marketing excellence accenture case study

2012: O2, Long-term Marketing Excellence - Case Study

marketing excellence accenture case study

O2’s ‘customer first’ strategy and innovative marketing has made it a major player in the competitive mobile phone network.

Key insights

Since its transformation from BT Cellnet to O2 in 2002 the company’s philosophy of putting customers first has generated a stream of innovative marketing ideas.
Its campaign a few years after launch to keep customers loyal set it apart from competitors suffering from increasing churn.
Its sponsorship of what is the world’s most popular entertainment venue—The O2 arena—has given the brand global recognition.

O2 is a leading provider of mobile services and part of Telefónica Europe. Since its transformation from BT Cellnet in 2002, its strategy has been based on a single consistent principle: putting the customer first. It has been executed in ever more diverse and innovative responses to a changing market. Furthermore, O2 has maintained a dedication to measuring and isolating the effectiveness of its marketing.

This ‘customer’ first’ attitude has shaped everything, from product positioning to sponsorship to staff conferences. It has generated a stream of innovative ideas such as Pay & Go Wild tariff, bolt-ons and the free text and calls ‘Happy Hour’ promotion.

To incentivise customers to stay with the network, in 2005 O2 rolled out its ‘A world that revolves around you’ campaign, visualising the customer as both the centre of their own network and its own philosophy. More recently, O2 used its sponsorship of The O2 and O2 Academy venues to find innovative new ways to continue the strategy.

Throughout the years O2 has transformed its fortunes, taking and subsequently extending leadership over the competition across key brand and business metrics. Moreover, econometric analysis has repeatedly demonstrated the significant value to the brand delivered by the marketing communications with a return on investment (ROI) of up to 80:1.

From launch to leadership

In November 2001 mmO2 plc was demerged from BT plc, creating a wholly independent holding company. The UK brand, BT Cellnet, was relaunched as O2 in April 2002. It faced significant challenges, challenges that BT Cellnet had manifestly failed to tackle. The market had matured, penetration had plateaued and revenue growth was increasingly hard to come by, hampered by the difficulty of securing technical advantage. Differentiation had to come through marketing (Figures 1 and 2).

But the new brand faced extremely well-established competitors: Orange and Vodafone. BT Cellnet had enjoyed neither the presence of Vodafone nor the appealing image of Orange, lacking clear identity or forward momentum. O2 would also have to face the launch of two new brands, T-Mobile and 3. Struggling on all key metrics –new connections, total subscriber base, non-voice transactions, average revenue per user (ARPU) and revenue—it was hardly surprising that pundits weren’t optimistic about O2’s chances of success.

But O2 proved its cynics wrong, building a strong brand that, through total visual and strategic integration, turned around flagging business performance. The level of visual integration O2 achieved was impressive, consistent not just within campaigns, but across every brand touchpoint. This approach, still followed today, is epitomised by the internal mantra: ‘It only works if it all works’.

But from the start O2 was devised to be more than merely a new look. The relaunch represented a radical strategic departure from the fusty, technologyheavy days of BT Cellnet. Rather than a provider of mobile technology or a mobile visionary, O2 set out to become the most ‘enabling’ brand in the marketplace, existing to provide better ways the customer can work, play and communicate.

This ‘customer-first’ attitude shaped everything, from product positioning to sponsorship to staff conferences. It generated a stream of innovative ideas: Pay & Go Wild, bolt-ons and Happy Hour among others (Figures 3 and 4). While BT Cellnet had a conventional ‘manufacturer’ discount approach, with bolt-ons O2 created a new vocabulary of value in text messaging that was proprietary and more universally and emotionally appealing.

Making its mark

The results from this approach were remarkable. Where BT Cellnet suffered, O2 thrived. After just two years:

O2 became the leading brand for both top-of-mind awareness and preference.
Spontaneous advertising awareness rose rapidly to the level of its well-established competitors.
All key business metrics improved: revenue, new connections, total subscribers, average revenue per user. Since launch, O2 was generating more than a million new connections per quarter.
Based on advertising awareness per TVR, Millward Brown calculated that despite an actual share of voice of 14%, O2’s effective share of voice was 33%. In other words, O2 advertising was delivering more than double the value of competitors.

According to independent analysis from Accenture: “The O2 launch has been the most successful mobile brand launch that Accenture’s ROI group have seen. Based on numerous studies that we have conducted, the brand is rare in exceeding our most optimistic targets. The results are a testament to the potency of the brand identity and advertising creative.“ Econometric analysis isolated the impact of advertising and sponsorship, proving that it generated 4.1 million connections from April 2002 to December 2003, generating £493 million in additional margin for O2. This represented a return of 6.3:1 on the money invested, with the ultimate long-term payback reckoned at 62:1. Perhaps more importantly, the foundations had been set for long-term brand success.

Building on success

By the end of 2004 the market was changing again. Customers found themselves rewarded for changing network, not for loyalty. This was bad for operators. It eroded their own margins, paying money to retailers that could have been re-invested into service and created increased churn and higher acquisition costs. (During 2004, O2’s churn rose from 30% to 35%).

And it was not even much liked by customers, who could only obtain discounts at the inconvenience of frequently reviewing complex offers and changing operator. Unable to differentiate between brands offering little emotional attachment, customer satisfaction was sliding for all networks.

What was to be done? The pressure to attract new customers was difficult to resist. Simply substituting acquisition programmes for ‘loyalty’ deals would risk losing share, as other operators continued to offer ‘jam today’ rather than ‘jam tomorrow’.

Consumer research showed the way. O2 had made a good start in creating a relationship with its customers, but focusing on acquisitions rather than rewarding existing customers was problematic, not just practically but symbolically. It said: ‘We don’t really care about you.’

O2 needed to change, showing deep commitment to its own customers, backed up by deeds as well as words. It required:

Operational improvements in service, including hiring extra customer service staff.
A shift to rewarding loyalty not defection: offering the same deals to existing customers as well as new.
Communicating the new strategy and rewards.

The consistent visual identity, a contrast to the often frenetic world around mobile phones, was still ideal for building emotional attachment. O2 would not make the mistake of Orange, which had launched with a powerful visual identity but later lost clarity and consistency. Instead, O2 needed to refresh the current identity to carry the new messages, for the first time speaking directly to existing customers.

Mounting a creative coup

The creative solution was: ’O2: A world that revolves around you’. This visualised the customer both as the centre of their own network and the centre of O2’s concern (Figure 5). As a result of the campaign, O2 became the leading UK brand in this sector:

It amassed the largest user base.
Churn fell while that of competitors rose.
Fastest net acquisitions increased. Although targeting existing customers, the campaign had as strong an effect on new prepay connections as previous acquisition advertising.
ARPU held up because, despite giving customers more rewards, the company retained high-value users.
The strongest brand awareness and image metrics in the market, including consideration and satisfaction.

By strengthening brand affinity and successfully exiting the battle for acquisitions, O2 could pay less to retailers relative to competitors, investing in service and rewards of benefit to the brand.

Financial payback

All this immediately showed up on the bottom line: the earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) outperformed the market throughout 2005. Moreover, econometrics isolated the effectiveness of the marketing:

One million disconnections were prevented by this campaign between April and December 2005.
Over the next three to four years, reduced disconnections would repay the media budget 17 times over.
New customers joining as a result of the campaign would, over their lifetime, generate margin to repay the media budget 18 times over. Longer-term, the total additional margin was expected to repay the media budget 63 times.

Retention and acquisitions effects produced a payback of 80:1. Share price grew and, in November 2005, O2’s board accepted Telefonica’s offer to buy the company for £18 billion, a testament to the brand and business value generated since launch.

Innovating from the front: from mobile brand to media brand

Within four years, O2 had become the leading mobile provider in the UK, with a reputation for putting customers first and an enviable track record for effective, consistent communications. Over the following years, as the communication world had become more diverse and fast-moving, this strategic and creative focus enabled O2 to maintain and stretch its leadership and expand successfully into new categories such as personal finance.

Rather than attempt to tell the whole story of these years, this case study focuses on one element that typifies the innovation and ambition O2 has brought to its communications and is perhaps the best evidence of the brand’s founding principles: the sponsorship of The O2 and Priority Tickets.

From white elephant to global star

It’s easy to forget now how the Millennium Dome was seen by the British public in 2007. Beset by controversy, after a year of use the building sat empty and neglected and was widely seen as an embarrassing waste of money. In fact, Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) was already planning to re-open it as a major entertainment venue and looking for a sponsor to buy the naming rights. Such was the reputation of the ‘Dome of Doom’ that there was little enthusiasm. But O2 saw the opportunity (Figure 6).

With the scale and ambition of the venture, the desire was to set a new standard for sponsorship activity. Strategically, it needed to be true to the O2 way of doing things:

Put customers first: make a better experience for customers.
Breathe not badge: demonstrate the difference the brand was making.
Be accountable: bring a new standard of measurement to sponsorship.

Special service

Visiting The O2 highlights the results of this approach:

While everyone has a great time, O2’s own customers are made to feel special. Before the visit they can register for Priority Tickets, on sale up to 48 hours before general release. This is a valued benefit when most concerts sell out (Figure 7).
On arrival, customers are eligible for fast-track entry, special offers and access to exclusive zones: the Blueroom Bar and the O2 Lounge. ‘O2 Angels’ greet and direct visitors, while ‘O2 Gurus’ offer advice on getting more from your mobile. You can download music and explore new technology. After the event, you can visit the online Blueroom to watch new footage.

