parties did something wrong.
Had exactly the same interaction with Accenture, just with a different third party integration (ServiceNow?).
They couldn't even start the process of developing the integration. At some point, we assigned a guy to guide them somehow. Their lead would then report progress to our VP. At some point after a couple months, this guy announced that they finished the project, and were ready to move on to the next one.
What they didn't disclose was that the integration was basically done by our guy, who was too good-hearted to leave them alone. Of course, when it was time to start the new project, they had the same issue, we assigned another of our guys to help them, just that, this time, he was having none of it.
Still they lasted for several months after that (and at least a full team re-org).
I'm not sure if the culture changed, but when I worked for a firm it was generally known that if you sit on the bench to long you'll be let go.
However, This is likely in correlation to general reduced spending across the board causing reducing spending with firms. With all the cost cutting, most high cost consulting/outsourcing is the first on the chopping block.
Maybe, but by all accounts I have heard that there are a lot of people on the bench at Accenture. People are fighting to get staffed on projects.
Consulting firms are great when the economy is good and executives don't mind throwing money around. When budgets get scrutinized, those contracts get downsized or not renewed at all.
That is just an insane scale to think about. I'm at a smaller company, and it's disruptive just to add 2 people at once like we did last month. 230,000 since August 2020 (965 days) is an average of 238 new employees per day. If you only count week days, it's 334 per day.
I get that the way Accenture works likely means their onboarding process is a little less intense than for other companies but Accenture must have hundreds if not thousands of people whose sole job is to onboard these employees. Having never worked in a company of that scale, it's a little difficult for me to comprehend that.
It’s amazing to me how popular consultants are. I’ve never had a good experience with engineering consultants or contractors on projects. A part of me speculates that if they were really skilled, most of them would have full time jobs directly with an employer.
At the F100 I work for (also as a contractor), it seems like well over half of the IT staff is contractors from places including Accenture. Some guys have been here for over 10, even 15 years, as contractors.
It's easier to furlough contractors than regular employees, for one.
If you work for Accenture you're usually a W2 employee and your pay is similar to what it would be as a direct hire. Maybe a little different but you don't get the benefits employees do, bonuses, better insurance etc.
They lie and treat their employees like garbage.
And their employee technical skill is typically less than a warm body from the street. Less than a dead body from the street.
I still feel sad for the people who lost their jobs. They know who they’re working for though.