JAMES HEBBLETHWAITE
SITETRACKER
JAMES HEBBLETHWAITE
TITLE: MANAGING DIRECTOR – SOFTWARE & PLATFORMS
COMPANY: ACCENTURE
James Hebblethwaite leads Accenture’ s UKI Software & Platforms business in Reinvention Services and owns the global offering for deployment of AI Compute. In his prior role, James led Accenture’ s Strategy and Consulting business for Comms, Media and Technology in UKI.
In 20 + years at Accenture, James has built deep expertise serving clients in the Comms, Media and Technology industries, specialising in large capex programmes in the network and infrastructure space. In 2021 he launched Accenture’ s first Strategy & Consulting business supporting Software & Platform clients in EMEA.
Evaluating sites across multiple constraints Selecting a data centre site now involves a lot more than securing land. Additional factors include power availability, grid connections, permits and water access.
Operators evaluate multiple sites against these criteria, so eliminating unsuitable sites early and maintaining records is crucial to prevent teams reassessing the same locations.
“ It’ s about multiple constraints now, not just about being able to purchase and access land,” explains Michael.“ That’ s actually the cheapest and almost easiest problem to solve.”
“ Operators are also thinking about how a data centre build would impact the local community. What’ s usually a sequential real estate process is now multiple lanes and trains of thought. The operator has to be really disciplined about removing bad sites fast, but also maintaining data over time on those candidates because they may come back to one of them in the future.”
“ If you’ re having to churn through that information and remake that decision, you’ re just compounding the delivery and operational problems.”
Bridging planning and execution Challenges persist even after a data centre is permitted. Developers may use spreadsheets, while construction teams rely on separate scheduling tools, leading to missed deadlines, lost details and, ultimately, increased costs.
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