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Accenture Americas is ASAP’s
mentor, friend & sometimes partner
The Americas region of the global management giant focuses on growing its program by building the capacity of its diverse suppliers
 Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company. Its 177,000 people serve clients in 120 countries from offices and operations in fifty-two countries.
Cheryl A. Harris is the company’s Americas delivery
lead for business process outsourcing procurement services and director of supplier diversity. Harris began her career in procurement at American Express Financial Advisors as director of procurement in all categories except IT, and as an advocate of the company’s supplier diversity program.
Under Harris’ leadership, Accenture Americas expects to achieve better than 16 percent spend with small businesses, WBEs and MBEs this year.
 Harris spearheaded the 2006 launch of the company’s diverse supplier development program. The mentoring program, which teams qualified diverse suppliers with Accenture executives to develop strategies that strengthen the protégé companies’ capabilities, now includes sixteen suppliers from different parts of the U.S.
Harris is growing Accenture’s programs in other ways, too. “We just completed a major sourcing event in technical subcontractors, Accenture’s largest area of procurement spend,” she reports. “Our contractor exchange now includes fifteen preferred suppliers, over 70 percent of them certified M/WBEs. Supplier diversity is woven into the fabric of our sourcing and procurement practices.”
Appreciating supplier diversity
As Accenture prepared to go public in 2000, parts of the business which were determined to
be non-core competency, including procurement, were outsourced, Harris notes. “But we soon began to appreciate what supplier diversity could bring to the organization and how it reflected Accenture’s core values of client value creation, stewardship and integrity. So in 2002 we formally established the Accenture U.S. supplier diversity program.”
The program’s three-pronged mission was to expand the presence of diverse suppliers in Accenture’s supplier base, increase the number of diverse suppliers in Accenture’s contracting relationships with clients, and promote economic growth in communities where Accenture people live and work.
“Early on we didn’t have sophisticated systems and tools to report spend or identify potential diverse suppliers,” Harris admits. “But by 2002 we had created a project charter, tapped into tools and information from the NMSDC, and had approval to deploy the automated solution that’s still in place today.
“Today I feel that we’re very close to being best in class, based on the program’s progress over the past seven years. This year we’re hoping to achieve 16 percent of our sourced spend with diverse suppliers.”
Developing suppliers
With the program successfully launched, Harris and her team began considering how to build increased value for Accenture, its suppliers and shareholders. “I said, ‘Let’s identify diverse suppliers and partner them with senior executives in our organization, not only to help the suppliers navigate our organization, but to help them develop the competencies to become higher performing businesses,’” she recalls.
“In my vision, if we could help diverse suppliers perform more effectively, their revenues would increase as would their community footprint. While this approach would benefit Accenture, our clients and shareholders, the ultimate focus was on job creation and capacity building for the diverse businesses.”
The program has been a great success. It runs eighteen months and includes monthly meetings between the protégé companies and their Accenture mentors, along with quarterly training symposia.
The first graduating class had ten M/WBEs. The second class of sixteen diverse suppliers began in January 2009; Kevin Campbell, Accenture’s outsourcing CEO, welcomed them with a company overview.
Harris notes that Ray Toomer and Carol Attak manage and administer the supplier diversity program, including the development program. “It’s their commitment and dedication that has made it so successful,” she declares.
Camaraderie and exchange
In the first class, eight of the ten suppliers were essentially competitors in IT staff augmentation. Nevertheless, they enjoyed talking together about business opportunities,
Harris says. “We fostered camaraderie, knowledge exchange and best practices.”
In fact, she notes with a smile, “We found that participants were spending time talking together outside our Accenture meetings. One of the larger WBEs was able to bring smaller businesses into her operation and subcontract to them.
“I’m excited about this second class,” Harris reveals. “The companies are great partners to us. They’re taking even more initiative early on to connect with one another, to enable themselves to drive more opportunities.”
Working with ASAP
WBE ASAP Staffing LLC (Norcross, GA) is a $60 million provider of IT staffing services and project management to both commercial companies and state and local governments. The company, which has branch offices across the U.S. and in India, was co-founded in 1989 by
its current co-principals.
One of the principals, Nancy Williams, is on the board of WBENC; the other principal, Roz Alford, is on the board of WBENC’s Women Presidents’ Organization. ASAP has twice been
a WBE sponsor of WBENC’s annual conference of women business owners and corporate members.
“We provide IT staffing, solutions work and fixed-price delivered engagements,” Williams says. “We have projects from half a million to 28 million dollars, and we have our India operations.” ASAP has about 750 consultants in the U.S. and another hundred in India, an expansion which became reality very much as a result of Accenture’s mentoring.
ASAP started working with Accenture’s predecessor company, Andersen Consulting, in January 1998. “It was a natural partnership for us,” Williams says. “We supported them for five years locally, then became a vendor to them nationally.”
“ASAP is a highly valued WBE at Accenture,” Harris agrees. “ASAP provides us with value: resources with the right skills at the right cost point, able to adapt to our processes.
“We rely very heavily on technology and not all suppliers can make it up that curve.”
Part of the program
Three years ago ASAP was asked to be part of the pilot for Accenture’s diverse supplier development program.
“It was an eighteen-month commitment,” Williams recalls. “You were paired with one of Accenture’s high-level executives and had to report monthly on goals and objectives, and everyone met together quarterly.”
But ASAP was established and booming by that time. Did it really need the program? Its
co-principal Nancy Williams thinks it did.
As she sees it, “We all want our clients to think we are perfect. You can be disorganized internally, but externally you want everyone to think you are buttoned down. Accenture asked us to open the kimono and go with a different kind of trust.”
ASAP’s first Accenture mentor was the company’s chief procurement officer. Then ASAP was mentored by outsourcing CEO Kevin Campbell.
It was a two-way relationship. “Just as Accenture mentored us, we mentored them,” Williams notes. “We have an integral relationship which is also a friendship and very much a partnership. We are a huge champion of theirs, and we love how intent they are on helping M/WBEs grow.”
Reverse partnering
ASAP’s relationship with Accenture has unquestionably brought the company new business beyond the work it does with Accenture. In some cases it has even brought Accenture new work.
“There are times when we look to them to partner with us,” Williams notes. “We are working
on an arrangement now where we will be the prime supplier, and Accenture will come in under us as second-tier. This is a nine-figure contract, so there is definitely trust there.
”We work to win the business, make it successful and do what is right for the client. We all want the same thing,” Williams believes.
Last year ASAP’s revenues were $59 million and the company did $6.9 million of diversity spend on its own. “We are pretty committed to it,” Williams says.
“We are also very committed to moving M/WBE companies into a stronger position. It’s good for the economy. I always tell people to pay it forward: you were there once, and at the end
of the day we are all here to not merely survive but to thrive!”
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