Client case studies

Accenture

Preferred-supplier agreement for education consulting; providing a training roadmap for people of varying skills levels.

The Challenge

As a world leader in providing e-business services, Accenture wanted to be an early adopter of Microsoft .NET and BizTalk 2004 Server. At the time, .NET was a new product and BizTalk Server had not begun shipping, so training was difficult to acquire. Microsoft recommended that the Accenture talk to Xpertise.

The Solution

Xpertise took a project-based approach to meeting Accenture’s skills requirements. This started with the production of an Accenture-specific education ‘roadmap’ – to vastly simplify the planning of training for people with diverse training requirements and different initial abilities. The roadmap took into account the various roles undertaken by Accenture’s staff and the technologies on which training would be required – and, at its broadest, provided a training path from zero skills right up to MCSD (Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer) accreditation. The roadmap was ‘media independent’ – including not only classroom training courses, but also self-paced training and e-learning, making it more applicable to people with either different learning styles or different abilities. It was also very flexible – allowing Accenture to quickly identify the training needed to support specific .NET projects.

The first component of the roadmap was a special ten-day course, aligned to Microsoft certification, which Xpertise created for Accenture. The course, which was linked to the bigger training programme, covered Microsoft’s development languages C#, ADO.NET and ASP.NET. It was developed by combining standard modules from the Microsoft Official Curriculum, with modules specifically developed by Xpertise. Delivery of the course has been very successful, with delegates achieving a high pass-rate in the subsequent examinations.

Xpertise has also developed a special ‘accelerated learning’ course on BizTalk, specially based around Accenture’s requirements. Developing this material ensured that the course precisely met Accenture’s needs, and overcame the absence of official course material in certain subject areas. This accelerated course reduced what would have been eight standard days’ training into just five – more intensive – days, by focusing tightly on Accenture’s needs.

Xpertise has been providing training .NET and BizTalk training to Accenture on an ongoing basis for over a year.