Top 100: Healthcare.gov just part of Accenture's successful year

Nearly 20 million Americans visited Healthcare.gov soon after its launch in 2013 and expected a seamless, single point of access to sign up for, or investigate options for, health insurance. However, they found a site fraught with problems.

Reacting to the problems, President Barack Obama was blunt.

“I think it’s fair to say that nobody is more frustrated by that than I am—precisely because the product is good, I want the cash registers to work. I want the checkout lines to be smooth,” he said.

That’s when Accenture Federal Services stepped in.

“We landed over 500 people in the first six weeks of the program to work very closely with” the Centers of Medicare and Medicaid, said David Moskovitz, chief executive officer at Accenture Federal Services.

Alongside CMS and Accenture’s federal sector employees, the company brought some of its best commercial-sector employees. Some had worked closely with health insurance companies, people had strong backgrounds in eligibility requirements, and others had IT expertise.

The company combined its insights and intimacies with federal clients and its knowledge of the latest in the commercial market to stand up a faltering web portal that upset the president.

“It was really a flagship example of what Accenture is doing in the federal market,” Moskovitz said. “Certainly Healthcare.gov, and our participation in it and the turnaround, are very bright spots for us, for our client, and, really, for the country.”

The company landed at No. 17 on the 2015 Top 100 with $1.6 billion in prime contracts.

Along with Healthcare.gov, Accenture also had success in other fields, including student loan processing and suicide prevention efforts with the National Guard.

“I’m very bullish on what ’14 was about and our contribution in working together with our clients,” he said.

Over the past year, Accenture Federal Services began to expand its capabilities. Its purchase of Agilex Technologies Inc. in March enhanced its capabilities in analytics, cloud and mobility for federal agencies. It also added agile delivery expertise to further advance Accenture’s ability to deliver rapid value to clients.

In late 2013, Accenture completed its acquisition of ASM Research, which had three decades of experience in areas such as health care IT, information solutions, data analytics, cloud and data warehousing. Accenture said it can provide better clinical benefits and business solutions to defense and military health agencies that are modernizing their old infrastructure and systems.

“We stand for delivery and have a very strong track record for delivery,” Moskovitz said. The two acquisitions will further boost that capability.

The possibilities for mission support continue to change as rapidly as technologies. The military is finding new models in how it fights and how it prepares to support operations. For one, there is less need to be shoulder to shoulder with soldiers on the frontlines to support them.

“The expert may not be in harm’s way, but through the availability of cloud technology, high-bandwidth networks, high-resolution videos, the expert, in another part of the world, can help the warfighter fix the problem,” he said. Those are areas where commercial experience can play a role in supporting the government.

Looking ahead, the federal market overall is not growing, but Accenture’s strategy is to invest in a few key places, such as cloud and data analytics, while also training its employees so they have the skills to provide new solutions.

“While it’s a market that’s kind of flat and declining, I think we’re leaning in during this time, and as long as we deliver, stay close to our clients, and provide innovations, we’ll continue to do well,” he said.