Accenture strengthening brand in India

What is the logic behind an established global technology services brand -- it was ranked 50th in Businessweek's best global brands -- actually having to heavily advertise like an FMCG company?

We are talking about the Accenture media campaign that has golfing great Tiger Woods being splashed across the electronic, print and online media in India.

Launched at the fag end of February 2005, the advertising campaign is the first such exercise being undertaken by the $16.14 billion consulting and technology services major in India. The fact that is the first such campaign is significant because Accenture has been in India -- for the last 18 years, since 1987.

Says, Rekha Menon, Head, Geographical Services, Accenture India: "The reason why we went in for such an exercise is primarily to build awareness as a global company for our target audience in India." And Accenture is targetting aplenty in the country.

For starters, Accenture is actively hiring in India and needs to ensure that its brand is an attractive proposition when it goes visiting 40-odd college campuses this year to recruit engineers. This apart, Accenture is keen to do more business in India and the branding does help.

Consider this piece of revealing statistic. Accenture, which launched its delivery centres for technology solutions in 2001 in India, has probably set the fastest pace of growth from a multinational perspective. In the space of the last four years, Accenture has hired more than 11,000 (as of November 2004) employees. If the same rate of growth continues, expect it to hire close to 3,000 this year.

Accenture also has facilities in Mumbai, New Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai and offers services to more than 150 global corporations that include Fortune 1000 companies.

Most of this hiring has been lateral (recruited from other companies -- some might call it poaching too) and having hit the ground running, thanks to the experienced hires, the company now can afford to recruit freshers from the campus.

In India since 1987 offering consultancy services, Accenture brought its technology business to India in 2001 and then brought in its BPO business in 2003.

The media campaign, according to Menon, makes Accenture the only company which is probably doing mass-scale brand campaign in India. The key message being conveyed is Accenture = Hi-Performance Delivered.

The company also used the services of IMRB for a detailed market research report before it launched its brand campaign.

Accenture did not divulge how much it is spending but market sources point out that spending could be in the region of about Rs 2 crore (Rs 20 million) between March and April this year.

And the target audience, according to Menon, is split across three key segments:

a) Domestic and potential clients;

b) Potential recruitments; and

c) Accenture's own employees.

So while, Accenture has been around in the country since 1987 and has had successes in winning key domestic IT services contracts with traditional companies like Dabur and Indo Rama (see below), its brand probably may not be as strong as domestic IT services brands like Infosys and Wipro.

And even as Accenture straddles the global map enjoying a disproportionate portion of mind-share with CIOs of companies compared to the Indian IT minnows, in India the story is different.

This apart, the campaign comes at a time when the company is going to go the campuses for the first time in a big way and will target close to 40 tier-I technical institutions in India. For the Indian IT industry which already faces stiff competition in attracting talent and retaining them, Accenture will be a big threat this year.

"So far we had lost experienced employees to them which hurt us in the short term. Now if they are getting into the campus space too, expect starting salary levels to go up as Accenture will definitely offer them more," says the Human Resources Head of a Bangalore-based Indian software company.

When it comes to the decision of joining a company in India it is a family decision. And parents today know much more about an Infosys, Wipro or Satyam than a company called Accenture. "The advertising campaign also helps the parents know that their son or daughter is working for a blue-chip organisation and raises the self-esteem of everyone involved in the process," Menon points out.

Indo Rama and Accenture

Accenture and Indo Rama signed an agreement in June last year for the outsourcing of Indo Rama's transaction-based finance functions to Accenture. The deal was one of the first examples of an organisation outsourcing its finance and accounting functions in India.

The agreement is designed to help Indo Rama improve its business efficiency by allowing the company to focus on its core activities while adopting global practices leading to over all cost savings.

As part of the contract, Accenture will deliver financial transaction processing and financial management reporting services. Approximately 90 Indo Rama employees will transition to Accenture.

Dabur and Accenture

Dabur India Limited, one of the largest fast moving consumer goods companies in India, has signed a 10-year agreement with Accenture to outsource its IT infrastructure and application management function.

Under the terms of this innovative, new agreement, Accenture will manage Dabur's IT functions, including applications management, and provide consulting assistance on the company's business plans.

Accenture will also design, build and run IT systems for the supply chain and secondary sales functions. Over the next month the detailed service level agreement will be defined.  Thereafter, Dabur's existing IT employees will transition to Accenture with consistent terms of employment.