Today the O2 is undeniably the world’s most popular entertainment venue. It sold 2.35 million tickets in 2009, or 75% more than the next most popular venue.

The benefits of the sponsorship were significant. By the end of 2009:

Awareness of The O2 (72%) and Priority Ticketing (64%) had reached very high levels.
1.5 million customers registered for Priority Tickets.
O2 led the category for making a difference to the events it sponsored and association with music sponsorship, according to tracking studies.
Those aware of and having experienced The O2 and Priority Tickets were significantly more likely to rate the brand highly across a range of attributes.
Brand awareness, perception as the leading brand, consideration and recommendation scores have all increased to give O2 clear leadership.
2.6 million customers had been added since the launch of The O2, nearly double that of the nearest competitor Orange.
O2 grew value market share to 30.9%, with revenue growth more than double that of the next most successful brand, Orange.

Peerless performance

Econometric modelling demonstrated that The O2 and Priority Tickets worked harder that any other campaigns at driving brand consideration and recommendation. They also delivered connections: the Priority campaign in Q4 2009 contributed nearly 12% of all connections.

The model enabled the company to quantify actual and projected impact of the activity on gross connections (Table 1).

This impact was in line with the strategy approach: badging a venue would not drive real business value. Only by putting customers first through Priority Tickets did the sponsorship really deliver at rates not seen since the momentous early days of the brand launch.

The contribution to profit to December 2009 based on incremental gross revenue was £279 million, giving an ROI of 6.3:1, with an expected ultimate contribution to profit of £639 million, giving an ROI of 14.5:1.

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Accenture Technology Vision 2021

Launching a top-tier campaign at a moment of truth

attendees at the live event

YOY increase in visits to accenture.com from client company domains

For more than 21 years, Technology Vision has been Accenture’s premier thought-leadership program. Senior analysts within the business look ahead 3-5 years to predict how technology will shape business and society in the near-term. To launch the Vision, Accenture would typically host a live event in both San Francisco and New York, to 120 of their diamond clients and press. Following that would be a year-long program of regional versions around the world.

Of course, Covid-19 changed things.

For the first time, Technology Vision would become a virtual event. So with a timescale of just three weeks, an approach to both the virtual interface, attendee digital experience and content format had to be developed in rapid time. And the associated content and promotion had to be created and deployed too.

The Solution

In total, we designed and produced over 60 assets in just three weeks, including:

A virtual event environment, Keynote presentation, In-event videos, Digital and print reports, SlideShares, Infographics, Landing pages, 35+ assets for virtual event branding, Virtual backgrounds, Teaser social campaign, Promotional emails, Multiple landing pages, Sizzle and intro videos, Merchandise, Presentation template

"> “We are so appreciative of you being our trusted partner teaming with us on the Tech Vision global campaign launch. Everything you created looks absolutely spectacular! Your willingness to collaborate with us, pivot quickly with important changes, and bring your outstanding creative talents every day made a big impact. This year was an exceptionally challenging year, and we really love you for not just getting it done with us, but exceeding our expectations and targets despite a global pandemic to contend with!”

Katy Ahern Accenture Lead Technology Innovation, Marketing + Communications

The outcomes

Tech Vision 2021 has exceeded expectations and digital performance has improved 50% YOY despite launching during Covid.

Evaluated across external engagement, internal people comms and candidate performance – this year’s Tech Vision has exceeded all expectations and provided a blueprint for virtual and hybrid events in the future.

attendees from client companies

impressions via digital media

global news stories

views to the internal Tech Vision site

social engagements: likes, shares, comments, and link clicks

SlideShare views

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The traditional automotive industry has reached a crossroads. We are now operating in a mobility ecosystem, shifting into the next iteration of automotive. To move forward, it’s time to embrace the ecosystem, collaborate beyond industry lines, and find new ways of innovating and partnering for success.

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Today’s automotive revenues increasingly reflect a digital business model, in which the vehicle acts like a connected platform.

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Agile organization

Break down organizational silos to focus on customers and product ownership over the entire vehicle lifecycle.

Drive value and impact by combining digital and sustainability

Sustainability targets in the automotive industry have sparked a technology revolution in electric vehicles and energy transition.

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New industry solutions — like enhanced fleet electrification and seamless charging — will help balance the needs for mobility and sustainability.

Growth, sustainability and recovery

The e-mobility revolution can greatly reduce resource consumption, while speeding growth.

Segments we support

Delight passengers with intelligent solutions for more business value.

Transform tolling operations through a reimagined mobility experience.

What’s trending in automotive

Automotive’s strategic plan to tackle a new world.

Accenture pioneers the use of advanced GenAI and real-time graphics capabilities with Defender to elevate the modern luxury client experience, using NVIDIA’s Omniverse platform and NVIDIA Edify-powered models.

A new report from Accenture helps automakers address the key challenges to successfully monetizing digital services in the automotive industry.

Accenture identified 4 approaches to help OEMs transition to software defined vehicle experiences & compete effectively in the automotive industry.

Leveraging technology to drive new luxury experiences

How Volkswagen is driving clarity and confidence in their sustainability strategy.

Accenture details how original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) can reinvent automotive customer CX & improve automotive customer journeys.

Five imperatives the C-suite must address to reinvent in the age of generative AI.

Partners in change

Leverage the experience of AWS and Accenture with proven technology offerings and industry-ready solutions.

Unleash empowering human-centric design and Google’s innovative tech.

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Awards and recognition

Microsoft 2023 global automotive, mobility and transportation partner of the year.

Accenture, in partnership with Avanade, has been named 2023 Microsoft Global SI Partner of The Year. Through our extensive experience, Accenture has established an unmatched track record of success in implementing Microsoft solutions across various industries and geographies.

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Juergen Reers

Senior Managing Director – Global Industry Sector Lead, Automotive

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Managing Director – EMEAan Automotive Lead

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Managing Director – US

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Managing Director – Growth Markets Automotive Lead

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Managing Director – Latin America Automotive Lead

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Accenture’s adept account-based marketing

With rhiannon blackwell, head of account based marketing at accenture uk, accenture’s abm programme has improved win rates by up to 18%. rhiannon blackwell, accenture’s abm lead talks about its success and the road to get there..

You can’t fail to be impressed when you hear Accenture speak publicly about its ABM programme.

It’s the same when you listen to the enthusiasm and advice of Rhiannon Blackwell, ABM lead at Accenture UK.

We’re diving deeper into the mechanics of the programme to understand why Accenture has been so successful.

ABM maturity

The ABM programme at Accenture has been running formally for three years, having previously been carried out ad hoc.

The company is comfortably sat in stage 4 of the B2B Marketing ABM Competency Model: Adept ABM .

This means it has fully mapped decision-making units and outlined personas. As well as this it’s tracking and measuring internal stakeholder engagement. It’s also linking external processes while operating from a dedicated internal ABM team.

Accenture is currently working on getting to stage 5: Advanced ABM, which means tightening processes that have already been started in stage 4, such as integration and account behaviour scoring.

The team and the accounts

Accenture UK has an ABM team of eight marketers who deliver strategic one-to-one ABM to 20 accounts across five industry groups: communications and technology, financial services, retail and consumer goods, oil and gas and the public sector.

As Accenture’s ABM programme focuses on one-to-one it’s quite tech light.

However, one-to-one relies on heavy collaboration which means its CRM is used religiously to measure stakeholder engagement, campaign performance, and ROI. The company also uses a marketing automation platform to help personalise customer journeys.

The pilot stage

Accenture knew its ABM programme would need to sit at the heart of the company because it needed to collaborate with a long list of teams such as digital marketing, sales, and competitor intelligence.

This meant getting buy-in was imperative for the success of the strategy. And while some stakeholders were easy to convince by telling them, others needed showing.

Accenture decided to run a pilot programme to demonstrate what ABM could do, so it looked for a promising account that could provide a success story.

“We chose an account that had really clear business objectives and had stakeholders we knew would give us the time and investment we needed from them,” explains Rhiannon.

Once the account had seen success, the ABM team packaged it up as a case study and promoted the story and the data internally.

The programme then began to sell itself. Now time has gone by, Rhiannon says she has to pitch ABM internally less frequently. “It’s often by word-of-mouth. Our client account leads are actually selling it to each other and are approaching us,” Rhiannon says.

For her, the challenge is keeping the initial enthusiasm from account leads waning. “It’s keeping the momentum going after you’ve sold it into an account,” she admits.

Internal personas

Although there sometimes is a stereotype attached to certain teams, the people within them are often very different to the way they react to change.

The ABM team recognised this and as part of their aim to gain buy-in and nurture enthusiasm, they outlined the personas of stakeholders they needed to get on their side, and created necessary solutions to suit them.

“Whatever job you do you’re going to run into these types of people,” says Rhiannon. “You have to be able to understand how different people work and communicate, so you can better work with them and get the outcomes you both want.”

Accenture came up with four main personas:

1. debbie downer.

