Software Engineering Institute

Accenture, an early adopter of the Capability Maturity Model Integration (CMMI) frame-work, faced numerous challenges related to a rapidly changing market. Its clients were looking to Accenture to help them “hyper-drive” system transformations to achieve greater cost effectiveness, faster speed, better quality, and continuous innovation to stay relevant in the market. To achieve these goals, Accenture launched an automation journey built around what it calls “The 4S Model”: Simple, Seamless, Scalable, Sustainable. The process produced intelligent tools to automation for transformation that enabled Accenture and its clients to transform rapidly and meet the challenges of a changing market and business land-scape. Process improvement initiatives are now implemented across more than 50% of Accenture’s industry client base, with new automation opportunities identified every three hours. Automation strategy, process, and technology programs established have shown an impact on client value delivered, delivery performance, and people performance. Some of the key metrics that have shown a significant improvement consistently are productivity, quality (defects), effort, and schedule. In 2020, the Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute and IEEE recognized Accenture with the Watts Humphrey Software Process Achievement Award. For more information on the SPA Award, visit https://resources.sei.cmu.edu/news-events/events/watts/.