June 17, 2014

Accenture and Japan International Cooperation Agency Win ‘Most Reliable’ Outsourcing Excellence Award


TOKYO; June 17, 2014 – Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) have won an Outsourcing Excellence Award in the “Most Reliable” category presented by the Outsourcing Center. The awards program, now in its 18th year, recognizes high-performing outsourcing partnerships from across the world.

Since 2011, Accenture has provided JICA with outsourcing services, including a bilingual technology help desk, IT infrastructure hosting, datacenter management and support services for 91 locations and more than 5,000 system users globally.The award recognizes the advanced service management practices, IT concierge services and backup data center implementation provided by Accenture as part of the outsourcing project at JICA.

Hiroyuki Egashira, director at JICA, said, “Each day we ask Accenture to deliver value and innovation by proactively identifying new ways of helping us run our operations more efficiently and effectively. We’re grateful that members of the Accenture project team are motivated to propose new ideas to improve quality and performance in their daily tasks.”

Service Management Accelerating Improvements
The service level agreement system (SLA) developed specifically for the project was acknowledged by the Outsourcing Center for its innovation and uniqueness. The system includes 40 SLA indicators – eight measured quantitatively and 32 evaluated subjectively – with points added when the quality and performance provided by Accenture personnel exceed JICA’s expectations and points deducted if service levels declined. This unique scoring system has supported efforts to identify IT-related issues and helps to ensure continuous process improvements. Since the program was launched in 2011, Accenture has completed 65 additional IT improvement projects for JICA.

IT Concierge Service
Another facet of the project, highlighted by the awards judging panel, related to the IT Concierge Service, a centralized support service that Accenture provides to JICA. The IT Concierge Service handles all IT inquiries from across the client organization and enables JICA to address common technology issues centrally and cost effectively. Previously, such issues had to be handled by different parts of the JICA organization in different geographies. The data collected by the service has supported JICA’s efforts to develop an “Information Systems Reform Plan,” a 10-year IT roadmap for the organization.

Business Continuity Planning (BCP)
The award also acknowledged Accenture’s swift response to JICA’s technology support needs following the Great Eastern Japan Earthquake of 2011. In the aftermath of the earthquake, Accenture helped to recover JICA’s IT systems, secure hardware replacements and re-establish the organization’s connectivity to external networks, which enabled work to be performed remotely. Subsequently, Accenture supported JICA in developing a strategy for enhancing business continuity planning across the organization, including the establishment of a backup datacenter and an extensive disaster recovery plan incorporating all required support services and human process requirements.

“Although IT outsourcing projects can successfully reduce man-hours and costs, they often elicit complacency between clients and service providers that can slow the implementation of activities aimed at producing innovative improvements,” said Takuya Matsumoto, Infrastructure Delivery lead at Accenture Japan. “We believe the innovative approach to service delivery that has been put in place by JICA and Accenture can serve as a best-practice industry example for public and private enterprises launching an outsourcing program. We are grateful to receive this industry recognition, and look forward to delivering additional value for JICA in the years ahead.”

Learn more about Accenture’s Public Safety work and Delivering Public Service for the Future.

Learn more about the Outsourcing Center and the annual Outsourcing Excellence Awards.

About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 289,000 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$28.6 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2013. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

About the Japan International Cooperation Agency
Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is an international development assistance agency under the jurisdiction of the Japanese Government. JICA has approximately 2,000 employees, across 91 global locations, mainly in developing countries. JICA’s mission is to contribute to the socio-economic development, reconstruction and stability of developing countries and, through these activities, to promote international cooperation across the international community. For more information visit www.jica.go.jp

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Media Contact:

Kentaro Kanda
Accenture Japan
+ 81 45 330 7157
kentaro.kando@accenture.com