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The Australian National BroadbandNetwork is an A$37.4 billion dollarproject designed to help Australiabecome one of the worlds leading

digital economies. In late 2009, theAustralian Government created NBNCo to build and operate the network.

Facing considerable constructionchallenges, NBN Co needed to build askilled workforce, technicalinfrastructure, a robust finance andprocurement system, supply chain andasset management solutions, projectmanagement capabilities, and healthand safety policies within tightdeadlines.

Working together, Accenture and NBNCo designed and implemented thesenew capabilities in record time.

Business situation

In early 2010, NBN Co employed fewer

than 50 staff and was working to an

aggressive 14 month timeline to design

and build the technical infrastructure

necessary to support the production,

operations and maintenance for the

companys core business capabilities.

A rigorous financial planning and

operation system needed to be

implemented for the A$37.4 billion

network to coincide with the new financialyear. And with construction estimated to

peak at daily installations worth A$11

million per day, NBN Co urgently needed

a supply chain strategy and asset

management system, as well as robust

project management capabilities.

NBN Co also required a flexible HR

function capable of recruiting 60 to 80

staff per month, and a health-and-safety

system that could maintain the highest

possible workplace safety standards on

hazardous sites. Last, to maintain control

over costs and delivery, NBN Coexecutives required systems to provide

visibility on all aspects of project finance,

construction, risks and procurement

performance.

How Accenture helped

NBN Co and Accenture formed a series

of joint teams to develop core NBN Co

capabilities.

Workforce

NBN Co and Accenture jointly

devised a HR strategy, whereby NBN

Co retained strategic HR decision-making while outsourcing all high-

volume HR transactions to

Accenture, including recruitment and

payroll.

In only 12 weeks, an Accenture

Business Process Outsourcing team

designed, built and tested a hosted

web-based recruitment platform

solution to manage an end-to-end

recruitment service for NBN Co.

During the same period, Accenture

developed an outsourced payroll

service which was later integratedwith the companys finance and

procurement applications.

Finance

NBN Co and Accenture designed a

financial and procurement

management system based on the

Financial Management and

Advanced Procurement modules of

the Oracle E-business Suite. They

also developed a phased deployment

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strategy to deliver the core system

including general ledger, accounts

receivable, cash management, fixed

assets and core procurement

capabilities.

To fast-track delivery, Accenture

customised some of the Oracle

modules, enabling the team to deploycore corporate finance capabilities in

a record 57 days.

Subsequent 90-day rolling

deployments provided additional

financial management capabilities as

operations expanded.

Supply Chain and Asset Management

In six months, NBN Co and

Accenture designed and

implemented materials forecast and

inventory management systems, and

an asset tracking system to capitaliseassets in accordance with their

location and material type both

based on E-Business Suite solutions

from Oracle.

The systems help NBN Co log, track

and account for network assets

which helps the NBN Co finance

team to properly manage the

capitalisation and depreciation of

network equipment, as well as

reconcile and identify asset

discrepancies.

Project Management

A joint NBN Co and Accenture team

built a single integrated project

management platform based on

Oracle Projects with Primavera P6,

and Oracle Procurement with

Primavera Contract Management.

Accenture designed and deployed an

innovative program and portfolio

management capability, and

integrated the existing Primavera

Contract Management applicationNBN Co used to manage third-party

contracts.

Health and Safety

During 2011, Accenture helped NBN

Co select, customise and deliver a

web-based system (iSafe), which

enables NBN Co to manage

incidents, hazards, risks, audit and

compliance, and disseminate safety

updates. By integrating the iSafe platform with

NBN Cos employee database,

Accenture helped remove the need

to manually transfer data between

systems and installed additional

security features to protect case-

sensitive information.

Business Intelligence

NBN Co and Accenture designed an

integrated business intelligence

solution based on Oracles Business

Intelligence Enterprise Edition 11g(OBIEE).

By customising out-of-the-box

capabilities, the joint team rapidly

gave NBN Co executives excellent

visibility on all aspects of project

finance, construction, risk and

procurement performance.

IT Platform

NBN Co and Accenture developed a

staggered, two-stage IT infrastructure

strategy that combined a package

standard approach with virtualised

private cloud services.

The team supplied numerous

production and non-production

technical environments at very short

notice, while a gating process

ensured solutions performed as

intended.

High performance delivered

Today, NBN Co executives have the

operational capabilities to help keep

construction on track and drive maximumvalue from Australias biggest public

infrastructure project. With integrated

project management systems, they can

manage more than 4,000 network

construction projects and maintain tight

control over billions of dollars of

expenditure during the 10-year

construction period.

Transparent financial reporting

With finance systems deployed prior

to construction, NBN Co can account

for every item of capital expenditure.

Up-to-date information on networkconstruction combined with

comprehensive and transparent

reporting helps executives retain

public and government confidence in

their ability to manage A$27.5 billion

of taxpayers money.

Exceptional people management

By outsourcing HR services, NBN Co

was able to build a skilled workforce,

recruiting new staff at a rate of over

80 staff per month. This enabled

executives to focus on core activities building the network.

In-built flexibility

Business intelligence capabilities

provide NBN Co executives with real-

time support so they can quickly and

efficiently adapt to fresh challenges.

With information gathered from every

construction site, health and safety

policy is continually refined and NBN

Co can take all precautions required

by Australian law. Underlying all its

new systems, NBN Co has an agile,

IT platform based on cloud

infrastructure that requires minimal

capital investment and has shortened

project delivery times.

With these systems and processes in

place on time, NBN Co is well positioned

to successfully deliver Australias first

national broadband network to all

Australians.

Contact

To find out more about

Accentures capabilities, contact:

accenture.direct@accenture.com, or

speak to your Accenture

representative.

This is an introduction to seven case studies demonstrating how Accenture helped deploy key capabilities for NBN Co.

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