Using Mergers & Acquisitions to Achieve Strategic Objectives and High Performance in the Consumer Goods and Services IndustryBy Larry Thomas, Thomas J. Herd, Ken Dickman, Joey Lanius and Natalie Francis

2 | Using Mergers & Acquisitions to Achieve Strategic Objectives and High Performance in the Consumers Goods and Services Industry

Introduction

Key Strengths of Consumer Goods and Services Leaders

Strategic Category Leadership

Consumer Focus

Flexible and Low-Cost Operations

Conclusion

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Table of contents

The consumer goods and services (CG&S) industry—whose primary product categories are household, personal care, and food and beverage—constantly evolves to address market and customer trends while positioning itself for future growth and profitability. Historically, it has been a rather fragmented industry, with only a few clear category leaders that dominate on a global scale. Furthermore, CG&S high performers have consistently focused on building number-one or number-two positions in a limited number of innovation-sensitive categories or niches.

However, recent years have brought changes to the dynamics of this landscape. Most significantly, a US economic recession has strongly impacted all industries. CG&S companies have been forced to reevaluate their product lines, operating models, and target markets, seeking to align their portfolios of businesses and products to recover from recent industry challenges and pursue high performance in the future.

In this paper, Accenture explores how CG&S companies are turning to merger and acquisition strategies to address key industry challenges and market trends, and pursue market leadership in an increasingly competitive landscape through constant reevaluation and realignment of their product portfolios. Specifically, we review three areas in which high-performance businesses in the CG&S industry excel: strategic category leadership, consumer focus, and flexible, low-cost operations. We also discuss how CG&S companies are using buy-side and sell-side transactions to improve their performance in these areas and meet investors’ increasingly demanding expectations.

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Introduction

In fact, Accenture’s ongoing High-Performance Business research has identified four distinctive capabilities and one market focus and position in which these industry leaders excel:

MArKeT FOCUS And POSITIOn

• Strategic category leadership, which Accenture defines as the ability to ensure investments are focused on categories in which the company can win and, in the process, drive value creation.

dISTInCTIve CAPABILITIeS

• Consumer focus, also known as “Solution Marketing,” which enables companies to respond to trends that could disrupt their product portfolio with appropriate and differentiated new offers that meet consumer needs.

• Flexible and low-cost operations, which centers on achieving scale efficiencies in the company’s back office and supply chain while maintaining strong local commercial functions, such as sales and marketing, which are critical to gaining share in local markets.

• Customer & Channel Management, which includes a laser focus on key customers, channels and optimal product availability in the marketplace.

Key Strengths of Consumer Goods and Services Leaders

• High Performance Management, which is a company’s ability to drive financial goals in performance measurement and to multiply talent to generate superior levels of effort.

While all of these contribute to the pursuit of high performance among leading CG&S companies, the first three—strategic category leadership, consumer focus, and flexible and low-cost operations— are the ones that such organizations seek to achieve through mergers and acquisitions.

When pursuing excellence in these three areas, CG&S companies often find that internal efforts only take them so far and do not enable them to meet investor expectations. That’s why M&A has become increasingly important to, and prevalent among, leading CG&S companies. For example, when valuing a consumer goods company, investors place at least as much importance on the company’s future value as on its current value. Inherent in that valuation is the expectation the company will continue to innovate and create more offerings that capture consumers’ attention and meet their needs.

4 | Using Mergers & Acquisitions to Achieve Strategic Objectives and High Performance in the Consumers Goods and Services Industry

There are specific qualities that separate high-performance consumer goods and services companies from others.

However, in most cases a CG&S company cannot meet investors’ growth expectations by tweaking or organically innovating its existing business. even if management pulled all available levers to enhance the company’s return on invested capital (rOIC), the result may not be enough to close the gap between actual and expected performance.

In other words, companies must do more than improve upon their existing business to satisfy investors. And that “more” is enabled by M&A: It allows companies to close the gap between their current financial performance and where investors expect them to be. M&A can help consumer goods companies substantially improve in strategic category leadership, consumer focus, and flexible and low-cost operations, either by expanding upon existing capabilities or by acquiring entirely new capabilities that can help the company achieve its growth goals.

