Microsoft has awarded Accenture a seven-year contract extension to continue providing finance and accounting (F&A) and procurement business process services. Accenture will leverage artificial intelligence, automation and analytics capabilities to deliver better business insights and help Microsoft increase productivity and efficiency.
Accenture will leverage artificial intelligence technologies to interpret supplier inquiries and execute follow-up processes automatically, which is designed to improve customer service by accelerating response times and increasing accuracy. Accenture will also apply predictive and prescriptive analytics to provide data-driven insights, in the hope of improving the effectiveness of compliance activities and increasing the accuracy of global cash forecasting.
“Our longstanding collaboration with Accenture has enabled us, through our OneFinance initiative, to standardise our finance and accounting processes across 120 countries, improving compliance and control across our operations and reducing related costs by 30 percent,” said Grace Lao, general manager for Microsoft Finance Operations. “Building on the past nine years, we look forward to continuing to innovate and drive new transformation projects together with Accenture designed to reinvent Microsoft’s productivity and business processes.”
Sean McNamara, managing director for Accenture’s Communications, Media and Technology business, said, “Our relationship with Microsoft is one of the industry’s great examples of what two organisations can achieve in a long-term, which is sustained collaboration that’s focused on driving business outcomes. The intelligent automation and analytics capabilities that underpin our finance, accounting and procurement business process services can enable Microsoft to further automate processes and get business insights faster, paving the way for future growth.”
