Hertz sues Accenture in $32m customer experience dispute

Industry Contributor 29 Apr 2019 - 2 min read

Hertz sues Accenture in $32m customer experience dispute

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Hertz is attempting to sue Accenture for a $32m digital transformation program that it says was never delivered. The rental car giant wants its money back, plus what it has subsequently spent trying to fix everything since kicking Accenture off the project (The Register).

Key points:

Accenture was hired in August 2016 to deliver a responsive website and mobile applications, plus associated infrastructure (back end integration etc.) that could work across all of Hertz's brands (including Dollar, Thrifty, Sales) and markets. It was supposed to go live in December 2017, was initially pushed back to January 2018, then to April. Hertz removed Accenture from the project in May 2018.

Hertz's filing alleges:

"Accenture never delivered a usable website and mobile applications"
That Accenture's front end code was "so badly written it could not be remediated" and Accenture's replacement junked it entirely
That mid-project "Accenture removed some of the most significant team members" and replaced them with people of lesser experience
Despite promising Hertz would not be responsible for costs due to delay, it "later sought to charge Hertz for these costs"
Although project documentation committed Accenture to deliver an architecture usable by all Hertz brands in all markets, "inexplicably … Accenture tailored the Project codebase to support only a single brand in a single market – the Hertz brand in North America"
"Put simply, Accenture decided, of its own accord and without telling Hertz, that it would disregard the fundamental requirements and specifications of the Project. Accenture developed an architecture and code that deliberately was not extensible."
That Accenture did not deliver a properly responsive design and wanted "hundreds of thousands of dollars" to fix it
Hertz is suing on two counts: Breach of Contract, and the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act. It seeks a jury trial.
Accenture says the claims are "without merit".

If Hertz wins, it will set an intriguing precedent in the digital marketing and transformation sector, which has been a land of milk and honey for the supply side (advisors, agencies, martech vendors, consultants et al).

Firstly, scope creep. It's a widespread tactic used by consultants and agencies to ratchet up revenues after a contract is signed and Hertz makes this assertion in its lawsuit.

Hertz claims it hired a third party because it did not have the resource or expertise. That's pretty standard fare. But the allegations, as yet unproven, put some pressure on Accenture. Agencies are often accused of cutting corners and putting inexperienced staff on major accounts and under-delivering as a result. Consultancies, at least in Hertz view, do it with as much purpose.

This will be a telling tale to stay across.