This persona will be the person in the meeting that is always negative about everything you present. That negativity can often be difficult to turn around, and it may take a while to encourage them to muster support.

Rhiannon says they encountered a ‘Debbie’ when trying to push account leads to become more active social sellers.

Often social can be quite difficult to sell, particularly when dealing with professionals who have had a career and seen success before the days of social media.

“In professional services it’s particularly critical because we’re in the business of selling people. It’s a shop window we can’t ignore,” she explains.

Advocacy and competition

To tackle Debbie, Rhiannon and the team first highlighted the key accounts who were active online. Second, they recruited other sales people who were more agreeable to the plan and gave them tips for updating their profile.

These employees then became advocates who could also chip away at Debbie.

The ABM team tried to make it as easy as possible for Debbie to become active on social. “We built a LinkedIn profile builder, and use LinkedIn Elevate which makes sharing content really simple,” says Rhiannon.

They further launched a social leaderboard because they knew sales responded well in a competitive environment. Debbie was at the top of the leaderboard because the ABM team had done most of the social for them. This was an ego boost, and won Debbie over.

“Finally, once the account lead was able to see what we were delivering through social, we started to go that one step further and suggest a paid social campaign to a very small targeted group of clients,” says Rhiannon.

2. Busy Ben

This persona really wants to do ABM but is so busy running around doing everything else on their list that they haven’t given ABM a look in. You’ve got the buy-in from the persona, but you haven’t got their time – therefore you need to make it as easy as possible, especially when it comes to tailoring content.

Rhiannon says Busy Ben is a common character in any workplace, so the ABM team looked for a way to help stakeholders customise content without spending a long time doing it.

Customisable content templates

The team created cross-account campaign assets which Ben can take off the shelf and quickly tailor accordingly rather than starting from scratch. This also allows the ABM team to present a quick win and keep momentum moving.

“When we have the first conversation [with the account lead] we have five options of things we can start next week while we delve into understanding the outcomes the client wants to drive and the outcomes we want to drive,” Rhiannon explains.

A great example of the power of repurposing is Accenture’s annual Technology Vision report which lists the five tech trends the business believes will shape companies.

“We knew it was a great piece of content but we needed to hand pick the pieces that were relevant to our clients,” says Rhiannon.

“We worked with technology experts on each of our teams to handpick trends and write about why they were relevant and what they mean for each of our clients. We had amazing results, our open rate was about 55%.”

Furthermore, the ABM has cut down thinking time for account leads by creating an ABM tool kit, which recommends tactics and channels based on the challenges the account is facing.

3. Kenny Keano

This persona loves ABM and wants to dive in head first. However while they may want everything you have to offer right now they most likely do not have the resources, budget and understanding fully in place.

Rhiannon says Kenny is the easiest persona to work with, however it’s still vital to manage their expectations.

Stakeholder profiling

To target Kenny’s ambitions of a giant leap into ABM, Accenture works with them to get the baby steps nailed firmly down. This essentially means extensive stakeholder profiling to ensure the programme will be delivering what it needs to.

“The first thing we do with these guys is always take a step back, we start with a workshop with the leadership team,” explains Rhiannon.

This session identifies four things:

What the business outcomes are
What the client wants to achieve
Who the key players are
What Accenture’s core messages for this account should be.

The ABM team then take the insight from the workshop and combine it with other search tactics. “We comb the internet to find relevant insights about clients using social media, news sources, company websites, and our own CRM,” says Rhiannon.

Accenture also use Crystal Knows, an online personality profiling tool. From here the ABM team design a bespoke campaign for communication.

However, Kenny is not happy to sit waiting for this carefully tailored campaign to arrive, and the ABM team want to capture their willingness.

“We don’t want enthusiasm to wane so we have some quick wins in our back pocket that we can roll out pretty quickly to immediately show the value that the ABM team are going to deliver to the account,” explains Rhiannon.

4. Olivia over-analyser

Nothing is left unscrutinised when it comes to this persona. Olivia wants all the data and needs time to analyse it before she gives the green light to anything.

This can make it difficult to get anything in an ABM programme going, especially if you’re trying to also manage Kenny who is raring to go.

Rhiannon describes this person as her nemesis, purely because she’s the opposite personality type

Ownership and control of the account

The ABM team understood Olivia feels protective of her accounts, and they knew they needed to work in a way that would suit this.

Convincing Olivia to work on the ABM team’s terms wasn’t an option if they wanted to get anything off the ground.

“They weren’t even comfortable doing the Technology Vision campaign because with that level of customisation they were worried it wasn’t 100% relevant to that particular account,” Rhiannon explains.

To tackle this, the ABM team gave Olivia control of the customisable content and access to working with subject matter experts. From here, they created a bespoke blog series, specifically tailored to the challenges Olivia’s account was facing.

After the account saw success, Olivia’s trust in the ABM team’s abilities to understand their accounts grew, and they became open to try more things in the ABM programme. It appears tactful perseverance is key here.

Success at Accenture

Accenture’s ABM has seen great success which has helped in expanding the programme further. At the B2B Marketing conference managing director, marketing and communications at Accenture, Sarah Thomas said the ABM programme had positively impacted on win rates of accounts by 15-18%.

An example of this success was a programme Accenture conducted to position itself as a preferred supplier of a major bank.

Sales and marketing teams closely collaborated to design an agile campaign which enabled account leads to respond to client needs as they developed. Ultimately these actions saw an engagement of 80% of the key decision-makers and met the objective in securing Accenture’s position.

The future for Accenture’s ABM

The goal that lays ahead for Accenture’s ABM programme is developing to maturity stage 5 advanced ABM. As part of this the company wants to be able to scale its ABM programme so it’s more able to serve on a global level.

For Rhiannon, the challenge will be to remain relevant and gain the same amount of knowledge on each account across a broader base.

“We’ve done quite a few things to address this challenge like introducing standardised processes across all our programmes, so we’re not re-inventing the wheel,” she says.

Rhiannon’s two top tips for ABM success:

Start small; you don’t have to boil the ocean at the very start. C hoose an account that has a clear and defined business objective you want to achieve. Deliver the pilot and get that amazing data and anecdote that will tell the story for you.
Don’t create everything from scratch. You’re probably surrounded by marketers creating great content. Reuse and repurpose what’s out there but add a client lens. Then and only then, look to fill the gaps and bespoke activity.

Related webinars

The 3 processes vital to your ABM programme
Plotting your route to ABM success
How to take your ABM career stratospheric - ask the experts

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MARKETING EXCELLENCE ACCENTURE

Accenture was launched as the Administrative Accounting Group in 1942 and was the consulting arm of accounting firm Arthur Andersen. In 1989, it became a separate business unit focused on IT consulting and bearing the name Andersen Consulting. At that time, though it was earning $1 billion annually, Andersen Consulting had low brand awareness among information technology consultancies and was commonly mistaken for its corporate parent. To build a strong brand and separate itself from the accounting firm, Andersen Consulting launched the first large- scale advertising campaign in the professional services area. By the end of the decade, it was the world’s largest management and technology consulting organization.

In 2000, following arbitration against its former parent, Andersen Consulting was granted full independence from Arthur Andersen but had to relinquish the Andersen name. Andersen Consulting was given three months to find a name that could be trademarked in 47 countries, was effective and inoffensive in more than 200 languages, was acceptable to employees and clients, and corresponded with an available URL. The effort that followed was one of the largest and most successful rebranding campaigns in corporate history.

The company’s new name came from one of the company’s own consultants at its Oslo office. As part of an internal name-generation initiative dubbed “Brandstorming,” he submitted the Accenture name because it rhymed with “adventure” and suggested an “accent on the future.” The name also retained the “Ac” of the original Andersen Consulting name (echoing the V

Ac.com Web site), which would help the firm retain some of its former brand equity. At midnight on December 31, 2000, Andersen Consulting officially adopted the Accenture name and launched a global advertising, marketing, and communications campaign targeting senior executives at its clients and prospects, all partners and employees, the media, leading industry analysts, potential recruits, and academia.

The results were quick and impressive. Accenture’s brand equity increased 11 percent the first year, and the number of firms that inquired about its services increased 350 percent. Awareness of the company’s breadth and depth of services reached 96 percent of its previous level, and awareness of Accenture as a provider of management and technology consulting services already topped 76 percent of its previous level. These results enabled Accenture to successfully complete a $1.7 billion IPO in July 2001.

Accenture believed its differentiator was the ability both to provide innovative ideas—ideas grounded in business processes as well as IT—and to execute them. Competitors such as McKinsey were seen as highly specialized at developing strategy, whereas other competitors such as IBM were seen as highly skilled in technological implementation. Accenture wanted to be seen as excelling at both. As Ian Watmore, its UK chief, explained: “Unless you can provide both transformational consulting and outsourcing capability, you’re not going to win. Clients expect both.”

In 2002, Accenture unveiled a new positioning statement, which reflected its role as a partner that helped create strategies and execute them. The tagline “Innovation Delivered” was supported by the statement “From innovation to execution, Accenture helps accelerate your vision.”

As part of its new commitment to helping clients achieve their business objectives, Accenture also introduced a policy whereby many of its contracts contained incentives that it realized only if specific business targets were met. For instance, a contract with British travel agent Thomas Cook was structured such that Accenture’s bonus depended on five metrics, including a cost-cutting one.

