July 15, 2015

Accenture and Avanade to Help Freeport-McMoRan Implement Cloud-Based IT Model Based on Accenture Hybrid Cloud Solution for Microsoft Azure


NEW YORK; July 15, 2015 ­– Accenture(NYSE: ACN) has signed a five-year contract with Freeport-McMoRan Inc., a premier international natural resources company, to continue migrating its information technology (IT) operations to a cloud-based model. Aligned to its cloud strategy, the project is designed to help Freeport-McMoRan achieve its “IT of the Future” objective – which includes making the company more agile and enabling it to innovate faster – while reducing costs and improving service quality and satisfaction.

Freeport-McMoRan’s new IT system will be based on the Accenture Hybrid Cloud Solution for Microsoft Azure, a powerful cloud solution designed to bring new capabilities, economics and innovation to large enterprises. Accenture, Avanade and Microsoft worked together to create a solution that incorporates hybrid technologies and services to help build and manage enterprise-wide cloud infrastructure and applications. This cloud solution is enabling Freeport-McMoRan to migrate and manage applications between private and public cloud environments in a controlled, seamless and automated way.

“This program brings innovation and cloud economics to bear as we work to become more agile, drive increased revenue, and continue our focus on items that impact mine production,” said Bertrand (Bert) Odinet, VP and CIO, Freeport-McMoRan. “By partnering with Accenture, we will gain the ability to grow our service portfolio and scale our IT services in line with our global business requirements.”

Among the benefits and capabilities that Freeport-McMoRan can expect to achieve as a result of the migration are an increase in operational efficiency, decrease in costs due to centralizing the management of workers, automation of routine tasks, and enablement of shared services. The transition to the Azure-based platform should also help the company minimize future costly data center migration activity, because workloads can be proactively moved to their most cost-effective platforms.

“We are collaborating with Freeport-McMoRan to help them evolve to an everything ‘as-a-service’ model, giving them the ability to easily provision new capabilities, reduce risk associated with vendor ‘lock-in’ and enable them to scale their IT services up and down as needed,” said Amy K. Dale, managing director and client account lead, Accenture. “With the Accenture Hybrid Cloud Solution for Microsoft Azure at its core, Freeport-McMoRan’s new hybrid IT cloud model should deliver unprecedented levels of agility with enterprise-grade ruggedness.”

About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 336,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$30.0 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2014. Its home page is www.accenture.com.
About Avanade
Avanade helps clients realize results in a digital world through business technology solutions, cloud and managed services that combine insight, innovation and expertise focused on Microsoft technologies. Our people have helped organizations in all industries improve business agility, employee productivity and customer loyalty. Avanade combines business, technical and industry expertise with the rigor of an industrialized delivery model to provide and deploy high quality solutions–on premises, cloud-based or outsourced. Avanade, which is majority owned by Accenture, was founded in 2000 by Accenture LLP and Microsoft Corporation and has 25,000 professionals in more than 22 countries. Additional information can be found at www.avanade.com.

Avanade and the Avanade logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Avanade Inc. Other product, service, or company names mentioned herein are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

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Contacts:

Guy Cantwell
Accenture
+ 1 281 900 9089
guy.cantwell@accenture.com

Justyna Devraj
Accenture
+ 44 20 7844 0090
+ 44 750 012 4567 (mobile)
justyna.devraj@accenture.com

Jessica Brookes
Avanade
+ 44 207 844 2515
jessica.brookes@avanade.com