Accenture: Prioritizing ecological impact and sustainability in next-gen procurement processes
Explore Accenture’s journey with SAP
When Accenture wanted to gain deeper insights into its services-based spend activity and align procurement with environmental, social, and governance commitments, the firm looked no further than SAP Fieldglass solutions. With rich data on how suppliers are delivering against an agreement, Accenture can now effectively tie services spend to individual contracts.
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Professional services | Global | 738,000 employees |
faster turnaround time for purchase requisitions.
integrated solution supporting services spend management.
access to data insights tying services spend to individual contracts.
Interim Chief Procurement Officer, Accenture
| Industry | Region | Company Size |
| Professional services | Global | 738,000 employees |
faster turnaround time for purchase requisitions.
integrated solution supporting services spend management.
access to data insights tying services spend to individual contracts.
Interim Chief Procurement Officer, Accenture
Enabling data to deliver new procurement value
Accenture operates at the forefront of the digital economy, with a proven reputation for empowering its clients to embrace innovation and drive new value.
To enable next-generation procurement capabilities, the professional services firm has successfully transformed its procure-to-pay processes using a suite of SAP solutions. This includes SAP S/4HANA to support the Intelligent Spend Management concept, which integrates finance, sourcing, and procurement solutions to create a single spend management experience, and the SAP Ariba Buying and Invoicing solution to automate procurement operations. By digitalizing and automating processes and integrating sourcing, purchasing, and payment solutions globally, Accenture has improved spend visibility across different categories and regions to support informed decision-making.
By strategically managing spend with highly evolved processes designed to make the right agreements with the right suppliers, Accenture recognized significant opportunities for its procurement function to deliver new value across the organization. Specifically, the firm wanted to gain deeper insights into its services-based procurement activity beyond the contracting and agreements stage and align procurement with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) commitments.
Global Services Strategic Capability Lead, Accenture
Driving strategic procurement by tying services spend to contracts
To resolve limitations in connecting and validating statements of work with the services provided, Accenture decided to adopt SAP Fieldglass solutions to manage services based on statements of work.
Complementing the Intelligent Spend Management concept, SAP Fieldglass solutions offer the flexibility to scale globally, helping Accenture to deliver strategic procurement capabilities with richer insights into services-based procurement activity. The software empowers the firm to tie spend to individual contracts, providing visibility through rich reporting and insights into how suppliers are delivering on a fixed-fee deliverable or project milestone.
Gregg Schneider, global services strategic capability lead at Accenture, explains, “Using the SAP Fieldglass Services Procurement application allows us to tie what is agreed in the contract with the actual work being performed to help ensure everything is completed as per the agreement. And it offers several reporting capabilities that feed into our overall corporate strategy, including ESG factors. As we have a significant human-based services spend commitment, the software gives us visibility into those professional workers and their skills.”
As Accenture continues to grow supplier relationships, the firm can enable more of its spend to be tied to contracts, allowing it to showcase the value suppliers bring to Accenture while strengthening ties with suppliers.
Global Services Strategic Capability Lead, Accenture
Embedding ESG criteria into procurement decisions
With a single digital technology foundation based on SAP S/4HANA to support the Intelligent Spend Management concept and smooth automated procure-to-pay processes, Accenture has reduced friction for its procurement processes. Patricia Miller, interim chief procurement officer at Accenture, explains, “Friction in our procurement processes is a very important measure for us, and a good indicator is the turnaround time of our requisitions. Before the transformation, we had a global average of around 30 hours per requisition, with some countries as high as 60 hours. It’s now down to a global average of around 15 hours.”
In terms of contract leakage, Accenture previously tended to focus on the activity involved in negotiating a contract and making the right agreement with the right price and terms. The firm didn’t put as much effort into the active management of that contract. Now, using the SAP Fieldglass Services Procurement application, all this has changed. Accenture can break down the statement of work and view data points mapped to project timelines and quality to enable compliance with key milestones and deliverables.
As Accenture moves to embed sustainability goals into procurement decisions, the firm can deliver critical insights into how procurement operations contribute to its ESG commitments. This allows Accenture to make more-informed decisions about services procurement and align those decisions with the firm’s ESG priorities, which is a critical part in building next-level supplier relationships.
“Third-party spend is a massive contributor to our sustainability agenda,” says Miller. “We’re very focused on using data to understand which suppliers can help us with our sustainability goals, and then elevating that data so our people are encouraged to select those suppliers when engaging in the buying process.”
Global Services Strategic Capability Lead, Accenture
Doing more with critical procurement insights across the supply chain
With its SAP Fieldglass solutions, Accenture is gaining valuable services-spend insights that feed into broader procurement operations. Now more than three years into the company’s procurement transformation program, Schneider considers it critical to continue to build on this strategic procurement capability and recognize the procurement function as a value differentiator.
“Deploying technology is one thing, but gaining adoption, understanding what the data is telling you, and then adjusting the way we function as an organization are where the real work begins. We’re still at the very beginning of the journey in understanding how services procurement can deliver true value to support the success of our business and help achieve ESG goals.”
Want to know more about Accenture?
Accenture: Taking Services Procurement to the Next Level (SAP Video)
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