Agriculture taps Accenture for e-gov consulting

Accenture Ltd. has won a $500,000, four-month contract from the Department of Agriculture to develop recommendations for a departmentwide e-government strategy, the company announced Jan. 7.

As part of the agreement, Accenture of Hamilton, Bermuda, also will help the department design processes that would bring it into compliance with the Government Paperwork Elimination and the Freedom to eFile acts.

Accenture previously handled the strategic planning that led to the transition to a paperless environment for the departments of Housing and Urban Development and Treasury. Those departments subsequently were commended by the Office of Management and Budget for being among the few federal departments with solid plans for complying with the Paperwork Elimination Act, according to Accenture.

One benefit of an information collection, storage and retrieval system that takes full advantage of the latest technology and reduces paper is that government also can reduce operating costs and safeguard important files from being destroyed in an unexpected disaster, such as the vital government paperwork that was lost in the attack on the World Trade Center.

Accenture has more than 75,000 employees and annual revenue of $11.4 billion.