Avanade reviews

The NA EBS group I was with was small compared to how some of the other divisions were set up. With that, you'd assume that you could have some good visibility with the director of the applicaiton group and Sr. Director of EBS. Now looking back on my experience, I do see that 'visibility' came to those that were apart of the 'in' crowd. With how we were so distributed across the country and how we were staffed on projects (many times without anyone else from the actual application group), each consultant was his own island...until needing support from others using the email group. There was no true way of getting into the 'in' crowd unless you were staffed on a large project that needed attending by the application Director. My CM and my director never got to know me or my true skill set because of the island. That was truely too bad for Avanade and for me. The other major con was the sales life cycle. I think the process used for sales and closing deals is a HUGE obstacle for shoring up what's in the pipeline...to the detriment of the consultants. The overall sales life cycle was/is way TOO long and overly complicated with checks and balances for most small and mid sized projects. My current employer snags deals left and right from Avanade because we are able to nimbly navigate concerns, SOWs, and contracts with prospective clients far more quickly than Avanade can respond.

1.) Accenture. While it's set up as a partnership and ostensibly a "best of both worlds" organization, it truly isn't. I'd say the culture is in line with the relative ownership percentages of Accenture (81%) and Microsoft (~19%). While Accenture is certainly a large and prestigious organization, they are also rather clumsy to adapt to environments, organizationally bloated and have a habit of overworking employees. This has most definitely made its way into Avanade. 2.) Area "design". As of my departure, the areas (e.g. Desert, Mountain, PacNW, etc...) were becoming quite top heavy and there was really no way for upper level employees to progress since there was generally one director per area (this did change a bit with some minor restructuring however). Just keep in mind that if you go in at a high level (Arch / Manager / Sr Manager), you're likely to be stuck there for a while. 3.) The bonus plan is somewhat ridiculous and tied very little to your individual performance. They haven't seem to have quite mastered the aspects of a proper bonus program and you're tied too directly to the performance of other regions and areas. 4.) If you're a low level employee, expect to work a lot - and get paid little for it. I've had numerous downline reports overworked (60+ hours for 6+ months) and they got very little to show for it. Even worse, if you're a mid level (35-45 in the old leveling system) you get no overtime. When overtime is paid, it's paid only for the difference between the hours worked and 50 hours, so if you work 51 hours, you get 1 hour of straight time. Expect people to take advantage of this fact - they do. Sadly, the company doesn't do a lot to address these issues. 5.) You'd better really like Accenture. That's their bread and butter and they've changed the business model around repeatedly to support it. In fact, most of the business is generated from Accenture so you will be on Accenture projects and have little to no say in the direction or management of them as you have no chain to report through that's remotely effective.