In late 2003, Accenture built upon the “Innovation Delivered” theme and announced its new tagline, “High Performance. Delivered,” along with a campaign that featured golf superstar Tiger Woods as spokesperson. When Accenture sought Woods as its spokesperson, the athlete was at the top of his game—the world’s best golfer with an impeccable image and an ideal symbol of high performance. Accenture’s message communicated that it could help client companies become “high-performing business leaders,” and the Woods endorsement drove home the importance of high performance.

Over the next six years, Accenture spent nearly $300 million in ads that mostly featured Tiger Woods, alongside slogans such as “We know what it takes to be a Tiger” and “Go on. Be a Tiger.” The campaign capitalized on Woods’s international appeal, ran all over the world, and became the central focus of Accenture-sponsored events such as the World Golf Championships and the Chicago Marathon.

That all changed when the scandal surrounding Tiger Woods, his extramarital affairs, and his indefinite absence from golf hit the press in late 2009. Accenture dropped Woods as a spokesperson, saying he was no longer a good fit for its brand. Indeed, focus groups showed that consumers were too distracted by the scandal to focus on Accenture’s strategic message. Accenture found itself in familiar territory and worked on developing and executing a groundbreaking campaign that not only resonated across the world and translated appropriately into different cultures but also elevated Accenture’s brand to the next level.

In 2011, Accenture launched the “Greater Than” ^ campaign to an international audience across 35 countries. The campaign highlighted successful case studies from clients like Unilever, Starwood Hotels, and Caterpillar and focused on Accenture’s capabilities in areas such as emerging technologies and globalization. The company conducted extensive research to ensure that its brand positioning—“High performance. Delivered.”—was not only effective but also still relevant to business leaders. Lastly, Accenture created a new marketing twist to the campaign. The “greater than” symbol, >, which had always appeared in the Accenture logo, was pulled out and used as a major element of the campaign. It appeared on cabs and billboards in major cities and became a critical unifying element across all Accenture’s print, digital, and social media as well as among employees.

Today, Accenture continues to excel as a global management consulting, technology services, and outsourcing company. Its clients include 99 of the Fortune Global 100 and more than three-quarters of the Fortune Global 500. The company ended fiscal 2013 with revenues of $28.6 billion and has a brand value close to $9 billion.

Source: Kotler Philip T., Keller Kevin Lane (2015), Marketing Management , Pearson; 15th Edition.

19 May 2021

20 May 2021

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The Accenture Interview Process

Accenture is a massive professional services firm that provides management consulting, IT consulting, and back office outsourcing. Within management consulting, Accenture is broken down into three groups: Strategy, Operations, and Digital.

Accenture Strategy is the group that is most similar to McKinsey, BCG, and Bain in the type of work that they do. The Operations and Digital group is focused more on implementation rather than on pure strategy.

Depending on the office and group that you are applying for, there will be two to three rounds of interviews. Each round will have anywhere from one to three 1-hour interviews. Your interviews will be a mix of case interviews and behavioral or fit interview questions.

Below is an example of what your interview process could look like:

Accenture first round interview : Two 40-minute interviews. The first 10 minutes will be spent on behavioral or fit interview questions and the remaining 30 minutes will be spent on an Accenture case interview.
Accenture final round interview : Three 1-hour interviews. One interview will be focused on behavioral or fit interview questions. The other two interviews will be focused on Accenture case interviews.

One important thing to note is that if you are applying for a role in Accenture Strategy, one of your interviews will be a special type of interview called the Potentia interview.

You’ll be interviewed by more senior people as you go through the different rounds of interviews. In the first round, you’ll be interviewed by consultants or managers. In the final round, you’ll be interviewed by managing directors and senior managing directors.

We’ll cover all of the different types of interview questions in detail in the next few sections.

What is an Accenture Case Interview

An Accenture case interview, also known as a “case” for short, is a 30 to 60-minute exercise in which you and the interviewer work together to develop a recommendation or answer to a business problem.

These business problems can be anything that real companies face:

How can Amazon increase its profitability?
What can Apple do to increase customer retention?
How should Tesla price its new electric vehicle?
Where should Disney open another Disneyland theme park?

Accenture case interviews simulate what the consulting job will be like by placing you in a hypothetical business situation. Cases simulate real business problems that consulting firms solve for their clients. Many Accenture case interviews are based on actual projects that interviewers have worked on.

While consulting projects typically last between 3 to 9 months, case interviews condense solving the business problem into just 30 to 45 minutes.

Accenture case interviews can cover any industry, including retail, consumer packaged goods, financial services, energy, education, healthcare, government, and technology.

They can also cover a wide range of business situations, including entering a new market, launching a new product, acquiring a company, improving profitability, and growing revenues.

Although Accenture case interviews cover a wide range of industries and business situations, no technical or specialized knowledge is needed.

Unless you are interviewing for a consulting firm that specializes in a particular industry or function, cases are designed to be solved by someone that has general business knowledge.

Nailing your Accenture case interviews is critical to get a job at Accenture. There is no way to get a Accenture job offer without passing your case interviews.

What Does an Accenture Case Interview Assess?

Accenture case interviews assess five different qualities or characteristics: logical and structured thinking, analytical problem solving, business acumen, communication skills, and personality and cultural fit.

1. Logical and structured thinking : Consultants need to be organized and methodical in order to work efficiently.

Can you structure complex problems in a clear, simple way?
Can you take tremendous amounts of information and data and identify the most important points?
Can you use logic and reason to make appropriate conclusions?

2. Analytical problem solving : Consultants work with a tremendous amount of data and information in order to develop recommendations to complex problems.

Can you read and interpret data well?
Can you perform math computations smoothly and accurately?
Can you conduct the right analyses to draw the right conclusions?

3. Business acumen : A strong business instinct helps consultants make the right decisions and develop the right recommendations.

Do you have a basic understanding of fundamental business concepts?
Do your conclusions and recommendations make sense from a business perspective?

4. Communication skills : Consultants need strong communication skills to collaborate with teammates and clients effectively.

Can you communicate in a clear, concise way?
Are you articulate in what you are saying?

5. Personality and cultural fit : Consultants spend a lot of time working closely in small teams. Having a personality and attitude that fits with the team makes the whole team work better together.

Are you coachable and easy to work with?
Are you pleasant to be around?

All of these five qualities can be assessed in just a 30 to 60-minute Accenture case interview. This is what makes case interviews so effective in assessing consulting candidates.

How to Solve Accenture Case Interviews

Accenture case interviews, also known as case study interviews, are candidate-led. This means that you will be expected to drive the case. You will be suggesting what areas to explore, what analyses to do, and what next steps should be.

Accenture cases last between 30 to 45 minutes. They tend to be based on real business situations, often drawn from an actual project that your interviewer worked on.

In Accenture’s case interview workbook , they state that success in their case interviews does not depend on finding the correct answer. Instead, you are assessed on:

How clearly you define the problem
How logically you structure the analysis
How strong your quantitative analysis skills are
How well you communicate your thoughts to the interviewer

In addition to these hard skills, there are also soft skills that you will be assessed on. These are:

Poise : your confidence, ability to perform well under pressure, and how you handle making mistakes
Communication : your listening skills and how articulate you are in presenting your process and conclusions
Flexibility : how well you can adapt your thinking to changing circumstances
Other intangibles : your energy and drive, initiative, time management, decisiveness, and genuine interest in consulting and the firm

Accenture suggests following six different steps to solve an Accenture case interview.

(Source: Accenture Case Interview Workbook)

1. Listen to the case

In this step, the interviewer will give you a description of the case problem. This description can be as short as a few sentences or as long as a full page of detailed information.

During this step, make sure you are taking notes on the most important pieces of information. You should focus on understanding the context, company, and the objective.

2. Clarify the problem

Understanding the business problem and objective is imperative to successfully solving the case. Answering or addressing the wrong business problem is the quickest way to fail a case interview.

Therefore, ask clarifying questions to better understand the business situation and issue. Afterwards, make sure that you confirm or verify the objective of the case with the interviewer. This ensures that you will start the case on the right track.

3. Decompose the problem

Next, you’ll need to break down the problem in an exhaustive and logical way. You can do this by creating an issue tree or framework.

A framework is a tool that helps you structure and break down complex problems into simpler, smaller components. Think of a framework as brainstorming different ideas and organizing them neatly into different categories.

Accenture provides a few examples of frameworks that you can use to get you started thinking about how to solve different types of cases.

(Source: Accenture Case Interview Workbook)

We recommend that you do not just memorize these frameworks and use them in your interviews. Instead, use these frameworks as background knowledge to help you make your own frameworks that are tailored to the specific case that you are solving for.

For a complete guide on how to create tailored and unique frameworks for each case, check out our article on case interview frameworks .

4. State your hypotheses

After decomposing the problem, you should list out potential hypotheses that answer or address the business problem. A hypothesis is an educated guess on the answer based on the data and information that you have so far.

A hypothesis helps guide your analysis and keeps you on track. It ensures that you are spending your time answering the right questions and conducting the right analyses.

5. Test your hypotheses

Once you have a hypothesis, you’ll answer questions or conduct analyses to refine your hypothesis.

