Who is writing Accenture’s white papers?

Articles can be motivated by inspiration, or frustration. Neither motivation is more or less valid than the other. This post is definitely motivated by the later. We thought we might learn something by reading a white paper on service management that was produced by Accenture back in 2003. Guess again. Nine pages of content free PDF later, and what felt like the equivalent of a literary Diet Pepsi, we learned the following:

1. Accenture is focused on service management
2. Saturn is focused on service parts
3. There are software companies that focus on service parts
4. Accenture has a nice graphics department

Any Information in That White Paper Partner?

Is there an interest in actually communicating any information in white papers or are they purely promotional items to Accenture? This phenomena is not restricted to Accenture, there is simply too much promotional literature that is disguised as white papers. The promotional white paper format goes something like this:

1. Come up with white paper title
2. Create a beautiful cover page
3. List two partners on the second page
4. Come up with a few examples of companies that are doing something similar to what the white paper is discussing
5. Talk about how technology is important (when isn’t it?)
6. Put a few graphics in the white paper, the simple the better (three circles is apparently white paper nirvana)
7. List the obligatory 30% improvement in whatever (30% seems to be the magic number — all improvements return 30%)
8. List contact details

Material for Retarded Executives?

Really, how simple minded are executives that would contact a consulting or software firm that publishes such brochure ware? For instance, what we learned from Accenture’s white paper is that Accenture either knows extremely little about service parts, or did not leverage any of its external expertise on the topic. If I were an executive I would not be overly interested in having Accenture come and visit my service organization, since a quality white paper on the topic is apparently beyond them.

Sell Sell Sell

Everyone wants to sell business, but the implied agreement is that white papers are actually going to contain information. Accurate information is even better.  For those consulting companies looking to learn how to write a white paper, check out the Ciber website and see how its done. (BTW, we have no affiliation with Ciber, we just like their documentation.) Here is Accenture’s promotional brochure…err, we mean white paper. http://www.accenture.com/NR/rdonlyres/6BBEC529-3EE0-491F-B6BF-A19F2750E6EB/0/profit_after_sales.pdf