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6 | Using Mergers & Acquisitions to Achieve Strategic Objectives and High Performance in the Consumers Goods and Services Industry

One way is through “bolt-on” acquisitions that can generate instant strategic value through revenue and cost synergies. For example, when Unilever acquired hair care brand Alberto Culver, the acquirer’s existing hair care product line helped it quickly utilize its manufacturing and supply chain practices to achieve cost synergies. Likewise, such acquisitions give the acquirer access to new market opportunities and customers, and allow it to offer additional products to its existing customers. For Unilever, this meant being able to offer new types of hair care products and introduce similar products at new price points, which was a particular advantage in the UK market.

When executed properly, acquisitions can empower a company to create a portfolio of brands that build off each other’s strengths without cannibalizing one another. For instance, reckitt Benckiser, the world’s third-largest home care company and fifth-largest OTC drug company, continues to add home and personal care products to its portfolio through acquisitions. It has identified a group of 19 key products as “Powerbrands,” which range from dish soap to air freshener to cold medicine. Through this portfolio of acquired brands, the company provides consumers with multiple products that meet home and personal care needs, without taking share away from its other product categories.

In addition, companies should invest in selective M&A and in the rigorous disposal of non-core businesses, as well as establish a vision and strategy that focuses on the new business and target brands. For example, Kraft strives to hold a #1 or #2 market position in every category and, as a result, divested Post in 2007 because the brand did not consistently maintain a market position that met the company’s objectives. Similarly, Procter & Gamble narrowed its focus as a category leader in household products by systematically divesting its food businesses such as JIF, Planters, and most recently, Pringles. Investment in strategic companies is one half of the equation, while investment in post-merger integration leadership, strategy, and execution is the other half.1

Acquisitions also can enhance strategic category leadership by giving acquirers first-mover advantage in emerging markets, as well as access to affordable real estate and assets while prices are still low. In some instances, M&A provides companies with access to pre-existing licensing deals held by the target companies. For instance, when J.M. Smucker acquired Folgers, the latter brand’s licensing and distribution agreement with dunkin’ donuts gave Smucker accelerated access to new points of distribution and partnership relationships.

Several key success factors enable companies to use M&A to drive strategic category leadership. One such factor is making fewer, bigger, and more profitable bets. Focusing on a few large acquisitions enables a company to truly pursue its growth strategy, as well as dedicate resources and effort toward the post-merger integration that is so critical to success. However, recent Accenture research finds that large acquisitions less frequently create shareholder value than smaller deals, making a well- considered acquisition strategy and rigorous well-resourced merger integration even more critical to get right.

To excel in strategic category leadership, companies also should make global tradeoffs to build business rapidly. For example, to establish a presence quickly in a booming local market, a company may enter into a variety of partnership agreements, including acquisitions, licensing, joint ventures, and supplier agreements. While doing so certainly may expedite a company’s entry into a new market, the company may have to cede some control over the manufacturing, distribution, and branding processes for

Strategic Category LeadershipThe core of strategic category leadership is based on building a strong, dominant brand portfolio in specific categories. It entails leveraging the scale of global brands, while introducing local items in high-potential emerging markets to augment those brands. How does M&A help CG&S companies achieve these goals?

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the sake of expediency. Another key success factor for companies involved in global M&A is the ability to manage alliances with a critical eye toward the incentives, capabilities and operating culture of partners.

Once a deal is consummated, CG&S companies must allocate resources efficiently and with an eye to their strategic goals, focusing on the quick wins and other efforts that create value.2 They also must decide very early on which brands, products, and core systems to keep and which to decommission, which in turn enables a clearer sequencing of integration activities and more effective integration planning.3

8 | Using Mergers & Acquisitions to Achieve Strategic Objectives and High Performance in the Consumers Goods and Services Industry

Diageo PLC provides an example of how M&A can help a company improve its strategic category leadership. The alcoholic beverage segment is experiencing massive growth in developing markets due to rising affluence and an increase in the number of younger consumers while continued economic weakness is impacting its business in Western Europe. To continue on its strong growth trajectory, Diageo has set an ambitious growth target for itself. A particularly strong focus on developing markets aims to increase their contribution to net sales to 50 percent by 2015, an increase of 16 percent from today’s current net sales contribution.

In order to achieve this 50 percent net sales goal, diageo has sought to broaden its developing market brand positioning through targeted acquisitions as well as through innovation that focuses on the emerging middle class consumer. recent acquisitions Mey İçki, ShuiJingFang and Meta Beer have broadened its portfolio even further. In addition, diageo has entered into joint venture agreements with Heineken in South Africa and Malaysia, as well as LvMH to help it quickly build a presence in those regions without assuming the challenges and risks associated with a typical outright acquisition.

