I'm an ATS guy. I've been discussing with some colleagues of mine at some length how ATS is seen by Consulting in Accenture. A full spectrum of views have been expressed, but Consultants have been very cagey and reluctant to discuss anything at all. I'm interested in hearing the personal views of ACN Consultants on how they view ATS and especially on how Consulting are being briefed on ATS.

Hi im a C3 in SBA. DOnt take this the wrong way: people just considerr ATS a completely separate part of the company - not consulting at all. That shouldnt be demeaning, its just a different line of work. Consulting do not get 'briefed', but there is a tendency to use ATS as pawns when needed. Transfer through!

This is an excellent question.They are briefed as follows: "You will work alongside services staff. Differentiate yourself in your flexibility, leadership and career aspirations."ATS is a more traditional engineering career model - quite low risk, and with that comes perhaps some feeling on your part that your career is not developing like the consultancy staff. You seem to have had an awakening that there is some injustice here - and I would say to you to keep a lid on it: you will only upset your colleagues if you start to spread disatisfaction.If your aspirations are for consultancy - well why not apply to Deloitte or something?

Thanks for reply. Believe me this subject - ATS vs Consulting - is discussed almost continually in ATS but with the complete absence of any views from Consulting, which is the reason for my original post.

As part of my engineering degree I worked as an engineer for a year in an industrial placement - a role very similar in career model as yours.I learnt that technical prowess on its own would not lead to a well rewarded career - one would also need to secure a role which exercises your non-technical faculties.Thus when assessing Consultancy vs ATS I opted for Consultancy, and accepted that this would mean a more front line role - which is more highly rewarded but not without its downsides. Now obviously there are 10,000 ACN employees in the UK alone, so you cannot generalise too much - but it is a general rule that consultants work longer hours: now I have no stats here, but based on anecdotal evidence.A more obvious downside to Consultancy is that there are no landing spots. In ATS you could get comfortable and put your feet under the table, and this may provide some psychological peace of mind. Of course if you turn this around what it means is that promotion in ATS is slow - as it is in all straight engineering careers.The grass is always greener on the other side - Consultants see ATS go home at night and wish they could, while ATS look at Consultants pay cheques and wish they could have that.I dunno why Consultants are cagey about it - my speculation is that they're conscious that if they do engage in conversation with a bunch of ATS staff about whether or not they deserve the extra benefits that it would be quite a threatening scenario.If you did the same job in a large corporation like Microsoft you wouldn't be in such close contact with these COnsultant type people, so the perceived injustice wouldn't be so much in your face. But you should be aware that in industry all the client facing Marketing roles are more highly rewarded than engineering. I think the concept is "the closer you are to the money" the more money you get. Consultants day to day decisions will have direct impact on the profitability of a project.The question I am asking is - truthfully, is the only difference between your job and a Consultant's the reward, or are there genuine differences which you can identify? Do Consultant's do things when you are gone, or are you the last one out at night?Then - objectively, do you think these justify the reward?These are genuine questions, I have no opinion either way.

To answer your questions yes honestly the only difference I can identify between Consulting and ATS is in terms of pay, promotion, training, and opportunities for good roles. My experience is that ATS and Consulting are required to to do identical work on the same projects with with the same expectations of 'flexibility' and hours.The only plus point I can see about ATS is it not being up or out. But thinking about it, most analysts who choose not to leave because they dont like the lifestyle or work make it to Consultant - 5 in 6 is the figure i've heard. This gives those in Consulting a good six year run before they may to be asked to leave. And really the IT services business being what it is I would expect only a small number in ATS to stay that long anyway.You're absolutely right about technical prowess on its own not being enough, and need to to being involved in the business side of things as well to be rewarded. Am looking for opportunties that way at the minute.

I think the solution is obvious - go into Consulting.When you made your job choice - how much did you research the position? I personally agonised over all the options, and that included trawling sites like this, and www.thevault.com. I found many forums with the title "ATS vs Consultancy".I think that if you rush into it without thought it is easy to get side-tracked into ATS. For example - when I first looked on the website years ago I managed to click my way through to the ATS website, by following all the technology links.Did you make the conscious choice to go into ATS, or was it accidental?As an aside - I am not convinced that Tech Consultants get too much business exposure. If you really want this - go into Strategy. In Grad recruiting they take on ~450 Tech Integration Consultants, ~30 Technology Consultants and ~20 Strategists at Accenture. So Strategy is the tip of the spear and involves all of the business side of things. Strategy are the first contact with client before the tech side of things is designed by Tech Consulting, and then Integration implement.Of course Accenture's structure is a bit of a matrix and everyone does everything. So this maybe doesn't sound like what you see day to day.Coincidentally - Accenture excels at Technology, whereas other smaller consultancy firms excel in Strategy and so on. So perhaps this should be taken into consideration when deciding your next career step.There is no corporate conspiracy - everyone has freedom of movement and can thus identify the role which would suit them best and pursue it. At least you are blessed in knowing what you want - all you need now is a kick up the arse to get moving.Consider this your kick up the arse :)