Sometimes, your hypothesis will be completely wrong and you’ll need to develop another hypothesis to test. Other times, your hypothesis will be generally right and you’ll need to refine and narrow down your hypothesis further.

This is an iterative process. Your hypothesis should be constantly changing and becoming more refined as you progress through the case. Once you have developed meaningful support for your hypothesis, you will move onto the final step.

6. Summarize your findings

In this step, you’ll present your recommendation and provide the major reasons that support it. It is also good to include potential next steps that you would take if you had more time or data.

Afterwards, the interviewer may tell you what actually happened with the case or project that they worked on. Don’t worry if your methodology or answer does not match what actually happened. Remember, you are not assessed on your answer, but the overall process.

Learn case interviews in 30 minutes

We've compiled all of the different steps of solving an Accenture case interview into a more easily digestible 30-minute video. We highly recommend watching the video below in its entirety.

The Common Types of Accenture Case Interviews

Accenture states that there are three types of cases you may see in your interviews:

The “Great Unknown”
The “Parade of Facts”
The “Back of the Envelope”

The “Great Unknown” and “Back of the Envelope” are the most common types of cases.

The “Great Unknown” Case

For this type of case, very little information will be provided to you on the case background. For “Great Unknown” cases, you’ll be tested on your ability to probe for details, which requires having a structured framework.

Examples of cases:

Your client is a leading manufacturer of prefabricated kitchen furnishings. They have been steadily losing market share over the past two years. You have been hired to help them understand why this is happening and what they can do to improve their market standing.
A major furniture retailer has experienced declining profits for four quarters, but has experienced a 25% growth in sales and has opened many new stores during this time. Why are profits declining?
A fast food company is thinking about putting a franchise in an airport. Should they do this?
A bread division of a large food company is facing increasing competition in the market. Should they exit the market?
A car company is interested in developing a new car. What marketing related issues should it consider before making the investment?
What factors influence the revenue potential of a new pharmaceutical product?
Citibank is considering purchasing another credit card company, which would give them access to 100,000 new card holders. What is the estimated value of this acquisition?
A commercial bank is re-evaluating the number of branches it operates and whether they should increase the number of branches or close some down. How should they make this decision?
A large conglomerate company is facing declining profits in its railroad company division and is considering shutting it down. Is this the right course of action? What are potential alternatives?
New York City has hired you to determine what optimal route or what destination taxi drivers should go to when they do not have a customer.

The “Parade of Facts” Case

For this type of case, a significant amount of details on the case background will be provided to you, some of them unnecessary. For “Parade of Facts” cases, you’ll be tested on the ability to synthesize and identify key issues.

Example of a case:

Your client is a food company that wants to develop a freshly prepared meal business
There is a trend among customers towards fresher foods with no artificial preservatives or coloring
Consumers are currently purchasing $5B of frozen meals and there is a trend towards more upscale products
A fresh meal plate combines a protein, vegetable, and starch and is delicately arranged in a sealed plastic dome package
Nitrogen gas flushing is used to extend shelf life
Product is currently in limited consumer testing at $5.50 to $8.50 per meal
Shelf life of product is 14 days
Product will spoil in 21 days, potentially causing food poisoning
Client wants to know if they can make money in this business
Client wants to know if the market is big and how will they keep competition out
Client wants a consultant to assist in building a business case for them

The “Back of the Envelope” Case

This type of case asks a market sizing or estimation question. Very little information will be provided, but a clear question will be asked.

“Back of the Envelope” cases primarily test your analytic abilities. It requires a structured, logical thought process and competency in working with numbers and making calculations.

Examples of cases:

Estimate the total number of dry cleaners in Philadelphia
How much money could Continental Airlines save by giving customers half a can instead of a whole can of Sprite?
What is the estimated value of a taxi medallion in New York City?
Discuss what is wrong with the following statistic: The Volvo is the safest car on the road because a recent study has shown that Volvos have the fewest number of accident deaths per mile driven
Estimate the change in the price of oil in the year 2000 from today’s price. Will it increase or will it decrease?
Estimate the number of attendees for a free concert for U2 in Central Park in New York City

Accenture Case Interview Examples

We've compiled additional examples of Accenture case interviews below. These case interviews were actual cases given in previous Accenture interviews.

Example #1 : A consumer electronics company is looking to introduce a new smartwatch to the market. How should they launch this new product?

Example #2 : A global logistics company wants to streamline its supply chain operations. How can they lower their costs?

Example #3 : A pharmaceutical company is considering discontinuing a particular drug from its portfolio. Evaluate the reasons behind the decision and assess the financial implications.

Example #4 : A non-profit organization focusing on wildlife conservation is facing funding challenges. Recommend initiatives to enhance long-term sustainability of fundraising.

Example #5 : A financial services firm is considering adopting blockchain technology for its operations. What are some considerations that they should think through?

Example #6 : A leading e-commerce platform wants to enhance its customer experience. How can they improve customer satisfaction and loyalty?

Example #7 : A software company that currently serves small and medium-sized businesses wants to expand into the enterprise market. Should they enter this new market?

For more practice, check out our article on 23 MBA consulting casebooks with 700+ free practice cases .

Accenture Case Interview Tips

Below are six of the most useful Accenture case interview tips for acing your case interviews.

Tip #1: Take your time and don’t rush into speaking

Structure your ideas and thinking before you start talking. If needed, talk through the problem out loud so that the interviewer can follow your thought process.

Tip #2: Be flexible

There may be times when the case will take a different direction than anticipated. You may also need to completely change your approach or hypothesis. It is important that you are open-minded and adaptable throughout the case.

Tip #3: Use visual aids

To make your communication even more clear and easy to follow, use visual aids to your advantage. When presenting your framework, turn your paper around so that it faces the interviewer. When outlining a process, use a whiteboard if there is one available.

Tip #4: Be 80/20

The 80/20 principle states that 80% of the results comes from 20% of your effort. You will not have the time to answer every single question in a case interview. Therefore, take an inventory of all of the information that you have and focus on diving deeper into the areas that will have the greatest impact.

Tip #5: Pay attention to cues from the interviewer

Remember that case interviewers are meant to be collaborative. You should listen closely to what the interviewer has to say. They may provide you with hints to help you out. They may also give you feedback on your approach or structure to help steer you in the right direction. Don’t dismiss what interviewers have to say.

Tip #6: Showcase your individuality

A case interview is an opportunity to showcase your personality and experiences. If you have unique insights based on your previous work experiences, make sure that you bring it up. This can help separate your answer from other candidates.

How to Prepare for Accenture Case Interviews

There are seven steps to preparing for Accenture case interviews.

1. Understand what a case interview is

The first step in preparing for Accenture case interviews is to understand exactly what case interviews are.

When you are familiar with what case interviews are, it is important to know what a great Accenture case interview performance looks like.

Knowing what a great Accenture case interview performance looks like will facilitate how quickly you learn case interview strategies in the next step.

Before continuing onto the next step, you should be familiar with:

The overall objective of a case interview
The structure and flow of a case interview
The types of questions you could get asked
What a great case interview performance looks like

2. Learn the right strategies

Now that you have sufficient background knowledge, the next step in preparing for Accenture case interviews is to learn the right strategies to build good case interview habits.

It is much more effective to learn the right case strategies the first time than to learn poor strategies and try to correct them later.

The quickest, most efficient way to learn these strategies is to go through our Comprehensive Case Interview Course .

If you prefer reading case interview prep books instead, the three I recommend are:

The Ultimate Case Interview Workbook
Case Interview Secrets

Hacking the Case Interview provides strategies on exactly what to do and what to say in every step of the case interview. It is a concise and straight to the point guide. I recommend this book as the first book to read for beginners.

Case Interview Secrets teaches core concepts such as the issue tree , drill-down analysis, and a hypothesis driven approach. It illustrates these concepts through stories and anecdotes. If you have read Hacking the Case Interview, I recommend also reading this book to get perspectives from a second author. Check out our full review of Case Interview Secrets .

Case in Point provides a ton of specific and complex frameworks. However, you likely won’t be using many of these in an actual case interview because many of them are overly complex and specific. If you have time, it may be useful to skim through this book. Check out our full review of Case in Point .

At the bare minimum, read either the first or second book. If you have the time, read the first two books so that you can get strategies from two different authors.

Make sure to spend sufficient time learning the right strategies before starting to practice cases. It is ineffective to practice cases if you have no idea what strategies to practice and refine.

Before moving onto the next step, you should at least have strategies for the following parts of a case interview:

Developing unique and tailored frameworks
Solving quantitative problems
Answering qualitative questions
Delivering a recommendation

3. Practice 3-5 cases by yourself

Once you have learned the right strategies, the next step in Accenture case interview prep is to practice.

When practicing case interviews, it is usually better to practice with a case interview partner than to practice by yourself . Casing with a partner better simulates the real case interview experience.

However, when you are just starting to practice, I recommend doing the first 3 – 5 cases by yourself.

There are three reasons for this:

You can get the hang of the case interview structure and format much more quickly working by yourself rather than having to wait to schedule a time with a partner
There are many aspects of case interviews that you can practice without a partner, such as structuring a framework and solving quantitative problems. You can get much more practice working through these parts by yourself
You may have difficulty finding a case interview partner if you are a complete beginner. Without having done any cases, you likely won’t know how to properly give a case or provide good feedback

4. Practice 5-10 cases with a partner

The next step in preparing for Accenture case interviews is to case with a partner.

