Category Archives: Accenture

BT, Accenture and Cisco form Wireless IoT Forum board

The Wireless IoT Forum has announced its founding board memebers

The Wireless IoT Forum has announced its founding board memebers

Following its launch in March, the Wireless IoT Forum has announced its founding board members, featuring BT, Cisco, Accenture and Telensa among others, reports Telecoms.com.

The forum is a collaborative industry effort designed to help further define the requirements of the wireless WAN in an IoT era. Specifically, the group claims it is looking to drive the widespread adoption of wireless WAN tech by removing fragmentation and drive consolidation around a minimal set of standards for licensed and license-except wireless solutions

Ensuring the interoperability of solutions running throughout the entire IoT stack is one of the primary challenges associated with bringing the Internet of Things to fruition. As such, CEO of the WIoT Forum William Webb believes solving compatibility issues remains key to driving the broad scale adoption of IoT.

“…the risk presented by fragmentation remains very real,” he said. “Without widely-agreed open standards we risk seeing pockets of proprietary technology developing independently, preventing the benefits of mass-market scale. We are delighted today to be announcing our inaugural membership and to begin work to drive towards a collective view on the right way to deliver widespread IoT services.”

BT’s Mark Harrop reckons the IoT industry should look at using GSM as a benchmark for collaboration. “As the success of the GSM standard in the mobile world showed, working to open industry standards is critical to creating the necessary situation for mass market success,” he said. “By aligning the complete value chain in defining and promoting these standards the Wireless IoT Forum is ideally suited to make the Internet of Things a success.”

Under the remit of the association are a variety of working groups, focussing on four core areas; including marketing and requirements; review of applications and standard APIs; connectivity and networking challenges, including configurations, security and radio access for low power wide area networks; and finally regulation.

Accenture buys Salesforce specialist Tquila UK

Accenture has acquired Tquila, a Salesforce specialist

Accenture has acquired Tquila, a Salesforce specialist

Accenture has acquired Tquila UK, a Salesforce specialist and consulting outfit, in a bid to strengthen its ability to deliver software-as-a-service technologies and services to its customers.

Founded in 2010, Tquila, one of the largest independent Salesforce partners in Europe, provides software tools to help its clients monitor their use of Salesforce services. It also offers consulting services and helps its customers set up their Salesforce applications.

As part of the acquisition Tquila’s 100 staff will join Accenture, more than doubling the number of Salesforce specialists it claims to have in its UK arsenal.

Accenture said the acquisition will give it one of the largest fleets of Salesforce consultants in Europe.

“We have seen significant growth in SaaS as more companies adopt the cloud and digital strategies to collaborate better, drive greater operational efficiencies and accelerate the development of new products and services,” said Emma McGuigan, managing director, Accenture Technology, UK and Ireland.

“One key factor for our continued success in delivering Salesforce solutions depends on having the right skilled professionals to meet the growing demand. With Tquila on board we have the critical mass to more proactively target big opportunities both in the UK and Europe, which will extend our position in the region,” McGuigan said.

Mark Wakelin, chief executive of Tquila said: “Being able to offer deep technology skills coupled with industry-experience at scale is critical to getting ahead in the market. As one of the largest pure-play Salesforce partners in Europe, we have those skills, and Accenture has the scale. By joining Accenture, we can offer our Salesforce expertise and experience to an even wider range of clients.”

Accenture is among other SIs hedging its bets in the cloud space by getting in with the cloud-natives alongside familiar incumbents. Last month Oracle and Accenture announced the two were teaming to create a joint business unit that will help mutual customers move more quickly onto (mostly Oracle) cloud platforms.

Accenture, Oracle form business unit to accelerate cloud uptake

Accenture and Oracle are forming a business unit to accelerate cloud  uptake

Accenture and Oracle are forming a business unit to accelerate cloud uptake

Oracle and Accenture are teaming up to create a joint business unit that will help mutual customers move more quickly onto (mostly Oracle) cloud platforms.

According to the companies the Accenture Oracle Business Group will bring together technologies and consulting power in order to help customers implement cloud-based services, which includes helping those clients tailor their business processes to those technologies.

Thomas Kurian, president, product development at Oracle said: “By providing a single process to implement end-to-end mission- critical services, the Accenture Oracle Business Group is ideally positioned to help our customers realize the true benefits of cloud computing.”

The group will offer vertically-integrated solutions built using Oracle’s software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service offerings, supported by fleets of Accenture consultants skilled in Oracle and Java tech – who will also help implement cloud readiness and data migration strategies for clients.

“Building on our 23-year alliance relationship, the Accenture Oracle Business Group combines Accenture’s deep industry and technology experience with Oracle’s expansive set of cloud solutions to deliver client value not found elsewhere in the market today,” said Stephen Rohleder, group chief executive for North America, Accenture.

“This is part of our strategy to take advantage of Oracle’s leading technologies and build our business together for the future. It is a game-changer for our clients, Oracle, and Accenture,” Rohleder said.

Rio Tinto moves ERP, IM systems to Accenture cloud

miningRio Tinto announced a partnership with Accenture that will see the global mining firm move the bulk of its application landscape to Accenture’s public cloud service.

Rather than add new systems into the mix the deal will see Accenture help the British-Australian firm consolidate its ERP and IM platforms and put them on Accenture’s cloud infrastructure. As part of the move Accenture will manage the lifecycle of the applications, which will be hosted in Accenture’s datacentres.

Rio Tinto Group said it moved its application landscape in a bid to save costs and switch to an “as-a-service” IT model that allows it to pay only for the resources it uses.

“Rio Tinto is on an ambitious journey to a world-class IS&T delivery model that is innovative, adaptable and cost-effective, fully supporting our business priorities and group operating model,” said Rio Tinto Group chief information officer Simon Benney.

“We selected Accenture to help us manage this transformation based on its global delivery capabilities, its vision for the intelligent business cloud and its ability to support our digital transformation programme,” Benney said.

Pierre Nanterme, chairman and chief executive of Accenture said: “This solution will allow Rio Tinto to smartly connect its infrastructure, software applications, data and operations capabilities in order to become an agile, intelligent, digital business that can better navigate the commodities cycles.”