Accenture recently announced its Accenture Green Technology Suite, which is a comprehensive set of tools focused on helping companies assess its environmental standing, provide recommendations to better manage its carbon footprint through effective IT management and supporting the entire organization’s green agenda.
What does this new toolset do? Here’s what Accenture promises:
O Provides a holistic view across the entire IT organization, including an assessment of the enterprise’s position on a green “maturity spectrum”
O Recommends IT initiatives to proactively address the company’s future carbon footprint
O Calculates impact of specific initiatives in terms of workplace environmental efficiency and data center energy savings
The “Accenture Green Technology Suite” includes:
The Accenture Green Maturity Model – to identify IT environmental efficiency, and recommendations to improve the organization’s overall environmental standing. Based on the responses to 300 questions, the maturity model produces a comprehensive scorecard rating organization on the green maturity spectrum on a 0-5 scale; and further comparing it to peers.
The Data Center Estimator for an assessment of environmental and financial impact of data centers, especially power usage and server effectiveness.
The Workplace Estimator – to help recycling and energy saving policies for personal computers and procuring new equipment with energy efficiency in mind.
Essentially, Accenture believes that IT can help companies better understand their power consumption and environmental footprint, enabling them to take focused actions for environmental improvements and profits. The improvement of IT infrastructure alone can lead to improvement, consider all the electric power absorbed by huge data centers, networks, servers, telecom equipment, printers and PCs in a typical company. This effort leverages Accenture’s might in an area not typically considered an environmental hazard (at least as compared to power plants, chemical plants and factories), but still has scope for improvement. In addition, it allows Accenture to promote its green agenda directly to the CIO and eventually to the CEO, as green initiatives start to take center stage on almost every managing executive’s long-term strategy.
Accenture indicates that the tool has been developed and tested and ready for client rollout, we will have to watch and see how this is embraced by clients, given that the tool’s effectiveness increases almost exponentially when new users join the survey. Also, interesting to watch how professional service firms are finding innovative ways to latch on the ever-growing green phenomenon.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Club Med? No! Euro-Mediterranean . The next investment frontier
Ernst & Young’s BaroMed survey has recently found that the Euro-Mediterranean zone has good potential for significant growth opportunities for international investors. This zone has 17 countries: France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Malta, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and Syria. This group ranks third among the world’s regions in terms of GDP and among the top three for foreign direct investment (FDI).
"BaroMed 2008" styles itself as the first international survey of its kind, designed to measure the attractiveness of the Euro-Mediterranean zone. Given the proximity of these countries to developed nations of Europe, it is no surprise that they compete directly with Eastern Europe and Asia. A full-third of decision-makers polled said that they had projects planned for the Euro-Mediterranean zone.
Split geographically, countries on the north (France, Spain and Italy) are perennial favorites evidenced by 923 FDI announcements in 2007. But it is the southern countries (Turkey, Morocco and Tunisia) which are strengthening their competitiveness for industrial and logistics-related activities.
Add closeness to Europe, centralized geographic locations, educated workforce, and low cost labor, not to mention the excellent Mediterranean climate would make these countries favored locations for investments and growth.
Right next to the Euro Med zone is MENA (Middle East North Africa), another booming area flush with oil wealth and ready for taking entrepreneurial investments. That’s not to say the BRICs are far behind. The one thing that investors have to avoid is too much alphabet soup conjured by professional firms and investment banks when they look around the globe!
"BaroMed 2008" styles itself as the first international survey of its kind, designed to measure the attractiveness of the Euro-Mediterranean zone. Given the proximity of these countries to developed nations of Europe, it is no surprise that they compete directly with Eastern Europe and Asia. A full-third of decision-makers polled said that they had projects planned for the Euro-Mediterranean zone.
Split geographically, countries on the north (France, Spain and Italy) are perennial favorites evidenced by 923 FDI announcements in 2007. But it is the southern countries (Turkey, Morocco and Tunisia) which are strengthening their competitiveness for industrial and logistics-related activities.