Casing with a partner is the best way to simulate a real case interview. There are many aspects of case interviews that you won’t be able to improve on unless you practice live with a partner.

When practicing cases with a partner, ensure you are spending enough time after cases to deliver feedback.

For a case that takes around 30 – 40 minutes, spend at least 15 – 20 minutes for feedback. Much of your learning and improvement will come from these feedback sessions.

Do not move onto the next step until you have done at least 5 – 10 cases and are beginning to feel comfortable with case interviews.

5. Practice with a former or current consultant

At this point, I highly recommend asking former or current consultants to give you a practice case. This will significantly help you prepare for case interviews.

Doing a mock case with a former or current consultant is highly advantageous because they know exactly how to run cases and give feedback. You’ll receive incredibly helpful feedback that your previous case partners likely missed.

If you feel that you are plateauing with your case partner, that is a sign you should do a mock case interview with a former or current consultant.

You can find former or current consultants among:

People you met during the consulting recruiting process
Your broader LinkedIn network

I would not ask a consultant that is involved with the consulting recruiting process for a case too prematurely. Although these practice cases are not evaluative, some firms will actually make note of how well you perform during the practice case.

At this point, you will have accumulated a long list of improvement areas from all of the different people you have cased with.

6. Work on your improvement areas

In this step of preparing for Accenture case interviews, you will work on strengthening and fine-tuning your improvement areas. Examples of common improvement areas include:

Creating a more complete and mutually exclusive framework
Performing math calculations quicker or more smoothly
Providing more structure to your qualitative answers
Leading the case more proactively
Delivering a more succinct recommendation

Try to focus on improving one thing at a time. This is much more effective than trying to improve everything at once.

For some areas, such as math, it will be better to work independently. For other areas, such as learning to proactively lead the case, it will be better to work with a case partner.

If you are looking for more cases, look at the resources listed in step four. If you are looking for specific drills or practice problems for a particular part of a case interview, check out The Ultimate Case Interview Workbook .

Do not move onto the next step until you have finished working on all of your improvement areas.

7. Stay sharp

If you have progressed this far, congratulations! You have almost finished preparing for Accenture case interviews.

Once you feel that you have no more improvement areas to work on, the key is to not burn yourself out by doing too many unnecessary cases.

While each case that you do makes you slightly better, there is a point when doing too many cases can create case fatigue right before your interview. Case fatigue can negatively impact your interview performance.

On the other hand, you also don’t want to go weeks without having done a case. You may end up forgetting strategies or become rusty and slow.

Once you have achieved case mastery, I recommend doing no more than 2 cases per week in the weeks leading up to your interview. This ensures that you remain sharp for case interviews, but don’t have case fatigue.

How to Ace the Accenture Potentia Interview

The Accenture Potentia interview is a 1-hour interview given to candidates that are applying for a role in Accenture Strategy. Here is the structure of the Accenture Potentia Interview:

You’ll be given a short paragraph of text about a business topic with a problem statement. Topics are diverse and may not be work-related. Examples of topics include blood diamonds in Africa or intellectual property on the Internet
You’ll have 5 minutes to prepare and think through the problem statement
You’ll have a 45 to 60-minute conversation with the interviewer in which you’ll present your thoughts and the interviewer will ask follow-up questions

The purpose of the Potentia interview is to challenge your strategic thinking. There is no right or wrong answer. There are also no calculations or math involved.

Instead, the interviewer is assessing you on the structure and organization of your answer and your creativity.

Tips for the Accenture Potentia Interview:

Use a framework or structure for your answer : Remember that you are being assessed on how you structure and organize your answer. Therefore, instead of listing random ideas that come to mind, develop a framework to structure your ideas.
Brainstorm as many ideas as you can : Use your framework to help you brainstorm effectively. Your framework should have three to five different areas. Meticulously think through each area and try to generate at least three ideas in each.
Have a mix of practical and ambitious ideas : You are being assessed on creativity, so make sure you include ideas that are ambitious and impactful. However, you also want to show sound business judgment, so you will need to include ideas that are practical and easier to implement. You should have a mix of these two types of ideas.
Bring in ideas that you learned from your prior work experience : One way to demonstrate creativity is to take ideas or solutions in one industry and apply them to another. Therefore, if there is an opportunity to leverage learnings from your prior work experience, you should definitely bring it up.
Make it a conversation : Remember that the Accenture Potentia interview is meant to be a two-way conversation. Make sure you are listening to the feedback or questions that the interviewer has and responding accordingly.

Accenture Behavioral and Fit Interview Questions

In addition to case interviews, you will likely be asked a few behavioral or fit interview questions. There are ten questions that are most commonly asked.

1. Why are you interested in working at Accenture?

How to answer: Have at least three reasons why you’re interested in working at Accenture. You could mention that you loved the people that you have met from Accenture so far. You can talk about Accenture’s massive global presence and expertise in nearly any industry or function. You can speak to how Accenture provides strategy and implementation, so you can see the impact of your work.

2. Why do you want to work in consulting?

How to answer: Again, have three reasons why you’re interested in consulting. You could mention the fast career growth opportunity, the opportunity to develop soft and hard skills, or the level of impact that you can make by working with large companies on their most challenging issues.

3. Walk me through your resume.

How to answer: Provide a concise summary of your work experience, starting with the most recent. Focus on emphasizing your most impressive and unique accomplishments. At the end, tie your experiences to why you are interested in consulting.

4. What is your proudest achievement?

How to answer: Choose your most impressive, unique, or memorable accomplishment. Structure your answer by providing information on the situation, the task, the actions you took, and the results of your work.

5. What is something that you are proud of that is not on your resume?

How to answer: This is a great opportunity to highlight an accomplishment that is not related to your professional work experience. Perhaps there is a non-profit that you volunteer at, a side project or business that you work on, or a hobby that you have won awards or recognition for. Choose something that is impressive and interesting.

6. Tell me about a time when you led a team.

How to answer: If possible, choose a time when you directly managed a person or a team. For this question and the following questions, make sure that you structure your answer. Structure your answer by providing information on the situation, the task, the actions you took, and the results of your work. This is known as the STAR method and is commonly used to answer behavioral or fit interview questions.

7. Give an example of a time when you faced conflict or a disagreement.

How to answer: When answering this question, focus on emphasizing the steps you took to resolve the conflict or disagreement. Speak to the interpersonal skills you had to use in order to mediate the situation. Interviewers want to know that you are a great mediator and that you can handle conflict in a constructive way.

8. Tell me about a time when you had to persuade someone.

How to answer: Choose a time when you were able to change someone’s mind. Focus on emphasizing the steps that you took to persuade that person and what impact and results this had. Interviewers want to know that you are a great communicator and a good people person.

9. Describe a time when you failed.

How to answer: Choose a time when you failed to meet a deadline or did not meet expectations. Focus on emphasizing what you learned from the experience and how you used that experience to deliver even better results in the next opportunity that you got. Interviewers want to see that you don’t get discouraged from failure and that you treat those experiences as learning opportunities.

10. What questions do you have for me?

How to answer: This is a great opportunity to get to know the interviewer on a more personal level. Ask them questions about their experience in consulting or their career. Express genuine interest in what they have to show and ask follow-up questions. The more you can get the interviewer talking about themself, the more likely they will have a positive impression of you.

For a step-by-step guide on how to best answer all of these questions and more, check out our complete guide on consulting behavioral interview questions .

Recommended Accenture Case Interview Resources

Here are the resources we recommend to learn the most robust, effective case interview strategies in the least time-consuming way:

Comprehensive Case Interview Course (our #1 recommendation): The only resource you need. Whether you have no business background, rusty math skills, or are short on time, this step-by-step course will transform you into a top 1% caser that lands multiple consulting offers.
Hacking the Case Interview Book (available on Amazon): Perfect for beginners that are short on time. Transform yourself from a stressed-out case interview newbie to a confident intermediate in under a week. Some readers finish this book in a day and can already tackle tough cases.
The Ultimate Case Interview Workbook (available on Amazon): Perfect for intermediates struggling with frameworks, case math, or generating business insights. No need to find a case partner – these drills, practice problems, and full-length cases can all be done by yourself.
Case Interview Coaching : Personalized, one-on-one coaching with former consulting interviewers
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Five Case Studies of Transformation Excellence

November 03, 2014 By Lars Fæste , Jim Hemerling , Perry Keenan , and Martin Reeves

In a business environment characterized by greater volatility and more frequent disruptions, companies face a clear imperative: they must transform or fall behind. Yet most transformation efforts are highly complex initiatives that take years to implement. As a result, most fall short of their intended targets—in value, timing, or both. Based on client experience, The Boston Consulting Group has developed an approach to transformation that flips the odds in a company’s favor. What does that look like in the real world? Here are five company examples that show successful transformations, across a range of industries and locations.

VF’s Growth Transformation Creates Strong Value for Investors

Value creation is a powerful lens for identifying the initiatives that will have the greatest impact on a company’s transformation agenda and for understanding the potential value of the overall program for shareholders.

