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Accenture plc (ACN) recently won a 4-year information technology (IT) application servicing deal from the European Parliament, for a value of €12.0 million or roughly $16.5 million. Per the deal terms, Accenture will offer its technology and services to develop, maintain and support a variety of the Parliament’s operations.

Accenture’s services will cover areas such as human resources, finance, logistics and administrative management. These services are expected to enable the European Parliament to better manage its IT eco system to drive greater operational efficiencies.

In another recent development, the outsourcing and consulting giant announced that it will develop a cloud-based self-assessment Web portal for The Gender Equality Project (TGEP), which is a Swiss not-for-profit foundation that ensures gender equality in multinational companies. The Web program will run on Salesforce.com Inc.’s (CRM) Heroku platform. The joint effort will also keep TGEP’s venture well within its budget.

We have seen Accenture winning deals from various industrial sectors and geographical locations, thanks to its rich industry experience. In the past few months, the company has served Pepco Holding Inc. (POM), a renowned utility company, CF Industries Holdings (a leading manufacturer and distributor of fertilizers), Anheuser-Busch InBev (BUD) and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria S.A. (BBVA). Apart from these, Accenture has also gained a strong foothold in the insurance vertical.

We find Accenture’s third quarter results encouraging, as both top and bottom lines strongly beat the Zacks Consensus Estimates. Based on an improving business momentum and market share gains, Accenture raised its revenue and earnings guidance for fiscal 2011. Moreover, we are encouraged by the steady flow of new businesses and believe that the trend will continue.

However, increasing competition from International Business Machines Inc. (IBM) and the company’s significant European exposure may temper its growth prospects to some extent.

Currently, Accenture has a short-term Hold recommendation, denoted by the Zacks #3 Rank.

 
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