I agree with you. Already have two good offers one with a Consultancy another with an specialist ISV that i'm considering and more interviews coming so won't be at ATS long.If you're suggesting a transfer internally into Consulting within Accenture then it really is not possible. There is a lot of politics involved and it's a drawn out. Min time at ATS 18 months, A ratings or above, must have been promoted, must get support of HR (not easy, they don't want anyone to move), then must submit application as if were external candidate, and go through all the normal interviews as external candidate. And then even if Consultancy really want you it goes back to the ATS group to decide which workforce you are more suitable for. So you could be refused even if Consultancy want you, but you'd never know they did only that you were more suitable for ATS. And i've also heard that if it is eventually allowed they could delay it until next review round and will keep your level down. Senior Software Engineer is considered at the same level as Analyst (its why US name is Analyst Programmer) even though SSEs usually have 3+ years plus more experience, so if your SSE or below you'd have to move as Analyst. The ATS leadership have the final say over allowing transfers and they have a vested interest in blocking them. Huge numbers in ATS want to move into Consulting and if they started to allow transfers, even only to those with high ratings they'd quickly lose a lot of the best people and put ATS under pressure.

Yeah I also heard of this resistance to transferring.Again - and I sound so wise here, but I got a lot of work experience during my degree where I was shit on: I worked in Dublin as an engineer getting paid about 50% of my American counterparts. They didn't want us transferring to America - because our raison d'etre was that we were a cheap resource.I would imagine it is the same sort of thing here. Perhaps there are such clearly defined interfaces between ATS and Consultancy, so that ATS would be theoretically interchangeable, with say Indians?So some foresight - as Indians become the defacto Technology Solutions writers (and then the Chinese), we in the UK need to move up the food chain. This means becoming armed with those extra skills you get in Consultancy. Earlier on you said there was no difference in the roles except that Consultancy got more opportunities and so forth - these opportunities are what will differentiate you.I am sure there are loads of satsified ATS employees blissfully unaware of what's going on. The minute they do kick up a fuss it will be "Thank you come again".I's be interested in hearing where you're thinking of going next.

An interesting article I read is about the distinction between computer programmers and system analsysts - historically.Now I know in ATS the senior job title is systems analyst, but let's equate programmer to ATS and systems analyst to Consultant - ok?In the olden days :) business computing was done in COBOL, an esoteric language. Skilled programmers could write COBOL - and access to mainframes was limitted. However, Systems Analysts were required to translate business needs into a program spec - and thus they were interface between the highly skilled COBOLers and the business community. THe fact that mainframe access was limitted meant that you really needed dedicated skilled programmers, and they had priveleges on these machines, Systems Analysts stayed away.These days though there are decent languages and proliferated computing environments. The state of affairs is summarised on Prospects website: "Systems/business analyst in close-up":"The term systems analyst, although still current, is increasingly being replaced by the term 'business analyst'. Both terms can be confusing, as they may involve different roles in different organisations. The situation has been further complicated by the introduction of fourth generation languages (4GL) and object-orientated programming, which make it easier to design and modify systems. Traditional boundaries between systems analysis and programming have been eroded and many practitioners now regard themselves as analysts/developers. Some overlap with project management is also common."SO this gives a historical context for your ATS debaccle.ATS hire only people who perceive themselves as of the purist programming heritage. The market for software engineers is quite weak - grad starts at around 22k - so ATS salary pretty good actually.Consultancy hire the Analyst type folk. Stick them together and aaah "aren't we doign the same job?".At Grad level you have a choice of which road you want to travel down. The sad news is that after 5 years or so of going down the programmer road you're not markettable to Consultancy above Analyst level - you have to start at the bottom. So get on the right path now.And at grad level - remember the selection procedure is different - so there would be people in ATS who genuinely aren't cracked up for Consultancy. I know plenty of people who have mental barriers like "you can't be a consultant until you are a really good programmer" or are not very confident/socially reserved.I certainly hope people don't think I have no right to be a consultant as i haven't 10 years programming experience :) That's something I am quite anxious about do ATS just think Consultants are loud mouthed wafflers who can't design software?