VF offers a compelling example of a company using a sharp focus on value creation to chart its transformation course. In the early 2000s, VF was a good company with strong management but limited organic growth. Its “jeanswear” and intimate-apparel businesses, although responsible for 80 percent of the company’s revenues, were mature, low-gross-margin segments. And the company’s cost-cutting initiatives were delivering diminishing returns. VF’s top line was essentially flat, at about $5 billion in annual revenues, with an unclear path to future growth. VF’s value creation had been driven by cost discipline and manufacturing efficiency, yet, to the frustration of management, VF had a lower valuation multiple than most of its peers.

With BCG’s help, VF assessed its options and identified key levers to drive stronger and more-sustainable value creation. The result was a multiyear transformation comprising four components:

A Strong Commitment to Value Creation as the Company’s Focus. Initially, VF cut back its growth guidance to signal to investors that it would not pursue growth opportunities at the expense of profitability. And as a sign of management’s commitment to balanced value creation, the company increased its dividend by 90 percent.
Relentless Cost Management. VF built on its long-known operational excellence to develop an operating model focused on leveraging scale and synergies across its businesses through initiatives in sourcing, supply chain processes, and offshoring.
A Major Transformation of the Portfolio. To help fund its journey, VF divested product lines worth about $1 billion in revenues, including its namesake intimate-apparel business. It used those resources to acquire nearly $2 billion worth of higher-growth, higher-margin brands, such as Vans, Nautica, and Reef. Overall, this shifted the balance of its portfolio from 70 percent low-growth heritage brands to 65 percent higher-growth lifestyle brands.
The Creation of a High-Performance Culture. VF has created an ownership mind-set in its management ranks. More than 200 managers across all key businesses and regions received training in the underlying principles of value creation, and the performance of every brand and business is assessed in terms of its value contribution. In addition, VF strengthened its management bench through a dedicated talent-management program and selective high-profile hires. (For an illustration of VF’s transformation roadmap, see the exhibit.)

The results of VF’s TSR-led transformation are apparent. 1 1 For a detailed description of the VF journey, see the 2013 Value Creators Report, Unlocking New Sources of Value Creation , BCG report, September 2013. Notes: 1 For a detailed description of the VF journey, see the 2013 Value Creators Report, Unlocking New Sources of Value Creation , BCG report, September 2013. The company’s revenues have grown from $7 billion in 2008 to more than $11 billion in 2013 (and revenues are projected to top $17 billion by 2017). At the same time, profitability has improved substantially, highlighted by a gross margin of 48 percent as of mid-2014. The company’s stock price quadrupled from $15 per share in 2005 to more than $65 per share in September 2014, while paying about 2 percent a year in dividends. As a result, the company has ranked in the top quintile of the S&P 500 in terms of TSR over the past ten years.

A Consumer-Packaged-Goods Company Uses Several Levers to Fund Its Transformation Journey

A leading consumer-packaged-goods (CPG) player was struggling to respond to challenging market dynamics, particularly in the value-based segments and at the price points where it was strongest. The near- and medium-term forecasts looked even worse, with likely contractions in sales volume and potentially even in revenues. A comprehensive transformation effort was needed.

To fund the journey, the company looked at several cost-reduction initiatives, including logistics. Previously, the company had worked with a large number of logistics providers, causing it to miss out on scale efficiencies.

To improve, it bundled all transportation spending, across the entire network (both inbound to production facilities and out-bound to its various distribution channels), and opened it to bidding through a request-for-proposal process. As a result, the company was able to save 10 percent on logistics in the first 12 months—a very fast gain for what is essentially a commodity service.

Similarly, the company addressed its marketing-agency spending. A benchmark analysis revealed that the company had been paying rates well above the market average and getting fewer hours per full-time equivalent each year than the market standard. By getting both rates and hours in line, the company managed to save more than 10 percent on its agency spending—and those savings were immediately reinvested to enable the launch of what became a highly successful brand.

Next, the company pivoted to growth mode in order to win in the medium term. The measure with the biggest impact was pricing. The company operates in a category that is highly segmented across product lines and highly localized. Products that sell well in one region often do poorly in a neighboring state. Accordingly, it sought to de-average its pricing approach across locations, brands, and pack sizes, driving a 2 percent increase in EBIT.

Similarly, it analyzed trade promotion effectiveness by gathering and compiling data on the roughly 150,000 promotions that the company had run across channels, locations, brands, and pack sizes. The result was a 2 terabyte database tracking the historical performance of all promotions.

Using that information, the company could make smarter decisions about which promotions should be scrapped, which should be tweaked, and which should merit a greater push. The result was another 2 percent increase in EBIT. Critically, this was a clear capability that the company built up internally, with the objective of continually strengthening its trade-promotion performance over time, and that has continued to pay annual dividends.

Finally, the company launched a significant initiative in targeted distribution. Before the transformation, the company’s distributors made decisions regarding product stocking in independent retail locations that were largely intuitive. To improve its distribution, the company leveraged big data to analyze historical sales performance for segments, brands, and individual SKUs within a roughly ten-mile radius of that retail location. On the basis of that analysis, the company was able to identify the five SKUs likely to sell best that were currently not in a particular store. The company put this tool on a mobile platform and is in the process of rolling it out to the distributor base. (Currently, approximately 60 percent of distributors, representing about 80 percent of sales volume, are rolling it out.) Without any changes to the product lineup, that measure has driven a 4 percent jump in gross sales.

Throughout the process, management had a strong change-management effort in place. For example, senior leaders communicated the goals of the transformation to employees through town hall meetings. Cognizant of how stressful transformations can be for employees—particularly during the early efforts to fund the journey, which often emphasize cost reductions—the company aggressively talked about how those savings were being reinvested into the business to drive growth (for example, investments into the most effective trade promotions and the brands that showed the greatest sales-growth potential).

In the aggregate, the transformation led to a much stronger EBIT performance, with increases of nearly $100 million in fiscal 2013 and far more anticipated in 2014 and 2015. The company’s premium products now make up a much bigger part of the portfolio. And the company is better positioned to compete in its market.

A Leading Bank Uses a Lean Approach to Transform Its Target Operating Model

A leading bank in Europe is in the process of a multiyear transformation of its operating model. Prior to this effort, a benchmarking analysis found that the bank was lagging behind its peers in several aspects. Branch employees handled fewer customers and sold fewer new products, and back-office processing times for new products were slow. Customer feedback was poor, and rework rates were high, especially at the interface between the front and back offices. Activities that could have been managed centrally were handled at local levels, increasing complexity and cost. Harmonization across borders—albeit a challenge given that the bank operates in many countries—was limited. However, the benchmark also highlighted many strengths that provided a basis for further improvement, such as common platforms and efficient product-administration processes.

To address the gaps, the company set the design principles for a target operating model for its operations and launched a lean program to get there. Using an end-to-end process approach, all the bank’s activities were broken down into roughly 250 processes, covering everything that a customer could potentially experience. Each process was then optimized from end to end using lean tools. This approach breaks down silos and increases collaboration and transparency across both functions and organization layers.

Employees from different functions took an active role in the process improvements, participating in employee workshops in which they analyzed processes from the perspective of the customer. For a mortgage, the process was broken down into discrete steps, from the moment the customer walks into a branch or goes to the company website, until the house has changed owners. In the front office, the system was improved to strengthen management, including clear performance targets, preparation of branch managers for coaching roles, and training in root-cause problem solving. This new way of working and approaching problems has directly boosted both productivity and morale.

The bank is making sizable gains in performance as the program rolls through the organization. For example, front-office processing time for a mortgage has decreased by 33 percent and the bank can get a final answer to customers 36 percent faster. The call centers had a significant increase in first-call resolution. Even more important, customer satisfaction scores are increasing, and rework rates have been halved. For each process the bank revamps, it achieves a consistent 15 to 25 percent increase in productivity.

And the bank isn’t done yet. It is focusing on permanently embedding a change mind-set into the organization so that continuous improvement becomes the norm. This change capability will be essential as the bank continues on its transformation journey.

A German Health Insurer Transforms Itself to Better Serve Customers

Barmer GEK, Germany’s largest public health insurer, has a successful history spanning 130 years and has been named one of the top 100 brands in Germany. When its new CEO, Dr. Christoph Straub, took office in 2011, he quickly realized the need for action despite the company’s relatively good financial health. The company was still dealing with the postmerger integration of Barmer and GEK in 2010 and needed to adapt to a fast-changing and increasingly competitive market. It was losing ground to competitors in both market share and key financial benchmarks. Barmer GEK was suffering from overhead structures that kept it from delivering market-leading customer service and being cost efficient, even as competitors were improving their service offerings in a market where prices are fixed. Facing this fundamental challenge, Barmer GEK decided to launch a major transformation effort.

The goal of the transformation was to fundamentally improve the customer experience, with customer satisfaction as a benchmark of success. At the same time, Barmer GEK needed to improve its cost position and make tough choices to align its operations to better meet customer needs. As part of the first step in the transformation, the company launched a delayering program that streamlined management layers, leading to significant savings and notable side benefits including enhanced accountability, better decision making, and an increased customer focus. Delayering laid the path to win in the medium term through fundamental changes to the company’s business and operating model in order to set up the company for long-term success.