Add closeness to Europe, centralized geographic locations, educated workforce, and low cost labor, not to mention the excellent Mediterranean climate would make these countries favored locations for investments and growth.
Right next to the Euro Med zone is MENA (Middle East North Africa), another booming area flush with oil wealth and ready for taking entrepreneurial investments. That’s not to say the BRICs are far behind. The one thing that investors have to avoid is too much alphabet soup conjured by professional firms and investment banks when they look around the globe!
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Deloitte First Out of Gate with 2007 Results: Revenues Up a Staggering 19%
Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu ("Deloitte") just came out with its fiscal year 2008 aggregate member firm performance for year from July 2007 to June 2008. Global revenue increased from US$23.1 billion in FY2007 by 18.6% in U.S. dollars, and 13.0% in local currencies to US$27.4 billion, marking an amazing sixth consecutive year of U.S. dollar double-digit revenue growth from continuing operations. Growth was seen in each and every service line and geographic region delivered strong growth. The global slowdown seemed to have no effect on this tremendous growth performance.
Deloitte increased its headcount by 10% from 150,000 people in 2007 to 165,000 in 2008 (that’s almost 60 net hires each business day in 2007). Deloitte's BRIC firms have grown 90% headcount in the past three years.
By service line, Financial Advisory grew at 26.6% to US$2.4 billion, consulting services at 22.2% to US$6.3 billion; Tax and legal at 20.4% to US$6.0 billion, and Audit at 14.8% to US$12.7 billion.
By region, Asia Pacific led with revenue growth of 30.3% to US$3.2 billion; Europe, the Middle East, and Africa increasing by 22.6% to US$11.3 billion; and CIS up 40.8% percent. In the Americas, revenues were up12.9% to US$13.0 billion, with Latin America and the Caribbean growing at 22.4%.
Deloitte remains confident about continued success because of the strength of its model, which combines local depth and global scale, despite the uncertain economic climate.
Deloitte increased its headcount by 10% from 150,000 people in 2007 to 165,000 in 2008 (that’s almost 60 net hires each business day in 2007). Deloitte's BRIC firms have grown 90% headcount in the past three years.
By service line, Financial Advisory grew at 26.6% to US$2.4 billion, consulting services at 22.2% to US$6.3 billion; Tax and legal at 20.4% to US$6.0 billion, and Audit at 14.8% to US$12.7 billion.
By region, Asia Pacific led with revenue growth of 30.3% to US$3.2 billion; Europe, the Middle East, and Africa increasing by 22.6% to US$11.3 billion; and CIS up 40.8% percent. In the Americas, revenues were up12.9% to US$13.0 billion, with Latin America and the Caribbean growing at 22.4%.
Deloitte remains confident about continued success because of the strength of its model, which combines local depth and global scale, despite the uncertain economic climate.
Monday, July 21, 2008
KPMG Predicts Slowdown in Global Mergers and Acquisitions in 2008
KPMG's Global M&A Predictor anticipates that the global deal environment will likely deteriorate into the second half of 2008, with both deal value and volume with forward-looking corporate valuations down 10% compared to just 6 months ago. The firm’s predictor shows a decrease in both ‘appetite’ (forward valuations) and ‘capacity’ (estimated net debt to EBITDA) for M&A activity.
KPMG claims to have “accurately called the top” of the M&A market a year ago, and says that “the next 12 months will become increasingly difficult for transactions right across the globe.”
Two key trends seem to be apparent. First, investors are paying less for future earnings, in that the forward-looking Price to Earnings ratio (for acquired companies) has uniformly fallen all over the world, including the recently-hot Asia Pacific and Latin American regions. Globally the PE ratio has decreased 10.3% from 17.0x to 15.3x in the six months to the end of May 2008. Second, investors are finding debt harder to come by to execute highly leveraged deals. With net debt to EBITDA ratios reducing to 0.81 times from 0.93 times indicating, “capacity to drive deals through debt may soon be negatively impacted and deteriorate.”
