Accenture and Oracle Expand their Network of Innovation Centers

New Centers Launched in Tokyo and Istanbul

NEW YORK and REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. – Accenture (NYSE: ACN) and Oracle today announced the expansion of their global network of development centers with the opening of the Accenture Innovation Centers for Oracle in Tokyo and in Istanbul. These additions make Accenture the only systems integrator with innovation centers on Oracle campuses in Japan, Turkey, the United States and the United Kingdom.

The new centers will be staffed by teams of Accenture and Oracle professionals. The ‘single-team’ approach enables faster, cost-effective implementation of Oracle-based solutions, including those based on the number one application infrastructure foundation, Oracle® Fusion Middleware 11g. The new teams will collaborate with colleagues from similar Oracle centers in Europe and the United States.

“We’re looking forward to the centers in Japan and Turkey delivering the same results for our customers that we’ve achieved at the Accenture Innovation Centers on our campuses at Oracle Headquarters in Redwood Shores, California, and Reading, in the United Kingdom,” said John Gawkowski, vice president, platform technology solutions, Oracle. “The close alignment of our teams in these centers has proven to accelerate innovation and create value for our joint clients.”

Accenture Innovation Center for Oracle in Tokyo
The Accenture Innovation Center for Oracle in Japan will initially focus on two key areas: solutions linked to the introduction of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and a smooth transition for those companies moving to Enterprise Sales & Operation Planning (E-S&OP).

The center will develop solutions for the timely decision-making that is required for the introduction of IFRS. The solutions will be based on the latest applications from Oracle, such as the Oracle® E-Business Suite and Oracle® Hyperion Financial Management. The new center will also work with clients to ‘virtualize’ their businesses, helping them to create an IT infrastructure that supports change.

The Accenture Innovation Center for Oracle in Japan will also focus on solution development for enterprise performance management and supply management. This builds on the expertise of SOPIA, a leading Oracle systems integrator in Japan, which was acquired by Accenture last year.

Accenture Innovation Centre for Oracle in Istanbul
Accenture is the first systems integration and technology consulting company to open such a facility in Istanbul. The center supports joint clients across the region, including those in Italy and Russia.

The Istanbul center focuses on providing Oracle-based applications and products for clients seeking solutions in areas such as customer relationship management, billing and revenue management, business process management, performance management and information rights management.

Existing Accenture Innovation Centres for Oracle
Examples of joint Accenture-Oracle solutions developed at the US and UK innovation centers include:

· Industry-specific SOA-based solutions: The Automated Metering Infrastructure Outage management solution, built by Accenture for the utilities industry, monitors customer outages and connects or disconnects service remotely. The solution uses Oracle Business Process Management, Oracle Enterprise Service Bus and Oracle Complex Event Processing Engine.

· Oracle Applications and Enterprise Performance Management: These bring together the capabilities of Oracle’s Hyperion performance management applications, Demantra and the Oracle E-Business Suite to link business planning and forecasting with detailed operations, such as demand and inventory management, to enable timely decision-making.

· Oracle Application Integration Architecture (AIA): The innovation centers produce significant AIA work, including testing and deployments of AIA integration accelerators to help clients solve integration challenges while also laying a foundation for next generation applications. Accenture was the first company to implement AIA in the Communications industry at KPN in 2008.

· Oracle WebCenter Suite11g: Using Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g, Accenture built a next-generation workplace solution to help clients move from email-centric environments to modern and dynamic online business communities. The solution harnesses Oracle WebCenter Suite’s Enterprise 2.0 services to enable a cultural shift from ‘information hoarding’ to ‘information sharing’ services.

“Our Innovation Centers have been catalysts in furthering our partnership with Oracle and our ability to bring the best of both organizations to our clients,” said Jim Hayes, senior executive, Accenture. “They help to ensure that we’re investing in the right solutions to solve our clients’ business challenges and training our people so that we are always at the forefront of our industry.”

Accenture and Oracle have worked together for 19 years. Accenture has the largest and fastest-growing Oracle enterprise solutions practice among full-service integrators, with more than 44, 800 professionals around the world qualified to provide implementation, upgrade and application outsourcing solutions for the entire Oracle product stack.