One way that diageo drives maximum value from these deals is by focusing on using them to bolster its strategic category leadership in both developing and developed markets. For example, the Ketel One acquisition gave diageo a leading brand in the super premium vodka category, first in the US, where it continues to drive significant growth. It is now using its strong distribution and global scale to expand it out in fast-growing vodka markets such as Brazil. Another example is the Zacapa acquisition, a super premium rum providing diageo with access to another fast-growing global rum market.

diageo also uses acquisitions not only to expand reach and category position, but also to improve its positioning and perception as a local company. regulation plays a significant role in the alcoholic beverage industry and is seen as a serious threat to international organizations in developing markets. For example, russia has significantly increased taxes on the big foreign beer players (e.g. Carlsberg) while leaving the mostly locally-owned and politically-sensitive vodka market untouched. Therefore, diageo is keen to be seen as part of the local market from both a regulator and a talent perspective.

Improving strategic category leadership though M&A: Diageo

Acquisitions like Mey Icki and ShuiJingFang clearly play that role in addition to expanding access for its international brands (Mey Icki in Turkey) and utilizing its existing scale to improve distribution (ShuiJingFang in diageo’s global duty free network). In these cases, diageo is potentially even considering listing these companies on local stock exchanges to further demonstrate its commitment as a “local” company.

Another key to diageo’s dominance is its pursuit of a “total alcohol” strategy. Until 2002, the company’s brand portfolio included food companies such as Burger King and Pillsbury. diageo decided its best path to growth was focusing solely on alcoholic beverages and, thus, divested its food interests, but remains invested in beer which is a strong growth market in particular in Africa.

These efforts have paid off: diageo enjoys number-one or number-two market positioning in most of its strategic categories, and its approach to portfolio management allows it to win in both high-value (developed) markets with premium brands and in high-potential (developing) markets with economy brands.

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For instance, with the global economy still sluggish in many parts of the world, consumer goods companies must create less-expensive offers to appeal to cash-strapped consumers. In the food and beverage segment specifically, consumers are spending less on restaurants and eating at home more often, as well as considering buying more private-label brands. Going forward, the winning CG&S companies will be those that can stay ahead of such shifts.

M&A can help companies maintain a strong consumer focus in many ways. It can help a company quickly increase the size of its customer base and target existing customers with new products, especially when a company’s product development capabilities are not sufficiently robust to create appropriate and relevant offerings that meet emerging needs. One example is energy drinks: Many large beverage companies have acquired smaller sports and energy drinks makers to respond to consumers’ increasing appetite for these drinks, and because these large companies did not have such products in their r&d pipelines.

Another example can be seen among large household and personal care players, which have continued to increase their presence in consumer health markets through acquisitions. This is particularly evident with reckitt Benckiser, which is

continuing to focus its investments in and drive acquisitions of consumer health product lines. Such actions are designed to help the company target consumers in over-the-counter (OTC) and consumer health, extending its relationships with existing home and personal care consumers through brand loyalty and reputation.

M&A also can increase brand loyalty and customer retention during economic downturns. Through the right acquisitions, CG&S companies can offer a range of similar products at different price points, thus maintaining a presence with consumers even as they adjust their lifestyles to economic fluctuations.

As with strategic category leadership, companies can excel in using M&A to improve consumer focus by employing several best practices. CG&S companies that are strong in consumer focus tend to have very mature business processes, and therefore can share knowledge and decision-making throughout the business, including with newly acquired product teams and lines of business. Such knowledge transfer can accelerate a new brand’s success in the market, allowing the acquirer to apply well-established practices to new areas of the business while improving existing products’ market positions.

Consumer FocusIn addition to helping companies like diageo strengthen strategic category leadership, M&A presents many opportunities to boost consumer focus. CG&S companies that have a strong consumer focus can respond quickly and effectively to dynamic consumer trends that have the potential to disrupt their existing product portfolio.

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Similarly, using M&A to improve consumer focus depends upon having fully integrated trade marketing, supply chain, and customer service processes. The transfer of customer information is critical for businesses looking to generate short- and long-term value by cross-selling products through its current sales force. doing so maintains continuity and relationships with customers, and is a value-creating approach to post-merger integration. Likewise, it is important to engage in deep collaboration with customers, foster customer service flexibility to deal with unanticipated variances and needs, and tailor service to customer priority levels.