The latest Predictor, a forward looking index of 1,000 leading companies’ estimated net debt to EBITDA ratios and forward Price Earnings ratios shows that 2008 deal levels and values for the remainder of the year should continue to fall away. This is supported by what is happening in the real M&A world. According to Dealogic, the five months up to the end of May 2008 saw 15,968 deals globally at a value of U.S. $1,421.3 B, compared to 19,784 deals recorded in the second half of 2007 at a value of U.S. $ 2,161.3 B, a drastic drop of 34%, with the bright spot only in Asia Pacific.
Not surprisingly, the credit crunch, rising oil prices, slowing global economy, uncertain outlook and decreased consumer confidence has taken its toll on the M&A market. The days of Mega Mondays when a huge acquisition would be announced seems quite far away. The private equity bubble has also quietened down, and they are finding both a surfeit of deals and a total lack of commercial bank support. Only the strategics seemed to be buying in this environment, and they are making strong longer-term deals, but even that has thinned out. So, KPMG may be more right than wrong, and we’ll just have to wait for all this to clear before some cheer comes back to the M&A market.
KPMG claims to have “accurately called the top” of the M&A market a year ago, and says that “the next 12 months will become increasingly difficult for transactions right across the globe.”
Two key trends seem to be apparent. First, investors are paying less for future earnings, in that the forward-looking Price to Earnings ratio (for acquired companies) has uniformly fallen all over the world, including the recently-hot Asia Pacific and Latin American regions. Globally the PE ratio has decreased 10.3% from 17.0x to 15.3x in the six months to the end of May 2008. Second, investors are finding debt harder to come by to execute highly leveraged deals. With net debt to EBITDA ratios reducing to 0.81 times from 0.93 times indicating, “capacity to drive deals through debt may soon be negatively impacted and deteriorate.”
The latest Predictor, a forward looking index of 1,000 leading companies’ estimated net debt to EBITDA ratios and forward Price Earnings ratios shows that 2008 deal levels and values for the remainder of the year should continue to fall away. This is supported by what is happening in the real M&A world. According to Dealogic, the five months up to the end of May 2008 saw 15,968 deals globally at a value of U.S. $1,421.3 B, compared to 19,784 deals recorded in the second half of 2007 at a value of U.S. $ 2,161.3 B, a drastic drop of 34%, with the bright spot only in Asia Pacific.
Not surprisingly, the credit crunch, rising oil prices, slowing global economy, uncertain outlook and decreased consumer confidence has taken its toll on the M&A market. The days of Mega Mondays when a huge acquisition would be announced seems quite far away. The private equity bubble has also quietened down, and they are finding both a surfeit of deals and a total lack of commercial bank support. Only the strategics seemed to be buying in this environment, and they are making strong longer-term deals, but even that has thinned out. So, KPMG may be more right than wrong, and we’ll just have to wait for all this to clear before some cheer comes back to the M&A market.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Accenture Stock Shines Brightly Compared to Big4 Peers
Accenture (NYSE: ACN) has proven its solid business model with investors by producing the best shareholder performance in comparison with its other Big4 siblings, Capgemini (PARIS: CAP.PA) and BearingPoint (NYSE: BE).
Accenture (NYSE: ACN)’s stock price today is $39.07 on the NYSE stock exchange, and has risen 100% over the last five years, 40% over the last two years, and 10% year to date in 2008. This is excellent performance given that the global growth has slowed down considerably and stockmarkets all over the world have been on the downswing since last summer. Just this year, ACN’s stock is up 25% relative to the S&P500, which is down 15% from January to July 2008. Moreover, Accenture recently revealed terrific earnings and seemed to be immune from any client project cancellations or delays.
