Case #7: Accenture Development Partnership and Save the Children

This last case is about how Accenture, through the Accenture Development Program (ADP), helped Save the Children, a leading independent organization which creates lasting change in the lives of children in need around the world. ADP helped Save the Children to improve its supply chain processes. The aim of this collaboration was to enhance Save the Children’s programs in sustainable livelihoods, education and health and emergency response.

After the Tsunami struck Aceh and other regions in December 2004, Save the Children contacted Accenture to develop a logistic and procurement database that would help in managing all of the inflows of goods and delivery to the needed areas. For this case, we have two questions:

What benefit did Save the Children receive from Accenture Development Partnership? What would happened if Save the Children managed their own tool kit?

Saving Nazia. Courtesy of Afghanistan Matters on Flickr.

As a prominent  non-profit organization, Save the Children has a mission to create changes and to bring a better life for people around the world. When disaster strikes, Save the Children is there to save people with food, medical care, education and stays to help communities rebuild their region through long-term recovery programs.

Save the Children work with other organizations, governments, non-profits and a variety of local partners while maintaining their own independence without political agenda or religious orientation. One of its partners is Accenture Development Program (ADP).

ADP is a group within Accenture and a pioneering “corporate social enterprise” that employs an innovative non-profit business model as a means to channel Accenture’s core business capabilities to organizations in the international development center.

ADP’s mission is to have catalytic impact on global development challenges by:

• Providing development sector organizations with access to Accenture’s people, knowledge, methodologies, frameworks, and global network.
• Teaming with their clients to help them become high-performance organizations, applying Accenture’s business and technology experience to help them fulfill their missions and maximize their impact.
• Advancing market-based solutions to development challenges that are scalable, sustainable and outcome-oriented.
• Fostering collaboration and partnerships among the public, private and non-profit sectors to address global development challenge.

ADP started as a corporate social enterprise in 2003. On May 2010, ADP has completed 330 projects for 74 non-profit clients, worked across 58 developing countries, and deployed more than 700 Accenture employees. Save the Children is one of ADP’s major clients, which also include UNDP, UNICEF, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Oxfam, Plan International, WWF, CARE, International Red Cross, GAIN, and World Vision.

Accenture has the industry knowledge, strategy expertise and supply chain experience to help clients design and execute significant transformational programs across traditional planning, sourcing & procurement, manufacturing & design and fulfillment operations functions.

Advancing Supply Chain Processes

According to the case study, after the tsunami struck Aceh in 2004, Save the Children contacted Accenture to improve its supply chain processes. Accenture then developed a logistic and procurement database that would help Save the Children to manage all of the inflows of goods and delivery to the needed areas. The database provided all related data supporting Save the Children’s supply chain processes, including planning, procurement, supply network management, inventory management and delivery that allowed them to make better decisions along the processes.

Save the Children operated its supply chains in complex and challenging environment, so they needed to be able both to deliver vital commodities rapidly in response to humanitarian crises and operated global supply chains on an ongoing basis that could reach poor and remote areas with severe infrastructure constraints. ADP leveraged Accenture’s extensive supply chain capabilities to help Save the Children in building strong supply chain capabilities, operated by skilled people and robust processes and systems.

The custom-developed toolkit provided by ADP was very important to record Save the Children’s typical logistic transactions, such as requisition, procurement, and request for delivery, delivery order, goods receipt, and stock adjustment. The combination of this toolkit with the logistic and procurement database should be powerful to improve Save the Children’s supply chain management.

According to the a study held by Accenture, which evaluated operations in 19 locations in several countries, investments in supply chain management will contribute to the goal of doubling the number of children reached by Save the Children, with an estimated $12 million in potential savings.

If Save the Children managed their own tool kit, there were several risks would possibly emerge, because of diverse technology solutions that supported their operations. To manage a complex supply chain, Save the Children needed more standardized and integrated system that could help them to manage all suppliers and delivery channels to get the logistics arrived at desired locations timely and at lower cost.

Developing and managing their own toolkit would make Save the Children have to allocate their resources to maintain them and assure they work properly. However, this of course was not their main tasks. They actually had more important tasks such as developing localized programs for people in several places, developing a comprehensive study, and many more. Establishing partnership with ADP was a good choice for Save the Children since they could get access to skilled people, standardized processes and latest technology that could provide better quality and saved their time.

This article is part of a series of case studies from Accenture Bloggers and Journalist Competition. The main purpose of this competition is to introduce the world of consulting, technology services, and outsourcing, which are the main businesses of Accenture. You may comment, discuss, or share this article by mentioning the original source.

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