Having such tightly integrated business processes stems from a targeted and cohesive corporate strategy, as well as from constant communication and collaboration among all business areas. With such communication in place, CG&S companies can identify and address opportunities and shortcomings quickly, thus pinpointing new acquisition targets that will improve and grow the business.

Consumer focus also can be boosted by the use of sophisticated trade management and promotional analytics to maximize rOI in supermarkets. deep knowledge of consumer trends and habits paired with advanced statistical analysis enables a CG&S company to develop merchandising and branding strategies that help target the right customer base.

Similarly, it can be valuable to have access to real-time point-of-sale (POS) information, and to understand how to utilize this information to make key decisions to cater to consumer buying trends. One proven approach is partnering with retailers in developed markets, and with distributors in emerging markets. Such relationships can work in a variety of ways: For instance, an acquirer with privileged retailer POS data can apply that knowledge to new products. Conversely, an acquired company may have a previous relationship with a retailer to obtain POS data, to which the acquirer gains access.

Successful companies also boost consumer focus by acquiring targets that enable them to become more vertically integrated (thus cutting costs and streamlining production) and expand their geographic presence. This helps not only target more customers, but also facilitate broader and more efficient distribution.

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As noted earlier, Reckitt Benckiser is a leader in strategic category leadership, using acquisitions to build a powerful portfolio of brands that help it dominate many of the segments in which it participates. The company is equally adept at using acquisitions to boost its consumer focus. Indeed, one of the keys to its successful inorganic growth is its tight focus on top customers and channels and on maintaining optimal product availability.

Over a period of seven years, reckitt Benckiser executed a host of acquisitions that have expanded its portfolio of consumer health brands by a factor of four. Throughout these acquisitions, the company has dedicated significant time, resources, and money to researching its current and potential customers, thus developing a deep understanding of their needs and enabling the company to respond quickly to consumer trends. The company also has developed a product delivery strategy that integrates these needs with its core competencies and existing strengths. Typically, this has meant targeting busy urban consumers with products that help them improve household cleanliness and hygiene.

In 2010, reckitt Benckiser acquired Paras Pharmaceuticals, one of India’s largest healthcare groups. In existence for more than 40 years, Paras has a strong foothold in the Indian home and personal care market, and is well known for its ability to create new categories and products that resonate with its consumers. This innovative and entrepreneurial culture has been a great match for reckitt Benckiser as it strives to reach new customers through consumer-centric products.

Indeed, the Paras acquisition typifies reckitt Benckiser’s tight focus on identifying unmet customer needs and delivering on them. The acquisition not only gives reckitt Benckiser an immediate customer base in the highly attractive Indian market, but also provides it with a partner that has spent several decades developing unique products tailored to its consumers. Just as important, Paras targets customers who are receptive to reckitt Benckiser’s offerings—those who seek basic, effective products focused on hygiene.

Because of this market strength, the acquisition will enable reckitt Benckiser to expand its reach in India, gaining approximately 60 percent more outlets in semi-urban and rural areas. Given that developing markets account for nearly a quarter of reckitt Benckiser’s sales and are growing quickly (showing 18 percent revenue growth in the third quarter of 2010), this expanded market reach in India positions the company for a significant upside.

Throughout the integration of this acquisition, reckitt Benckiser has fostered a company- wide focus on using customer and market information to improve decision-making and more effectively meet consumer buying trends. The company’s operating model supports this strategy by encouraging cross-enterprise brainstorming and the inclusion of multiple perspectives in product development.

Improving consumer focus through M&A: Reckitt Benckiser

direct collaboration with customers is important to the company as well: It generates ideas that target consumers in specific areas and evaluates them on a quarterly basis, soliciting direct consumer input. Such consumer-driven innovation is fundamental to reckitt Benckiser’s highly effective consumer segmentation and premium positioning. In fact, overall reckitt Benckiser spent $195 million on research in 2009, an increase of 16 percent over 2008. The company derives 35 percent of its revenue from new products, which is one of the highest innovation rates in its industry.