Capgemini, which trades in Paris, has a current stock price of EUR 36 a share, and has risen 0% over the last five years, 10% down over the last two years, and negative 15% year to date in 2008. Just this year, Capgemini’s stock is pretty much flat relative to the S&P500, both are down 15% from January to July 2008. Capgemini’s results have been solid but unimpressive, its Q1-2008 revenues were down 1.4% from Q1-2007 and the company is looking for 2-5% growth in full year 2008 versus full year 2007.
The problem child in this lot is BearingPoint (NYSE: BE) whose stock has been on a free fall since July 2007, dropping 90% and currently trading at 67 CENTS per share, down from $7 per share in August 2007, just a year ago. Investors seem to have lost total confidence in this stock, the market capitalization is about $140 million on annual sales of $3.2 billion, just a terrible conversion of sales and profits into value. The NYSE disallowed trading of BE stock till the stock reaches $1.10 per share, and there seems to be absolutely no chance that it will happen, absent a total buyout or some large-scale business change, in the near term.
BE’s Chief Financial Officer quit only after a month on the job, and Morningstar is reviewing its fair value, saying "Whereas before we had based our expected value of the firm on three scenarios (severe financial distress, a successful turnaround, and an acquisition), we are likely to base our revised expected value on only two scenarios (severe financial distress and acquisition)."
BearingPoint’s Q1-2008’s gross revenue of $830 million decreased 4.2% from Q1-2007, with net revenue of $672 million basically flat from Q1-2007. Q1-2008 gross profit increased by $21 million or 15.7% to $153 million or 18.4% of gross revenue compared to $132 million and 15.2% of gross revenue in Q1-2007. Total voluntary annualized attrition in Q1-2008 was 26.3% up from 23.7% in Q1-2007. These are not horrible performance numbers, but the stock is beset by other factors, including a lack of confidence from insiders and investors.
Something drastic is needed to restore value to this company.
Accenture (NYSE: ACN)’s stock price today is $39.07 on the NYSE stock exchange, and has risen 100% over the last five years, 40% over the last two years, and 10% year to date in 2008. This is excellent performance given that the global growth has slowed down considerably and stockmarkets all over the world have been on the downswing since last summer. Just this year, ACN’s stock is up 25% relative to the S&P500, which is down 15% from January to July 2008. Moreover, Accenture recently revealed terrific earnings and seemed to be immune from any client project cancellations or delays.
Capgemini, which trades in Paris, has a current stock price of EUR 36 a share, and has risen 0% over the last five years, 10% down over the last two years, and negative 15% year to date in 2008. Just this year, Capgemini’s stock is pretty much flat relative to the S&P500, both are down 15% from January to July 2008. Capgemini’s results have been solid but unimpressive, its Q1-2008 revenues were down 1.4% from Q1-2007 and the company is looking for 2-5% growth in full year 2008 versus full year 2007.
The problem child in this lot is BearingPoint (NYSE: BE) whose stock has been on a free fall since July 2007, dropping 90% and currently trading at 67 CENTS per share, down from $7 per share in August 2007, just a year ago. Investors seem to have lost total confidence in this stock, the market capitalization is about $140 million on annual sales of $3.2 billion, just a terrible conversion of sales and profits into value. The NYSE disallowed trading of BE stock till the stock reaches $1.10 per share, and there seems to be absolutely no chance that it will happen, absent a total buyout or some large-scale business change, in the near term.
BE’s Chief Financial Officer quit only after a month on the job, and Morningstar is reviewing its fair value, saying "Whereas before we had based our expected value of the firm on three scenarios (severe financial distress, a successful turnaround, and an acquisition), we are likely to base our revised expected value on only two scenarios (severe financial distress and acquisition)."
BearingPoint’s Q1-2008’s gross revenue of $830 million decreased 4.2% from Q1-2007, with net revenue of $672 million basically flat from Q1-2007. Q1-2008 gross profit increased by $21 million or 15.7% to $153 million or 18.4% of gross revenue compared to $132 million and 15.2% of gross revenue in Q1-2007. Total voluntary annualized attrition in Q1-2008 was 26.3% up from 23.7% in Q1-2007. These are not horrible performance numbers, but the stock is beset by other factors, including a lack of confidence from insiders and investors.
