Accenture uses Microsoft Teams to modernize and augment its digital workforce in changing times.

1. STORIES
Accenture uses Microsoft Teams to
modernize and augment its digital
workforce in changing times
Transforming
the employee
experience
with Teams

2. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
Teams was the critical
piece of our response
to COVID-19. It was by
far the most important
way to maintain
continuity with our
clients and with our
people, period.
STUART BROWN
Managing Director—Microsoft
Business Group, Accenture
Accelerate the art
of collaboration
Call for change
In a constantly changing landscape, teamwork
has never been more important. Accenture is
empowering its more than 620,000+ digital workforce
by not only bringing the data, insights and services
to where our people work, but also putting the tools
in their hands to live a truly cloud-native life.
To make this happen, we have undertaken a digital
worker journey that involves foundational technology,
productivity and collaboration. In particular, we
have improved collaboration and productivity company-
wide, using tools such as Microsoft Office 365, Windows
10 and OneDrive for Business. Now, we are making the
best use of Microsoft Teams’ versatility to bring
together technology and human ingenuity and
make our business more agile.
Using Microsoft Teams, Accenture people can
communicate, collaborate and interact effectively
wherever and whenever and take advantage of a secure,
next-generation approach that helps them to enjoy
an elastic, digital workplace.
Accenture investments in digital technologies,
infrastructure and a collaborative culture have positioned
us well to manage the challenges of the COVID-19
pandemic. In particular, our earlier move to scalable
public cloud has meant that we could move swiftly to
remote working and take advantage of the versatile
Teams capabilities.

3. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
Redefining how
we work together
When tech meets human ingenuity
Microsoft Teams is a chat-centered collaboration
platform that brings together collections of
people, content and tools to get things done.
While Microsoft Teams was still in the concept
stage, Accenture collaborated with Microsoft on
the early technical preview, providing input on
the types of use cases relevant in a large,
multinational organization and what was needed
for resilient scale and security. Accenture also
participated in the product pilot, along with other
customers and partners, to keep pace with
changing demands and push the envelope
with Microsoft on Teams’ capabilities.
As a company highly tuned to change, Accenture’s
approach was to use Teams while continuing to work
with Microsoft to adapt the product and prepare
migration steps. Accenture people were being
empowered—and encouraged—to use Teams if they
desired, with caution expressed around the newness
of the tool and a clear indication that our company-
wide adoption was still pending.

4. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
When Accenture deployed Teams, we did so in
stages to transition from organic growth to large-scale
access and adoption. Yet, the adoption of Teams was
made easier given that Teams is woven into the
Microsoft Office 365 fabric and brought a familiar
platform into Accenture’s workplace. Today, all
Accenture employees have transitioned to Teams and,
accelerated by the move to remote working
due to COVID-19, we have seen a massive increase
in its usage—a 257% increase in audio usage and
a 642% increase in video usage immediately
following the pandemic.
Alongside a rigorous change and adoption
program that uses multiple mediums and
channels, we engaged leadership ambassadors,
Teams champions and key stakeholder groups
from the outset.
A 24/7 Operations team helps to meet Accenture’s
needs when it comes to Teams support, along with
monitoring of key network devices and local office
capacity using standard tools. Reporting consists
of a combination of Microsoft-provided data with
Accenture organization data, which enables us to
custom slice the data. New reporting enables us to
support Teams from the Accenture office perspective
to the end-user device level. An emphasis on the
Accenture office quality helps us to focus on sites
and devices that are at the root of any issues.
During the testing times of the global pandemic,
Teams has positioned our organization to achieve
the kind of frictionless collaboration that elevates
our productivity and efficiency to new levels. As
one Accenture professional said in a recent survey:
"It's my favorite tool, brings everything I need to
be productive in one place... I have transformed
the way my team works now."
When tech meets human ingenuity

5. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
A valuable difference
To modernity—
and beyond
Our progress with Teams has been accelerated
by our strong relationship with Microsoft.
Today, Accenture is the largest enterprise user of
Teams. And we’ve worked together with
Microsoft to create a Teams Resource Center
to share leading practices. Our rapid transition
to Teams is reflected in the scale of use:
680K active users in Teams
413K active teams
515M chat messages per month
1.6B minutes of audio per month
118M minutes of video conferences each month
79M mobile minutes per month
Teams as-a-platform
Using Teams as-a-platform brings together all of the tools,
content, and processes into a single location to enable a
new way of working. Teams provides an app store with a
variety of available Microsoft and third-party solutions, as
well as an extensible framework to support custom app
development and new low- and no-code solutions through
Microsoft’s Power Platform.
We can introduce new capabilities, automation and
business processes to suit our business needs—all without
having to leave Teams. We’re also introducing extra
services, such as using bots to answer people’s queries
more quickly, and integrating apps to bring the content,
tools, and processes into a digital cockpit where work gets
done. So far, we have enabled more than 60 Teams-based
apps, such as CALM (CAL + Machine), a custom app
embedded in Teams that is specifically targeted at
delivering in-context insights, such as financial filings or
Twitter news, to our Client Account Leads (CALs).

6. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
Teams is also bringing value in a broader context,
transforming and enhancing the relationships
with our clients and between our own people,
partners and vendors:
Drives inclusivity: Facilitating deep connections and
engaging partnerships demands a collaboration tool
that’s woven into the productivity fabric. Unlike the social
dynamics of face-to-face meetings, online meetings are
a level playing field in terms of people weighing in on a
big idea and can bring better solutions to our clients.
Frictionless collaboration: Teams makes it easier for
everyone at Accenture to collaborate. Teams enables clients
to join meetings, chat, share and co-author files, dissolving
the barriers between them and Accenture teams to enjoy the
“holy grail” of collaboration. Video enables people to be
themselves, humanizing client conversations and introducing
expertise from anywhere in the world at the click of a button.
Consistent meeting experiences: The Teams Rooms
functionality gives Accenture offices video conferencing and
collaboration devices in meeting spaces with a familiar Teams
user experience. We also implemented a solution to use
Teams to schedule all video device meetings, no matter the
device type. More than 700 Microsoft Surface Hubs are
being used as a favorite device for brainstorming in the
company’s innovation hubs. A proximity join feature that
enables people to start a meeting without having to touch
any Teams devices in the room can help the transition
back to the office and further enable the digital worker
with a greater sense of safety.
By modernizing our way of working using Teams, we
can not only bring the data, insights and services to
where our people work, but also put the tools in their
hands to live a truly cloud native life.
Teams provides a new generation of technology
for communicating, chatting, file sharing and
conferencing that adds value to our day-to-day:
Real-time collaboration: New, enhanced collaboration
features include persistent chat, threaded conversations,
file storage, instant messaging, audio, video and sharing.
Rich meeting experience: Teams supports ad hoc
and scheduled meetings, guest access, federation,
dial-in conferencing and PSTN calls.
Cloud first: The combination of Microsoft Teams,
Office 365, SharePoint and OneDrive for Business
supports Accenture’s “cloud first” model of working.
As-a-service: Collaboration-as-a-service model helps
Accenture deliver new features to our people, fast—
they no longer have to wait for the latest release of
Office or Skype.
Mobile connectivity: The user experience for
meetings, video and voice calls flows seamlessly
from laptop to the Teams mobile app.
Enhanced security: Security and compliance
are enterprise grade and include multifactor
authentication and continuous data encryption.
Fixes are deployed as discovered, making sure
Accenture is always up to date.
Contextual work: Teams offers stickers, emojis,
GIFs, @mentions and private-channel messages.
AI-driven support experience: Employee
support requests can be handled via ServiceNow
integration and customer insights are available
through Salesforce integration. Apps and starter
kits have been published for our new Human
Capital Management platform, Workday.
A valuable difference

7. Copyright © 2022 Accenture. All rights reserved
Copyright © 2022 Accenture.
All rights reserved.
Accenture and its logo
are trademarks of Accenture.
About Accenture
Accenture is a global professional services company with leading
capabilities in digital, cloud and security. Combining unmatched
experience and specialized skills across more than 40 industries,
we offer Strategy and Consulting, Interactive, Technology and
Operations services — all powered by the world’s largest network of
Advanced Technology and Intelligent Operations centers. Our
699,000 people deliver on the promise of technology and human
ingenuity every day, serving clients in more than 120 countries. We
embrace the power of change to create value and shared success
for our clients, people, shareholders, partners and communities.
Visit us at www.accenture.com.
Contact
Karen Odegaard
Managing Director
Global IT
Technology Platforms
Jason Warnke
Senior Managing Director
Global IT
Digital Experiences Lead
/karen-odegaard
/jason-warnke
Grant Gengelbach
Director
Global IT
Technology Platforms
Bill Schulz
Director
Global IT
Live Technology Services & Support
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/bill-schulz