Don't start nothing, won't be nothing.
Posted on 06/02/2004 5:19:18 PM PDT by ETERNAL WARMING
NEW YORK TIMES,
June 2, 2004 Accenture Is Awarded U.S. Contract for Borders By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JOHN MARKOFF
WASHINGTON, June 1 - The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday named Accenture as the prime contractor for a multibillion-dollar project aimed at creating a "virtual border" around the country to head off would-be terrorists entering the United States.
Asa Hutchinson, the under secretary in charge of border security, said the project, called U.S.-Visit was "a significant milestone in the history of the department" and in the bolstering of border security since the Sept. 11 attacks. "I really don't think you could overstate the importance of this responsibility in terms of securing our nation," he said.
The project will use the latest technology, including biometrics, to identify people coming into the United States. The contract was awarded to Accenture, formerly Andersen Consulting, over two competing contractors, Lockheed Martin and Computer Sciences. Several industry executives and analysts said that the award surprised them and that Accenture had widely been considered the outside candidate.
The award also brought controversy. Accenture is incorporated in Bermuda, and some critics attacked the idea of awarding a contract so valuable and important to national security to a company with its headquarters outside the United States.
After Accenture was named, Representative Lloyd Doggett, a Texas Democrat, suggested the company took advantage of an uneven playing field to win the contract over Lockheed Martin and Computer Sciences.
"If companies truly want to contribute to our nation's security, they can pay their fair share of taxes. If they want a slice of the American pie, they had better help bake it," he said in a statement.
A spokesman for Accenture said that the company paid United States taxes.
Representative Richard E. Neal, a Massachusetts Democrat and a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, also questioned the award.
"This decision is outrageous," he said, in a statement. "The Bush administration has awarded the largest homeland security contract in history to a company that has given up its U.S. citizenship and moved to Bermuda. The inconsistency is breathtaking."
But homeland security officials said they were satisfied that Accenture, which has an operation in Reston, Va., with 25,000 employees, meets the legal requirements for an American-based company. The three bidders "were all U.S. companies," Mr. Hutchinson said.
The bid proposal set a range of $10 million to $10 billion over the 10-year life of the project. Mr. Hutchinson said the project was "certainly going to be a billion-dollar project when all is said and done."
Investigators at the General Accounting Office, however, have called the program "a very risky endeavor" because of management and financial concerns. They have estimated that the total cost, including financing needed from other agencies, could reach $15 billion.
Mr. Hutchinson said he was unperturbed by the findings.
"I would've been frustrated if they'd said it was not a risky endeavor," he said. "I could've told you that from Day 1."
Homeland security officials said that Accenture, in its bid proposal, provided an estimated cost of $72 million for two initial phases of the project, including the securing of the nation's 50 busiest land ports by the end of the year. Citing legal restrictions, officials would not disclose whether that represented the lowest bid. Other factors, including the companies' business and technical strategies and their experience were also considered, officials said.
Part of the challenge of the U.S.-Visit project will be integrating at least 19 large government databases, and that was a factor in the choice of Accenture, said T. Jeff Vining, an intelligence and law enforcement analyst at Gartner, the research firm.
"The government is basically soliciting on-the-fly R.& D.," he said, referring to research and development. Accenture also had the strongest team of subcontractors with international reach, he added.
Cindy Shaw, a financial analyst at Schwab SoundView Capital Markets, said the company had a successful track record with the Transportation Security Agency.
"One of the things that got lost in this whole competition is that Accenture helped T.S.A. put together its airport screening process," Ms. Shaw said. "They showed well under pressure there."
The project manager for the Accenture team said the company would take a similar approach to a contract it holds with the Pentagon's Defense Logistics Agency in deploying the U.S.-Visit system.
"We view this as a business transformation and we're talking about changing business processes," said Eric Stange, Accenture's program manager for the project. "We're looking at the human dimension as well as the technology dimension."
Mr. Stange said that in its work with the Defense Logistics Agency, Accenture had altered job descriptions and employee deployment. He said the border security project was similar in size and scale to the Pentagon contract. He refused, however, to make specific estimates either about the number of federal employees who would be involved or the number of Accenture employees who would take part.
The Department of Homeland Security has talked about using digital fingerprint and photographic information to help ensure identity. Mr. Stange, however, said that Accenture was continuing to evaluate other potential biometric techniques for accurate identity checks.