Something drastic is needed to restore value to this company.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
10 Million Wealthy Folks Own An Astounding $40 Trillion!
The recently released 12th annual World Wealth Report co-authored by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch has some amazing findings:
The number of global high net worth individuals (HNWIs, with wealth greater than $1 million) rose 6% in 2007 to 10.1 million, and the number of ultra high net worth individuals (Ultra-HNWIs, with wealth greater than $30 million) increased by 8.8%. For the first time in the history of this report, the average assets held by HNWIs exceeded US$4 million. The combined assets of HNWIs now exceeds $40 trillion!
The largest growth of HNWIs was in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, growing at 15.6%, 14.3% and 12.2% respectively. What drove these increases?: gains in commodity exports coupled with growing international acceptance of emerging financial centers as significant global players.
India led the world in HNWI growth at 22.7%, due to equity market capitalization
growth of 118% and 7.9% real GDP growth. China followed India with 20.3% population growth, due to market capitalization growth of 291% and real GDP growth of 11.4%. Brazil was third, with HNWI growth rate in 2007 of 19.1% driven by robust market capitalization growth of 93% and real GDP growth of 5.1%. Russia rounded out the BRICs with 14.4% population growth.
Compared with this exuberant growth in the BRIC economies, the downturn in the US economy weighed on other mature economies – causing slower GDP growth and weak equity market performances in parts of Europe and Asia – fueled by a cooling housing market, tightened credit availability, and greater volatility and price declines in equity markets.
HNWIs are smart and safe investors too. In 2007, due to stock market turmoils, HNWIs moved to conservative investments. Cash/deposits and fixed income securities accounted for 44% of HNWI financial assets, up 9% from 2006. Fixed income securities saw a 6% increase in asset allocation, accounting for 27% of holdings, up from 21% in 2006.
What is the outlook for HNWIs and global wealth creation. The report states, “Despite heightened uncertainty regarding the near-term global outlook, still-strong fundamentals
in emerging markets are likely to sustain high levels of growth. …the global economy has two distinctive obstacles to overcome: inhibitors to growth in mature markets and high risks of inflation in emerging markets. …however, global HNWI wealth will
grow to US$59.1 trillion by 2012, advancing at a rate of 7.7% per year.”
Consider that from January 2008 to July 2008, poor stock market performance
will likely put a dent in HNWI wealth:
Indian stock market is down 30%
Chinese market is down 45%
Brazilian market is generally flat
Russian market is down 15%
US market is down nearly 15%
European markets are down around 25%
See the full study at:
http://www.capgemini.com/m/en/n/pdf_Merrill_Lynch_and_Capgemini_Release_12th_Annual_World_Wealth_Report.pdf
The number of global high net worth individuals (HNWIs, with wealth greater than $1 million) rose 6% in 2007 to 10.1 million, and the number of ultra high net worth individuals (Ultra-HNWIs, with wealth greater than $30 million) increased by 8.8%. For the first time in the history of this report, the average assets held by HNWIs exceeded US$4 million. The combined assets of HNWIs now exceeds $40 trillion!
The largest growth of HNWIs was in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Latin America, growing at 15.6%, 14.3% and 12.2% respectively. What drove these increases?: gains in commodity exports coupled with growing international acceptance of emerging financial centers as significant global players.
India led the world in HNWI growth at 22.7%, due to equity market capitalization
growth of 118% and 7.9% real GDP growth. China followed India with 20.3% population growth, due to market capitalization growth of 291% and real GDP growth of 11.4%. Brazil was third, with HNWI growth rate in 2007 of 19.1% driven by robust market capitalization growth of 93% and real GDP growth of 5.1%. Russia rounded out the BRICs with 14.4% population growth.
Compared with this exuberant growth in the BRIC economies, the downturn in the US economy weighed on other mature economies – causing slower GDP growth and weak equity market performances in parts of Europe and Asia – fueled by a cooling housing market, tightened credit availability, and greater volatility and price declines in equity markets.
