Hertz, one of the world’s largest car rental companies, hired Accenture back in 2016 to revamp its digital presence… annnnd the entire project pretty much crashed and burned.
Hertz fired Accenture in May 2018 after receiving a string of (allegedly) crappy and late deliverables, but only after paying $32m for said crap. Now they’ve filed a lawsuit seeking a full refund and then some.
A bumpy road strewn with broken promises and PDFs
According to the lawsuit, the two-year engagement yielded a pileup of issues: Accenture missed three go-live deadlines, then tried to charge Hertz for delay costs. — Because they were busy pouring extra time into delivering an excellent product, you ask?
— Mmm, not quite: Hertz claims Accenture “deliberately disregarded” several contract specs (including global/cross-brand extensibility and responsive design for tablets)… oh, and barely tested the system.
Also, Accenture allegedly kept delivering PDF guides despite Hertz’s requests for an editable format. I mean, is there anything more frustrating than trying to edit a PDF? We’d sue for $32m, too.
In both cases, Accenture refused to fix the issues without additional payments of hundreds of thousands of dollars. Bold.
To the scrap yard it goes
The lawsuit says that Accenture’s site code was so defective it ultimately had to be scrapped, and the company “never delivered a functional website or mobile app.”
Hertz is seeking a full refund plus additional repair and design costs, a demand Accenture says is “without merit.”