"Part of our approach is to continually assess technology innovations," Mr. Stange said. "For a 10-year contract that's a generation or two of technology, and biometrics is a very hot area."
The contract is for five years, with one-year options for five years after that.
Accenture's stock rose 75 cents on the news, to close at $25.36. Asked about what appeared to be a rise in the company's stock before the markets opened Tuesday, Mr. Hutchinson said he was unaware of any leak that might have driven up the stock but that the department would investigate. Wall Street analysts said, however, that there had been "chatter" about the award to Accenture before the market opened.
Companies don't pay taxes. Their customers pay the taxes...
Don't start nothing, won't be nothing.
Like you?
We will all be speaking Bermudan and wearing ugly colorful shirts within a generation.
"Bermudan Menace", Global Warming?
read later
It's been like that for quite a while.
It's like people don't want to read anything not found here. Who doesn't know that Anderson and Accenture have been separate entities for years?
People seem to be waking up and saying "How can I lose my freakin' mind today?" It's the freakin INTERNET; why don't people just use Google before going off?
I mean, DAMN.
It's an American company that changed the name on the address in order to get around tax laws. I say more power to them.
I've had the stock since the spin off from Arthur Andersen. Fortunately for ACN, they lost out on being able to use the AA name, otherwise the confusion over the company being one and the same as AA would be even greater than it appears to be, by the looks of some of the posts on this board. Gee, all this time and I thought I owned shares in an american company, come on folks, do your homework, will you. By the way, the 10 billion dollar contract is to be shared with a few other companies, such as Dell, for one.
Eurotwit, that may be why the stock didn't move much on the deal, that and the possibility that the contract could end up being a money loser for Accenture (take a look at the problems EDS has been having with a navy contract).
Arthur Andersen and Andersen Consulting had an acrimonious divorce during the internet boom, complete with a major lawsuit over the name "Andersen." Accenture and Arthur Andersen were two separate (and at-war) companies by the time Enron came around.
Oi Vey.
Haha...agreed. That would be the "AHHHHTHESKYISFALLING! Crowd"
Accenture Board of Directors
http://www.accenture.com/xd/xd.asp?it=enweb&xd=aboutus\governance\directors\governance_directors.xml
On Jan. 1, 2001, the company changed its name to Accenture (from Andersen Consulting) as the result of an arbitrator’s decision in August 2000 that severed the contractual ties between Accenture and Andersen Worldwide Société Coopérative (AWSC). Accenture then launched one of the largest and most successful re-branding campaigns in corporate history. The new name reinforced Accenture’s new positioning and reflected the organization’s further growth and broadened set of capabilities.
If you wanted to reduce your tax bill you spoke with the experts in the Tax Practice at Andersen, not with anyone from Andersen Consulting. Andersen Consulting was involved in designing and implementing managment information systems. Their contracts with clients would be multi-yer, multi-million dollar projects. Andersen Consulting was very good at selling their services, and their success was an instrumental factor in the culture shift that led to the collapse of Arthur Andersen, the accounting company.
In the early 1990's Andersen Consulting started to earn more income than Arthur Andersen's accounting business, but the accountants had a larger number of partners and were distributed a greater share of the combined earnings. The consulting partners began to argue for a larger share of the combined earnings and for greater say in the management of the firm. This put pressure on the audit and tax partners to increase revenue. Delivering quality audit and tax services were no longer enough if you wanted to advance professionally in the audit and tax practices. You had to sell additional services to your clients, and the types of services you were expected to sell tended to compromise Andersen's independence as auditors.
In 1998 the differences between the accountants and the consultants could not be resolved, and Andersen Consulting paid Arthur Andersen about $1 billion to become independent and it gave up the rights to use the name Andersen Consulting, hence it became Accenture. Meanwhile Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm, had compromised its standards, and it was only a matter of time before an Enron type scandal rose and sunk the firm.
This is an oversimplification of events, but it covers the high points, or rather the low points. The saddest part is if the accountants and consultants could have resolved a few of their differences they could have spun off Andersen Consulting in a multi-billion dollar IPO that would have made all partners substantially more than they earned from the break up.
I'm fully aware of the evolution of Accenture, thanks.
Here is justification for a national draft. Put the draftees on the border, what argument can you express about defending your Country's borders?? (Am sure some can)
You are obviously trying to bait people into an argument. It is so transparent. Carry on.
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