This article was published in 2016 which talks about an environmental lawyer Robert Biliot who took on one of the biggest chemical companies in the world and how his fight for chemical pollution is still going on. This was also the subject matter for 2019's movie called Dark waters starring Mark Ruffalo and Anne Hatheway. What I find interesting is the subject all this covers. Forever carbons is a big topic for health and safety yet we hear so less about it. I believe just like everything which is going on in the world right now this deserves a lot more attention than it gets.
The article like a good case study report tries to understand a subject and analyse it from various perspectives. it tries to answer some key questions
1) What does Accenture do ?
2) Is it really good at it ?
3) Does it know how to make money from its business model ?
and I think the articles cover most of these points.
And as for the Hertz example. So a big company is sued by someone for not doing what they promised ? Is that something surprising ? Is it something that only happens in consulting domain?
The answer to the second and third questions are no.
All the flag bearers of silicon valley have been sued from being in "villan" at some point.
Like a successful business Accenture has nailed it core business model. From technology perspective sure the big picture looks bleak But it's not always dark
"_Tech consulting definitely does have its bright spots. Accenture has smaller divisions like Accenture Interactive that work on pretty cool stuff, like a partnership with Disney on a new innovation lab and a collaboration with Apple on iOS business solutions. And if you’re a new college grad, associate positions can be fast ways to learn engineering on the job and get exposure to large scale systems that you wouldn’t otherwise work with._"
From tech perspective it might seem like a shoddy company but we need to understand that it's not out there to make the best software for your needs it's their to make _a_ software for your needs one that just gets the work done.
The clients which approach Accenture or for that matter any tech consulting company are out there to get their problems solved within a budget.
To get a solution that just works
And I don't believe every project of theirs is shitty.Because if quality was too much compromised then they would lose market value and there is no shortage of competition.
While sales pitch is important for any business to work without successful projects a business cannot survive.They must have had success in the recent past that is why they are getting work.
From a creative software engineers perspective its a Very shitty company because it doesn't care about the tech,
But That's not its core business model ;to make great tech. The core model is to sell tech as a service to non tech companies.
And make non tech companies harness tech for their needs.
tech consulting should be treated as a different domain from technology. And in this domain some are good at it and some are shitty and then there is Accenture , somewhere in the middle.
Ps: I'm not defending Accenture I just don't agree with all conclusions presented in the HN comments.