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Case Study
How Accenture Does IT

Elevating real estate portfolio planning

Using data in powerful ways and in real time to manage Accenture’s dynamic real estate portfolio.

5-MINUTE READ

Call for change

As a global company, Accenture has a dynamic real estate portfolio that needs to be efficiently managed. Our migration to SAP Flexible Real Estate Management (SAP RE-FX), a comprehensive lease contract management solution, enabled us to integrate real estate data and transactions and gain a “single source of truth.”

Data is now available for reporting across teams and platforms, providing the opportunity to use data in powerful ways. One such opportunity was the development of a global portfolio planning solution to better predict requirements and associated costs in line with business strategy. Accenture’s real estate portfolio is diversifying greatly with acquisitions and evolving significantly beyond typical offices. We needed to invest in a better capability to address the size and complexity of our portfolio along with a high rate of change within it.

"Our real estate strategy is driven by Accenture’s business requirements. Now more than ever, we need to be agile and to lead with data in making decisions."

— GEORGINA POLKINGHORNE, Managing Director – Real Estate, Corporate Services & Sustainability, Accenture

When tech meets human ingenuity

Our Corporate Services & Sustainability Real Estate, Finance and Global IT organizations teamed to design a solution that made use of existing planning and data consolidation platforms, SAP Analytics Cloud and SAP HANA® as a Data Mart.

The resulting Real Estate Portfolio Planning solution provides the flexibility to plan on a city level and the capability to roll up the data globally. It allows users to make data- and insight-driven decisions and consider the diverse factors required to effectively manage a real estate portfolio of a global size. The data is consolidated from various systems and provided in near real time.

The new planning solution provides many additional capabilities, including:

Ability to project actuals

Projects different key performance indicators (KPIs) over a five-year time frame. Users may also update or overwrite KPIs at the base contract level.

Headcount planning

Supports projection of headcount growth and the impact on future space requirements and account for omni-connectivity.

Assessment of total required space

Automatically assesses total required space using utilization projections and headcount planning.

360° perspective

Helps differentiate contracts based on various factors to evaluate whether a building supports the experience we want our people to have.

Adjustments

Enables adjustments to the plan to be made if projections create a bigger gap compared to the current portfolio.

Live data insights and analysis

Provides live insights and calculations to some of the key KPIs. The solution also supports live visualizations, comparisons, and what-if analysis.

Global visibility and planning

Automates the comparison of required space versus projected space to plan at different levels and consolidates the data globally.

Calendar workflow

Supports the centralized monitoring of the planning process with a workflow of activities between different teams.

Forward-looking data and reporting

Automates forward-looking snapshots for month-to-month or year-to-year comparison reporting.

The project was also able to address a key priority—automating data consolidation to reduce manual efforts. Additionally, the solution is integrated with an Accenture Finance forecast solution for seamless data exchange to reduce manual involvement.

A valuable difference

Today, our Real Estate and Finance teams use the Real Estate Portfolio Planning solution to optimize Accenture’s real estate portfolio based on strategic guidelines. Teams are better able to understand different dynamics that impact Accenture’s real estate portfolio, rapidly respond to questions and determine how to right-size Accenture’s portfolio. We also use the tool to drive the numbers for our annual financial planning.

Additional benefits of our new solution include:

Enhanced planning

Provides the ability to plan real estate requirements using multiple business scenarios.

Enhanced utilization evaluation

Enhances the ability to assess utilization on a lease-by-lease or location-specific basis.

Augmented decision making

Helps teams enter into real estate decisions that are the right fit and understand potential ways to manage risk.

Improved holistic view

Provides an improved holistic real estate portfolio view that includes properties under construction, leases to exit, and long-term leases to keep.

Potential cost savings

Holds the potential to deliver cost savings to Accenture through data-driven decision making.

We are constantly enhancing the solution to provide users the right data and functionalities. While financial data is a main driver, other factors such as sustainability, omni-connectivity and safety of locations, to name a few, will be, as well. The vision is to provide users the flexibility to identify Accenture’s real estate needs in a constantly changing work environment and to be able to use any data at any given time.

To achieve this goal, we are integrating the Real Estate Portfolio Planning solution with Accenture’s data lake to provide users more insights through additional data (internal and external) and for ad hoc reporting. Further along, we plan to integrate machine learning capabilities into the solution.

"Our portfolio needs to support Accenture’s flexible, new ways of working, where our people experience omni-connectivity so they can perform on their best day, every day, while feeling connected and included regardless of physical location."

— MARGARET SMITH, Senior Managing Director and Executive Director – Corporate Services & Sustainability and Business Operations, Accenture

Meet the team

Margaret Smith

Senior Managing Director and Executive Director – Corporate Services & Sustainability and Business Operations
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Georgina Polkinghorne

Managing Director – Real Estate, Corporate Services & Sustainability
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Susan Best

Senior Manager – Real Estate, Corporate Services & Sustainability
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Melissa Summers

Managing Director – Global IT, Corporate Technology
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Eli Lambert

Managing Director – Global IT, Finance Platforms
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Thomas Wienke

Senior Manager – Global IT, Corporate Technology
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Srinivas Adabala

Director – Strategy & Consulting
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Kumar Subramanian

Manager – Technology, Data Visualization
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