HNWIs are smart and safe investors too. In 2007, due to stock market turmoils, HNWIs moved to conservative investments. Cash/deposits and fixed income securities accounted for 44% of HNWI financial assets, up 9% from 2006. Fixed income securities saw a 6% increase in asset allocation, accounting for 27% of holdings, up from 21% in 2006.
What is the outlook for HNWIs and global wealth creation. The report states, “Despite heightened uncertainty regarding the near-term global outlook, still-strong fundamentals
in emerging markets are likely to sustain high levels of growth. …the global economy has two distinctive obstacles to overcome: inhibitors to growth in mature markets and high risks of inflation in emerging markets. …however, global HNWI wealth will
grow to US$59.1 trillion by 2012, advancing at a rate of 7.7% per year.”
Consider that from January 2008 to July 2008, poor stock market performance
will likely put a dent in HNWI wealth:
Indian stock market is down 30%
Chinese market is down 45%
Brazilian market is generally flat
Russian market is down 15%
US market is down nearly 15%
European markets are down around 25%
See the full study at:
http://www.capgemini.com/m/en/n/pdf_Merrill_Lynch_and_Capgemini_Release_12th_Annual_World_Wealth_Report.pdf
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP Celebrates Tens Years By Giving Generously
Tens Years of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP!
Hard to believe, but it’s been a full decade today that Pricewaterhouse LLP merged with Coopers and Lybrand LLP to form PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, now the largest single accounting firm on the planet and the leader of the Big Four firms.
And rather than celebrate its visible business success, PricewaterhouseCoopers is marking this important 10th anniversary by joining with Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in a unique joint project to raise funds to help build and operate schools for refugee children who have fled the conflict in Darfur.
PwC will partner with the UNHCR to raise funds to provide facilities and education on a sustainable basis at camps in Chad for refugee children from Darfur. PwC is contributing $200,000 to the effort, and seeks additional contributions from its 146,000 PwC partners and staff in 150 countries as well as friends and family, with the hope that its global organization will far surpass that amount.
This is a worthwhile and noble cause to support and we commend PwC for this initiative to mark a decade of existence by taking on a global issue which seems to have been forgotten and sidelined by other perhaps less devastating issues. This also shows the growing concerns with worldwide issues of the Big Four firms and their responsibility towards a planet where they create wealth from, and generously contribute back.
On another note, PwC UK is adding 80 new partners in 2008, adding to the 822 existing 2007 partners, of the 80, 24 are female, increasing the female partner ranks from 83 to 107, the highest ever in the 10 year history of the PwC UK firm.
Hard to believe, but it’s been a full decade today that Pricewaterhouse LLP merged with Coopers and Lybrand LLP to form PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, now the largest single accounting firm on the planet and the leader of the Big Four firms.
And rather than celebrate its visible business success, PricewaterhouseCoopers is marking this important 10th anniversary by joining with Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in a unique joint project to raise funds to help build and operate schools for refugee children who have fled the conflict in Darfur.
PwC will partner with the UNHCR to raise funds to provide facilities and education on a sustainable basis at camps in Chad for refugee children from Darfur. PwC is contributing $200,000 to the effort, and seeks additional contributions from its 146,000 PwC partners and staff in 150 countries as well as friends and family, with the hope that its global organization will far surpass that amount.
This is a worthwhile and noble cause to support and we commend PwC for this initiative to mark a decade of existence by taking on a global issue which seems to have been forgotten and sidelined by other perhaps less devastating issues. This also shows the growing concerns with worldwide issues of the Big Four firms and their responsibility towards a planet where they create wealth from, and generously contribute back.
On another note, PwC UK is adding 80 new partners in 2008, adding to the 822 existing 2007 partners, of the 80, 24 are female, increasing the female partner ranks from 83 to 107, the highest ever in the 10 year history of the PwC UK firm.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