This emphasis on consumer focus has enabled reckitt Benckiser to double its net revenue since 2000 and secure either the top or second-highest position in the majority of its fast-growing categories. In fact, the company is growing faster than any of its competitors in the consumer healthcare market, a testament to its ability to achieve stronger consumer focus through acquisitions.

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At a high level, having flexible and low-cost operations means achieving scale efficiencies in a company’s back office and supply chain while maintaining the strong sales and marketing capabilities that are critical to gaining share in those markets. It involves ridding operations of duplication, and enabling seamless execution, speedy decision-making, scalability and integration.

M&A can foster the development of these qualities in a number of ways. For example, a company can use a tuck-in acquisition to expand its product line while utilizing pre-existing production facilities and avoiding the construction costs and capital outlays associated with organic growth. The result is a lower-cost supply chain that boosts margins on new products.

Furthermore, the increased economies of scale gained through M&A can support more sustainable, longer-term operations that weather economic shifts more readily. Indeed, to help curb rising costs of ingredients, raw materials, and production and distribution, many CG&S companies are investing in M&A not to grow their product line, but to streamline operations and achieve greater control over the value chain. Similarly, the vertical integration and network expansion that can be derived from M&A often acts as a foundation for future growth and partnership opportunities.

To successfully use M&A to improve the flexibility and cost profile of their operations, leading CG&S companies emphasize leveraging economies of scale across their global network. In particular, this means utilizing common manufacturing and distribution facilities to build and distribute a variety of products, as well as partnering with local companies and branches to produce and distribute products.

Leaders also focus on adopting a long-term approach that includes investments in lean processes and technology. This means continually streamlining and improving their operations, always looking for new opportunities to acquire companies that help them become more vertically integrated. It also means building a supply chain that not only operates efficiently, but can adjust quickly to interruptions to daily operations.

Two other keys to leaders’ success: being able to integrate acquisitions rapidly to avoid lengthy, poorly executed integrations that can squander potential cost savings; and having existing mature, established operational processes that enable the companies to reinvest cost savings into the business in the form of additional acquisitions and updates to equipment and technology.

Flexible and Low-Cost OperationsToday’s consumer market is rapidly changing and, in the wake of the global recession, is becoming more focused on value. Thus, it is important for CG&S companies to build flexible, low-cost operations that empower them to offer superior customer value and keep up with dynamic consumer demands. As with strategic category leadership and consumer focus, M&A can be a powerful way to build this quality into a business.

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One company that illustrates the successful cultivation of flexible, low-cost operations through M&A is Grupo Bimbo SAB de CV (Bimbo), a Mexico City-based company that produces and wholesales a variety of pre-packaged foods.

Currently operating in 16 countries, Bimbo has the most extensive distribution network in Mexico, and operates one of the largest networks in the Americas. despite its rapid international expansion and resultant geographic dispersion, Bimbo maintains operational efficiency through the use of sophisticated logistical planning to keep the business functioning efficiently.

Furthermore, in the past five years Bimbo has invested in overhauling its IT systems. Its goal has been establishing a reliable, safe, centralized and readily available IT infrastructure to maximize sales, as well as assess market trends and the varying needs of its clients to distribute its products more efficiently. Because distribution is complicated by the nature of Bimbo’s products, many of which are highly perishable, stores must be serviced directly and on a daily basis. Therefore, Bimbo must guarantee uninterrupted, fresh product delivery, which places heavy demands on its distribution network.

Importantly, Bimbo is updating its systems and distribution network to keep pace with the industry and stay connected with its customers. For example, in the US it implemented an advanced commercial system to increase sales and in-stock items and reduce returns. Bimbo also has introduced on-route “enlace” docking stations that connect empty trucks with re-stocked trailers.

M&A has played an important role in Grupo Bimbo’s cultivation of flexible, low-cost operations, as well as in its continued growth as a CG&S leader. In fact, the company has made 15 acquisitions since 2002, approximately two-thirds of which have been cross-border. To maximize the power of these acquisitions to drive low-cost, flexible operations, Bimbo has focused on geographies it already serves, and on existing product categories. even more important, Bimbo has used its impressive scale to achieve more efficient distribution. For example, the company recently acquired two US bakery companies to expand its distribution reach across the US, and to achieve critical mass and economies of scale within the bakery category in north America. Bimbo’s focus on producing and distributing bakery products also has helped, allowing the company to integrate acquisition targets into existing production and distribution processes quickly, which is critical to each deal’s ability to generate value.

