Jason Hagman, an Accenture manager in the consulting workforce, is building on his prior Retek experience. “I’ve been working with this client since 2002, the beginning of the project, and we’ve been responsible for bringing the brands online with the Oracle software,” he says. “In that time, I’ve had various roles from team lead for conversions to managing a direct-to-consumer implementation.” Most recently, Jason has been driving the upgrade of the first brand to a more recent release while preparing the company for a big brand launch on the Oracle systems.
“Our job was to evaluate the client’s legacy systems and compare them with the Oracle offering,” he continues. “We then presented our ideas to our client team on how best to leverage Oracle and integrate the existing systems and functionality that the stakeholders wanted to keep. As a result of growing along with the project from conceptual design to launch, I have deepened my retail industry knowledge and broadened my understanding of Oracles’s footprint. This project has given me the opportunity to develop expertise in the direct-to-consumer space and one of the greatest rewards has been to apply that knowledge in assisting other Accenture projects.”
Jason works very closely with the Manila Delivery Center to coordinate efforts between the U.S. and Manila teams. “Working with the client, we developed recommendations on customizing the Oracle software for our client,” he notes. “We send functional requirements to the Manila team to design and build the interface and conversion work we do for the Retek product. Once completed, we integrate the deliverables into the company’s environments, progress through the test phases onshore and then bring them through into a production system.”
Essah Aripio, from the services workforce, is the team lead at the Manila Delivery Center and is Jason’s direct contact. “One of the challenges that we face on a daily basis is meeting the tight deadlines of the client,” she says. “It is my responsibility to determine what is realistic in terms of timing and convey that information to the U.S. team. We need to work together to prioritize our initiatives so that we do not sacrifice quality or go over budget. By keeping our communication lines open I can minimize downtime for the Manila team and keep them working on a fairly steady schedule.” Essah is proud of the team and all of the skills they’ve learned. “This is a very good team and all of the members are very supportive of each other. It’s important that I fully understand the design and build needs from Jason so that I can accurately convey the information to my Manila team. As a result, I’m developing even stronger technology by communicating with both teams.”
Stacie Johnson is a senior manager leading the retail consulting team, specifically working on implementation and user acceptance testing. She says, “We’re implementing a significant business process change for this client and whatever we do needs to work flawlessly when it goes live. One of our early wins was delivering a new pricing/promotion execution solution integrating Oracle price management and POS. Previously, the store associates would have to look up specific promotions and manually scan the right SKU to get the lower price. The value that we’ve provided is that as soon as the quantity is reached, the discounted price is now automatically given. This has been a success and was a big win.”
Regan Poston, a senior manager leading the development in the U.S. consulting workforce, concurs with Stacie. “As the senior manager on the project, my role is to oversee the multiple delivery aspects of the project at a high level. I first helped manage the design phase, then helped build out some of the components we designed. Now that we have delivered, we are running and managing those systems. I now spend the majority of my time managing client, contractor and Accenture personnel for delivery of the client’s production systems. I work closely with the Manila Delivery Center, the India Delivery Center and with Oracle on the requirements for the overall application that we’re building.”
Regan continues, “This client is the best at what they do and we’re helping them to be even better. Working with an interesting client and new technology, I can’t help but learn something new every day. But what I find even more exciting is that I add value to the client. With a lot of coordination between all of our teams in the U.S. and Manila, we have been able to succeed where others have tried and failed.”