Accenture (NYSE:ACN) and Avanade have completed the implementation of a new suite of collaborative workplace technologies at Standard Life. The initiative is part of Standard Life’s Digital Workplace strategic program, which is designed to streamline its IT services across all its businesses in Europe, North America and Asia, providing its employees globally with a consolidated, enhanced and digitally-enabled working environment so they can better support the company’s growth agenda, and reduce operating costs.

The project delivered the upgrade from Windows XP to the Windows 7 operating system for over 11,000 desktops globally. This included migration to a single mail platform, the introduction of various collaboration tools to improve productivity, and the training of Standard Life employees in six different business units across 14 countries.

“The implementation of Digital Workplace allowed us to reduce our application estate by 60%, cut log-in time by 15 minutes and increase our pace of work through better collaboration,” said Paul Chong, Director of Group IT at Standard Life. “From a business perspective, this lays the foundation blocks for improving our customer engagement as we continue to develop our Digital agenda. This has been one of the largest and most complex global IT projects we have undertaken, and we are proud to have completed it in less than 18 months. We would not have achieved this outcome without Accenture’s experience in workplace transformation services and industry knowledge, and Avanade’s expertise in implementing Microsoft technology.”

“CIOs have a number of tools at their disposal today to drive higher levels of workforce performance and lower IT costs,” said Gary Taylor, Accenture’s Infrastructure Services Lead in Scotland. “Advanced collaboration technologies and mobile, cloud and network solutions can be part of any CIO’s toolkit to create an intelligent infrastructure that enables greater social collaboration among employees at any time, from any place, via any device. With all its employees now operating on a modern technology solution, Standard Life is establishing an infrastructure that unleashes new levels of workforce efficiency, agility and productivity.”

Ryan Ferguson, Infrastructure Services Director, Avanade UK added: “Transforming the workplace to become more digitally focused has become a key consideration for enterprises such as Standard Life, and ensuring a smooth transition process is also absolutely critical. As companies upgrade to a new operating system, this is also a great opportunity for them to transform the way people work so the environment becomes optimized for digital and collaboration. Our expertise and global delivery centre model meant we could operate swiftly and effectively to build an entirely new business process for Standard Life in just over six months. This process has allowed Standard Life to completely redesign how work is done.”

About Standard Life
Standard Life is a leading provider of long-term savings and investments. Established in 1825 and headquartered in Edinburgh, the company has around 8,500 employees internationally.

The Standard Life group includes savings and investments businesses, which operate across the UK, Canada, Europe, Asia and the Middle East; workplace pensions and benefits businesses in the UK and Canada; Standard Life Investments, a global investment manager, which manages over £184 billion globally; and its Chinese and Indian Joint Venture businesses.

At the end of December 2013 the Group had total assets under administration of over £244 billion, directly looking after around six million customers worldwide and supporting a further 16 million customers through its Joint Ventures.

Standard Life plc is listed on the London Stock Exchange and has approximately 1.3 million individual shareholders in over 50 countries around the world. It is also listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index, ranking it among the top 10% of sustainable companies in our industry in the survey.

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About Accenture
Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with approximately 289,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$28.6 billion for the fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2013. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

About Avanade
Avanade helps customers realize results in a digital world through business technology solutions and managed services that combine insight, innovation and expertise focused on Microsoft® technologies. Our people have helped thousands of organizations in all industries improve business agility, employee productivity and customer loyalty. Avanade combines the collective business, technical and industry expertise of its worldwide network of experts with the rigor of an industrialized delivery model to provide high quality solutions using proven and emerging technologies with flexible deployment models–on premises, cloud-based or outsourced. Avanade, which is majority owned by Accenture, was founded in 2000 by Accenture LLP and Microsoft Corporation and has 21,000 professionals in more than 20 countries. Additional information can be found at www.avanade.com.