Most importantly, Bimbo’s approach to M&A has helped it weather economic storms that have battered other CG&S companies. For instance, despite slow growth in the north American and Latin American bakery category, Bimbo has grown by acquiring local producers and suppliers that have been hurt by economic conditions and by the market dominance of a few large players.

Driving flexible and low-cost operations through M&A: Grupo Bimbo

ConclusionIn a rapidly evolving world, the consumer goods and services industry tends to stay on the leading edge of global trends. It has to: Its core business is identifying and meeting the diverse needs of an equally diverse global population. As new economies gain strength, tastes and needs shift, and aggressive new competitors emerge, staying ahead of the curve becomes more important, and more difficult.

14 | Using Mergers & Acquisitions to Achieve Strategic Objectives and High Performance in the Consumers Goods and Services Industry

For top CG&S companies, mergers and acquisitions are a powerful approach to keeping up to speed with this dynamic environment. In particular, industry leaders rely on three key capabilities that can be strengthened through M&A: strategic category leadership, consumer focus, and flexible, low-cost operations. In concert these capabilities enable global CG&S leaders to build market-dominating portfolios, stay close to legions of dissimilar customers around the world, and operate in ways that deliver superior value to customers, as well as to the business itself.

In essence, M&A allows CG&S companies to go beyond what their internal efforts can achieve, allowing them to tap into the capabilities, market strength, and distribution networks of other leading firms in the markets and segments most central to their growth strategy. no wonder, then, that for leading global consumer goods and services companies, mergers and acquisitions are an increasingly important element of high performance.

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References

About the authors

1 Andy Tinlin and Alberto verga, “Seven Catalysts for Merger Integration Success,” 2010 Accenture point of view, page 9

2 Andy Tinlin and Alberto verga, “Seven Catalysts for Merger Integration Success,” 2010 Accenture point of view, page 10

3 Andy Tinlin and Alberto verga, “Seven Catalysts for Merger Integration Success,” 2010 Accenture point of view, page 9

Larry Thomas leads Accenture’s Consumer Goods & Services Consulting practice in north America and specializes in the development and execution of business strategy and technology strategy projects.He has over 15 years experience working with clients across a wide range of industries, including Professional Services, Consumer Packaged Goods, Media, and retail. Over the past several years, he has successfully led major transformational change programs including Strategic due diligence, Merger Integration, Sales & Marketing transformations, global Cost reduction programs, development of innovative IT Strategies and large-scale erP implementations. He is based in new York.

larry.thomas@accenture.com

Thomas J. Herd is the managing director of Accenture’s north America Mergers & Acquisitions group. He has 15 years of consulting experience in industries such as energy, chemicals, metals, forest products, government, life sciences and consumer products, and he has assisted with more than 35 M&A engagements. He has also written numerous articles on achieving success through many phases of the M&A lifecycle. He is based in Chicago.

thomas.j.herd@accenture.com

Ken Dickman is a senior executive in Accenture’s Operational Strategy practice and leads Accenture’s Consumer Goods & Services n. American Strategy Practice in addition to Accenture’s Consumer Goods & Services Marketing and Sales Transformation client offering. With 16 years consulting experience and more than 19 years of strategy development and implementation experience, he focuses on increasing growth for both CPG and retail clients via organic growth initiatives that develop and implement growth strategies and value-based transformation programs that build the marketing, sales, category management, merchandising and supply chain capabilities. He is based in Chicago.

kenneth.dickman@accenture.com

Joey Lanius is a senior executive who leads Accenture’s Manufacturing Operations Offering. He has successfully managed multiple corporate wide improvement and operations transformation initiatives in the Automotive, Chemical, Consumer Products, Transportation, Packaging, Food and Metals industries. He has a broad background developed through key leadership roles including Operations Management, Operations Integration Lead, engineering Management (design, Manufacturing & Packaging) and Lean Six Sigma deployment. He is based in dallas.

joey.d.lanius@accenture.com

Natalie Francis is a Consultant in Accenture’s Management Consulting Products Strategy practice. Her consulting experience spans a broad client base within Consumer Goods & Services and retail industries where she specializes in leading clients through development and implementation of growth strategy, operating model design, and sales and marketing transformation strategy. She is based in Chicago.

natalie.francis@accenture.com

About AccentureAccenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with more than 246,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$25.5 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2011. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

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