EMC announced yesterday the creation of a business unit, Information Solutions Consulting, that it will operate in a five-year partnership pact with Accenture.
The new business unit, based within EMC's Global Services division, comes in response to a growing consulting marketplace, as well as CEO and president Joe Tucci's vision to remake EMC's business so that 50 per cent of revenue is derived from hardware, 30 per cent from software and 20 per cent from services.
At the end of last year, hardware represented 61 per cent of EMC sales, software 22 per cent and services 14 per cent. Four per cent qualified as "other," according to the company.
About 100 employees from EMC and 100 from Accenture will work in the new unit, which will focus on global accounts in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. EMC wouldn't disclose the costs involved in the deal but said they're based on a revenue and profitability-sharing formula.
"They have a vested interest in growing this business," said EMC's senior vice president of Global Services, Joseph Walton.
EMC said it will focus on four service categories: storage infrastructure and strategies, which includes aligning a company's long-term business and IT goals; storage consolidation and operational and capital expenditures; storage management optimisation; and business continuity, which will include disaster recovery planning and the cost models that go along with that.
"It goes outside the realm of just EMC products," Walton said. "The end services we are going to bring to market with this new business are focused at the CIO level of instruction, and they may or may not end up with a product recommendation."
As part of the deal, Accenture has also agreed not to form any similar alliances with EMC competitors.
"Through Accenture's business transformation outsourcing, EMC can focus on the customer and leverage its deep knowledge of storage solutions while relying on Accenture's extensive professional services and management experience," said Bill Green, group chief executive of Accenture's Communications & High Tech operating group.
EMC will use its existing sales force to leverage its global accounts, and Accenture will use EMC as a preferred provider for storage products, Walton said.
"We're also making this entity available outside of its current environment for channel partners to use," he said.
