Accenture Wins Two Contracts from U.S. Navy

The U.S. Department of the Navy has awarded two contracts, totaling more than $30 million, to Accenture Federal Services to continue to support the Nave’s drive toward financial auditability. They are:

1. A three-year, $35.5 million contract to work with six commands and the United States Marine Corps to provide comprehensive audit readiness services, and,
2. A three-year, $5.37 million Financial Information Systems Control Audit Manual (FISCAM) contract to evaluate the design and operating effectiveness of IT general computer controls for the Navy Enterprise Resource Planning System.

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Accenture Gives Junior Achievement US$1.1M for High School Work Readiness Program

Accenture has announced the award of a US$1.1 million grant to Junior Achievement to support development of a new work readiness program. The program will provide high school students across the United States with the skills they need to secure employment and build a career plan and is expected to reach 85,000 students in its first year. The award includes cash and the time and skills of Accenture employes and is part of Accenture’s Skills to Succeed program to teach 250,000 people worldwide the skills they need to get a job or build a business. More 

Accenture Survey Finds Consumers Switching Multifunction Devices

Consumers are increasingly likely to buy multifunction than single-function devices in 2013 according to a new Accenture survey. The company published the annual survey’s results in the 2013 Global Electronics Products and Services Usage Report. The survey focused on 16 types of consumer electronic devices, 11 of which are single function, while the remaining five are multifunction. Consumer plans to purchase the single-function devices have fallen or remained flat or fell from 2012. more 

Accenture, Challenged Athletes Foundation to Support Eight Injured Service People, First Responders, in IRONMAN 70.3 California

Accenture has partnered with the Challenged Athletes Foundation (CAF) to support eight injured military service members and first responders in the IRONMAN 70.3 California Race March 30 in Oceanside, California, as part of CAF’s Operation Rebound. Additionally, IRONMAN announced that Accenture will serve as the event’s title sponsor and CAF will be the official event charity. More 

Ernst & Young Publishes Second Edition of Book on Political Leadership

The second edition of Paths to Making a Difference: Leading in Government provides insights from Ernst & Young LLP’s Government and Public Sector practice into selecting the right appointees, managing challenges of the political executive, and how executives an succeed in accomplishing an administration’s objectives. Published by Rowan & Littlefield Publishing Group, the book is based on a three-year study focused on 32 top political appointees of the first Obama administration. The book examines how deputy secretaries and agency heads achieved the mission of their departments and addresses specific management challenges. More 

Ernst & Young to Tabulate Golden Globe Awards for 40th Year

Ernst & Young LLP has been retained to tabulate and safeguard the results of the Golden Globe Awards for the 40th consecutive year. This will be the 70th anniversary of the awards, made by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. It will be telecast live on NBC on Sunday, January 13 at 5:00 p.m. PST/8:00 p.m. EST from the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California. More 

Big Pharma to Tap M&A to Close $100 Billion Growth Gap Says Ernst & Young

Big pharmaceuticals facing a widening growth gap will turn to a merger & acquisition strategy, says a new Ernst & Young report, Closing the gap? Big parma’s growth challenge and implications for the deals. However, its deal-making will be challenged by diminished resources and fiercer competition for attractive assets from rapidly growing big biotech and specialty pharmaceutical companies. With continued flat sales in mature markets, the 16 largest worldwide pharmaceutical companies have looked to emerging markets for growth, but these markets have slowed. More

PwC Health Research Institute Identifies Top 10 2013 Health Industry Issues

PwC’s Health Research Institute has published its annual list of the Top Health Industry Issues for 2013. The top issues this year involve the impact of technology, consumerism, budgetary pressures, and the Affordable Care Act. At the same time that healthcare organizations brace for the influx of 30 million newly insured Americans, they are feeling the full impact of federal spending cuts and pressure from states, employers, and consumers to operate more like a consumer-focused industry. More

California Biomedicals See Higher Product Approval Rates, Fewer Delays

Life sciences companies in California developed 9 of the 32 novel medicines approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2012 according to the annual California Biomedical Industry Report published by BayBio, the California Healthcare Institute (CHI), and PwC U.S. The pace of approvals and pipeline productivity of California-based companies reinforces the state’s position as the nation’s leading source of biomedical innovation, the report states. California has the largest biomedical cluster in the world, the source of greatest number of products in clinical development according to the report. More

U.S. Family Business More Optimistic than Global Peers

PwC’s latest Global Family Business Survey finds that U.S. family businesses are more confident about their growth prospects for the coming year than their global peers – 93 percent versus 81 percent – and are ready to capitalize on new opportunities. Economic challenges are their primary concerns of U.S. family business, with 68 percent citing market conditions as a main issue in 2013, a 20 percent decrease from the last survey, two years ago, suggesting that family businesses have adapted to the new normal of market volatility and economic uncertainty. More