This is the problem ATS have, there is a collision between what you'd think of as traditional programming/testing roles an analyst roles which is likely to continue as tools become more advanced and integrated, and the layers of abstraction increase. I'm more of a Java/Open Source guy, but just look at some of the stuff Microsoft is doing in Vista with Windows Communication Foundation and Windows Workflow Foundation for how it's going.There is a different profile between the ATS Consultancy hires. But I do dispute what you say about those in Consultancy picking up entirely different skills. This would only be true if there really was a distinction in the roles, but Consultants spend a huge amount of time doing low level programming, testing, integration work and lots of us in ATS (including myself) have worked as business analysts, in doing proposal work, in requirements analysis and management, financial planning, running client workshops and the like. Less than Consultancy generally but the overlap is huge. If you read the intranet then ATS should prob not being doing this stuff. But it happens quite a lot as if someone from ATS can do the job, they have the right skills and experience, and they cost half as much then projects will get them, even if it would be considered a pure Consultancy role.My reference to less opportuities in ATS was that a lot of what you'd call the best and most challenging roles are allocated to Consultants (usually favoured A2s and C3s up for promotion) before projects would even consider bringing in anyone from ATS so there are fewer good opportunities.Yes I have heard the view that "Consultants are loud mouthed wafflers who cant build systems and cause endless problems for those who can" expressed quite a lot, a minority view but quite a few think it. Mind you i've heard Consultants who thought I was one describe ATS in far worse terms.And yes there are a lot in ATS who are happy in the job, but the turnover is quite high. Every month there is a list of leavers and arrivers and usually about 25-30 people leaving which is about a half of the workforce in the UK a year.

Out of interest - do you know the capability groups of those you are working with on a daily basis:- Business Systems Integration Consultants- Technology COnsultants- Strategy ConsultantsNotice any difference between the three?Is there bad morale in your project groups due to ATS-Consultancy tensions or is it project per project basis? Does it get in the way of work - would and ATS refuse to take on an extra responsibility because of it?Thanks.

Mainly BSI, with a couple of tech consultants. Haven't worked with strategy consultants, apart from on the client side in previous job, they were Deloitte and Monitor. Yes there is a difference between tech and BSI consultants and the kind of roles they do, certainly with GACT there is a clear techie focus in roles, they're quite picky about the roles they'll let people go on to keep focus. Morale is very much a project by project thing. The morale is fine where I am everyone gets on okay and there aren't any tensions between ATS and Consulting. Generally there aren't and the Consultants are nice people. It's just frustrating from a career point of you to be doing the same job as the person next to you but earn £12k less and having much slower promotion even if you do a better job than them.There have been tensions elsewhere. On some of the bigger projects especially when ATS have been asked to work extremely long hours because of slipping deadlines people have refused to do them and been rolled of. Some have done them and are very angry about it, quite a few have left the company for this reason. All kinds of arguments and wranglings have gone on behind the scenes between the UKDC and operating groups. But generally this has been between ATS and management level with analysts/consultants left out of it. Haven't heard of anything like this in a while so may well be getting better.

I wonder do ATS HR read this? SO what sort of work have you done then, do you like the job? Do you work away from London much?You mentioned you were an open source chappy - is that out of some sort of cultural anti-MS thing? I think there are some architecturally beautiful things in .Net. I recommend you read the book "Design Patterns: Elements of resuable Object Oriented Software", Gamma et al. There is a companion called "Introduction to..." which is a little more verbose.Apolgies if you know of it, but it normally draws a blank gaze.

HR could well read this as Accenture advertise heavily here.In terms of roles and i've done a mix of everything at various locations across the Country.No, no anti-ms bias, i'm not one of the foaming mouthed Slashdot dogs of war. Its just I have more experience with J2EE type stuff so have used Maven, Axis, Hibernate, JBoss, Eclipse, etc extensively but not much Microsoft stuff. Actually the stuff i've seen of Windows Vista on the enterprise looks quite a long way ahead of the J2EE stuff in terms productivity. Have a look on MSDN at some of WCF (Windows Communication Foundation) and WWF (Windows Workflow Foundation), and if you're a real techie at a research OS called Singularity.