The company launched ambitious efforts to change the way things were traditionally done:

A Better Client-Service Model. Barmer GEK is reducing the number of its branches by 50 percent, while transitioning to larger and more attractive service centers throughout Germany. More than 90 percent of customers will still be able to reach a service center within 20 minutes. To reach rural areas, mobile branches that can visit homes were created.
Improved Customer Access. Because Barmer GEK wanted to make it easier for customers to access the company, it invested significantly in online services and full-service call centers. This led to a direct reduction in the number of customers who need to visit branches while maintaining high levels of customer satisfaction.
Organization Simplification. A pillar of Barmer GEK’s transformation is the centralization and specialization of claim processing. By moving from 80 regional hubs to 40 specialized processing centers, the company is now using specialized administrators—who are more effective and efficient than under the old staffing model—and increased sharing of best practices.

Although Barmer GEK has strategically reduced its workforce in some areas—through proven concepts such as specialization and centralization of core processes—it has invested heavily in areas that are aligned with delivering value to the customer, increasing the number of customer-facing employees across the board. These changes have made Barmer GEK competitive on cost, with expected annual savings exceeding €300 million, as the company continues on its journey to deliver exceptional value to customers. Beyond being described in the German press as a “bold move,” the transformation has laid the groundwork for the successful future of the company.

Nokia’s Leader-Driven Transformation Reinvents the Company (Again)

We all remember Nokia as the company that once dominated the mobile-phone industry but subsequently had to exit that business. What is easily forgotten is that Nokia has radically and successfully reinvented itself several times in its 150-year history. This makes Nokia a prime example of a “serial transformer.”

In 2014, Nokia embarked on perhaps the most radical transformation in its history. During that year, Nokia had to make a radical choice: continue massively investing in its mobile-device business (its largest) or reinvent itself. The device business had been moving toward a difficult stalemate, generating dissatisfactory results and requiring increasing amounts of capital, which Nokia no longer had. At the same time, the company was in a 50-50 joint venture with Siemens—called Nokia Siemens Networks (NSN)—that sold networking equipment. NSN had been undergoing a massive turnaround and cost-reduction program, steadily improving its results.

When Microsoft expressed interest in taking over Nokia’s device business, Nokia chairman Risto Siilasmaa took the initiative. Over the course of six months, he and the executive team evaluated several alternatives and shaped a deal that would radically change Nokia’s trajectory: selling the mobile business to Microsoft. In parallel, Nokia CFO Timo Ihamuotila orchestrated another deal to buy out Siemens from the NSN joint venture, giving Nokia 100 percent control over the unit and forming the cash-generating core of the new Nokia. These deals have proved essential for Nokia to fund the journey. They were well-timed, well-executed moves at the right terms.

Right after these radical announcements, Nokia embarked on a strategy-led design period to win in the medium term with new people and a new organization, with Risto Siilasmaa as chairman and interim CEO. Nokia set up a new portfolio strategy, corporate structure, capital structure, robust business plans, and management team with president and CEO Rajeev Suri in charge. Nokia focused on delivering excellent operational results across its portfolio of three businesses while planning its next move: a leading position in technologies for a world in which everyone and everything will be connected.

Nokia’s share price has steadily climbed. Its enterprise value has grown 12-fold since bottoming out in July 2012. The company has returned billions of dollars of cash to its shareholders and is once again the most valuable company in Finland. The next few years will demonstrate how this chapter in Nokia’s 150-year history of serial transformation will again reinvent the company.

Managing Director & Senior Partner

San Francisco - Bay Area

Managing Director & Senior Partner, Chairman of the BCG Henderson Institute

ABOUT BOSTON CONSULTING GROUP

Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, we work closely with clients to embrace a transformational approach aimed at benefiting all stakeholders—empowering organizations to grow, build sustainable competitive advantage, and drive positive societal impact.

Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional expertise and a range of perspectives that question the status quo and spark change. BCG delivers solutions through leading-edge management consulting, technology and design, and corporate and digital ventures. We work in a uniquely collaborative model across the firm and throughout all levels of the client organization, fueled by the goal of helping our clients thrive and enabling them to make the world a better place.

For information or permission to reprint, please contact BCG at [email protected] . To find the latest BCG content and register to receive e-alerts on this topic or others, please visit bcg.com . Follow Boston Consulting Group on Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) .

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Highly Commended 2022

Brand & media owner partnership, entered by:, financial times, accenture exchange series and partner content, the challenge.

Accenture is a leading global professional services company, providing a broad range of services in strategy and consulting, interactive, technology and operations.

In 2021, Accenture set out to gain market share and fuel growth by updating perceptions around its capabilities. Its target clients were C-suites and senior business decision-makers who were looking to transform their businesses through innovation.

In the run-up to the launch of its new brand message “Let there be change”, Accenture wanted to convince these business leaders that it had the end-to-end solutions to help them. The aim was to achieve competitive stand-out by becoming known for brilliant research and perspectives as well as illustrating market leadership.

The Financial Times reaches 52% of C-suites in Accenture’s key markets, the highest amongst our competitors (IPSOS GBI). Accenture saw that partnering with the FT could help it reach exactly the right audience; drive buzz with high-profile thought leadership content; and ensure that its new brand expression would be seen throughout Europe.

The Content Solution

The FT devised a research-based multi-touchpoint campaign across Europe that promoted Accenture’s expertise to the FT audience and showcased its brand message in a credible environment, aligning it with high-profile FT editorial series, webinars and newsletters. Accenture had 100% share of voice across the series.

To get deeper insights before creating the campaign, the FT research team carried out a Management Consultancy Global Impact Study (GIST) among over 550 of the world’s leading C-suites. This allowed us to understand the audience’s needs and see where Accenture currently stood among its competitive set. Accenture was identified as an organisation with stronger awareness than most, but still behind the Big 4 in overall brand perception.

We knew from the brief and our GIST findings that we needed to position Accenture around specific topics of interest. The focus of the multi-channel campaign was to create industry buzz through Accenture sponsorship of a new FT editorial launch: the ‘Economists Exchange’ article series, exploring what a post-Covid recovery will look like. It featured top FT commentators including Martin Wolf and Gillian Tett in conversation with 12 world-leading economists, from Kristalina Georgieva to Raghuram Rajan and Jeffrey Sachs.

Creating an entirely new media execution, we wanted to raise the profile of Accenture’s key innovators and influencers in big splash campaigns throughout the year. We brought key focus areas to life in three co-hosted webinars, featuring high-calibre speakers such as Rolls Royce CEO Warren East, positioning FT’s influencers alongside Accenture’s, to raise brand profile and generate leads.

We launched an Accenture-sponsored mini-series on the ‘Tech Tonic’ podcast, exploring the big ideas driving innovation. Accenture also aligned with key topics of interest by sponsoring an FT Special Report ‘The Cloud’ and two premium newsletters: Tech FT and Coronavirus Business Update.

The Media/Content Amplification Solution

In an FT media first, we ran a campaign called ‘Accenture Voices’ to promote Accenture’s key influencers. The marketing team combined sponsorship of all native and display advertising units on the homepage across all key regions. We were able to directly target Accenture’s key audience groups using our unique 1st party subscription and behavioural data, alongside tactical use of social and FT Corporate Subscription licenses.

Bespoke Promoted Content Units, served across FT.com to our engaged audience, used semantic profiling to ensure contextual relevance and audience reach. Our first party data, allowed us to target known C-Suites & BDMs, across key regions and key Priority Sectors, whilst they were consuming relevant content.

We activated a bespoke marketing campaign including paid social promotion, Linkedin targeting to Accenture employees, and 500,000 co-branded traffic driving impressions across FT.com. Pairing Accenture’s key target demographic with our database of senior business leaders, we ran a highly-targeted marketing campaign across social and email. Accenture were given access to all delegates who opted in to the webinars, allowing for extensive lead generation opportunities.

The campaign delivered exceptional results for Accenture, positioning it strongly as a leader in change. The Economists Exchange series reached over 102,000 known unique readers. 1,200 senior business decision-makers attended the associated webinars, generating leads for Accenture. With 10 touchpoints, this single campaign reached 502,191 unique FT readers and 92,000 unique C-Suite readers.

Accenture Voices saw over 4.4 million ad impressions and over 4,100 clicks. Newsletter sponsorships delivered over 3.5 million impressions and 1,262 clicks. The Special Report ‘The Cloud’ reached 350,000 unique users. At the end of the campaign, the FT ran another Management Consultancy Global Impact Study to assess the impact of these results against the initial pre-campaign study. Across EMEA, Accenture had managed to increase its brand awareness by 60%. In Europe, it ranked highest as a firm that is a leader in digital development and innovation, and usage of the firm had increased by 27%. What’s more, 52% more senior decision-makers said they will be using Accenture in the next 12-24 months, an uplift from 25% in our pre-campaign GIST study.

The post-campaign brand uplift study showed Accenture as the joint highest-scoring unaided first choice brand for management consultancy firms, while consideration saw an uplift of 31% between the control group and those that had seen the ads.

Tags 2022 finalist , Accenture , BRAND & MEDIA OWNER PARTNERSHIP , Financial Times , Highly commended , UM , World Media Awards

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