Accenture and SAP – where `brand’ supplants `technology’

Expect this deal announced by Accenture and SAP to be the first of many such agreements into the future, not just between these two but between many other companies.

And at one level there may seem nothing too new about the deal. Mega-consultancies like Accenture have for many years been the lead in major development and implementation contracts with major enterprises, and have brought in the major names in software and hardware engineering like SAP to help build the working solution.

But this deal is slightly different, for it is one that puts Accenture as the primary brand to attract businesses - in just one market sector for now, it is true - looking to run major business applications and big data analytics solutions on a leading analytics engine from a major applications brand in its own right.

Here, the pre-eminence of technology for its own sake is downgraded in the equation and instead plays a secondary role supporting the provision of cloud-based business services.

The new deal builds on the existing global alliance between the two companies with a new business model that aims provide clients with end-to-end solutions running on the SAP HANA platform. The new solutions pulls together established applications and services from both companies, but the key difference is that Accenture will be the single point of contact for clients handling contracts for all software and services. The idea is that clients should then be able to focus on deployments of the solutions, either as a public or private cloud service.

The first offering ready for release is the Marketing Performance Solution, a solution being sold by Accenture, which enables chief marketing officers (CMOs) to easily view and act on centralised key marketing performance data such as sales figures, media spend and social reach in near real-time.

According to Mark Willford, Accenture's senior managing director, Technology Ecosystem & Offerings, this new solution is expected to provide increased flexibility for enterprises.

"They will have access to leading industry applications running on SAP HANA with all software and hardware components under a single contract. We believe this is a unique offering in the SAP ecosystem that answers our clients' growing demand for simplification."

The Marketing Performance Solution exploits analytics solutions from both the HANA platform and Accenture marketing analytics solutions. CMOs and marketing teams can access data in near real time from multiple internal and external sources in order to respond to shifting market demand and manage the ROI of marketing spend.

Tracking results of marketing campaigns, running simulations and promotions and making adjustments is enabled through an innovative customisable, web-based user interface accessible from PCs and mobile devices.

“Clients understand the value of Accenture offerings paired with SAP HANA to drive real-time insights and business decisions,” said Robert Enslin, president of Global Customer Operations and member of the Global Managing Board of SAP AG. “This new level of collaboration is designed to offer unique solution packages and simplify the contract process so clients can get up and running even faster. Accenture is a great fit for this one-of-a-kind model that delivers tremendous benefit to our joint CMO clients.”

The new CMO solution features Accenture Customer Insight, analytics functions from SAP solutions and industry-specific applications. It will initially be targeted at CMOs of retail and consumer packaged goods companies who must address the complexity of changing consumer preferences, channel proliferation, fragmented agency relationships and the maze of skills required of today's marketers.

Accenture plans to launch additional functional solutions for other vertical industries.

Hosting services are also planned to be included in all end-to-end solutions offered by Accenture and SAP, with a private or public cloud deployment option supported by global hosting and infrastructure providers. Related fees will fall under the single contract structure with Accenture to help simplify contract management for clients, compared to handling multiple suppliers and contracts.