ACN Accenture Plc

By James R. Hagerty 

Mel Bergstein was an early proponent of the idea that computers weren't just about crunching numbers and would force a complete rethinking of corporate strategies.

Mr. Bergstein in the late 1980s served as the world-wide technology chief at Andersen Consulting, now known as Accenture, and was an influential adviser to companies on how to make the best use of computers and later the internet. He also was a pioneer in outsourcing of information-technology functions to specialists.

In 1994, he founded Diamond Technology Partners Inc., a Chicago-based firm that provided advice to companies seeking to reinvent themselves for the internet age.

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP acquired Diamond in 2010 for $378 million.

Diagnosed with leukemia in 2011, Mr. Bergstein was told he might have only months to live. A bone-marrow transplant helped him survive another five years. He died Dec. 25 at a hospital in Evanston, Ill.

By the early 1990s, Mr. Bergstein noticed that corporate data-processing departments, once undisputed masters of computer purchases and usage, were losing power to people in other departments determined to make their own hardware and software choices. "The war is between the producers of revenue and the back-office people," he said in 1992. "The producers are winning the war."

In the late 1990s, he advised CEOs to get more involved in setting internet strategy. Companies were accustomed to seeing technology merely as a way to run existing processes faster and cheaper, he said, but now had to transform themselves to obtain the full benefits of the internet.

Mr. Bergstein preached that information technology should drive corporate strategy rather than being an afterthought, said Paul Carroll, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who worked at Diamond for 6 1/2 years. Mr. Bergstein also believed that the classic buttoned-down management consultant would find it hard to connect with a 20-something tech wizard in a T-shirt. "Mel set Diamond up to give the tech guys the same stature as the traditional consultants," Mr. Carroll said.

Diamond's clients included Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Allstate Corp. and General Motors. Mr. Bergstein insisted that Diamond's corner offices be used for project teams, not executive offices. He sent a voice-mail to all employees once a week to share news and drive home his ideas about corporate culture.

Melvyn Edward Bergstein was born March 13, 1942, and grew up in Manhattan's Peter Cooper Village apartment complex. His father was in the stationery business, and his mother was a model. At the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, he studied economics and accounting and earned a bachelor's degree in 1963, becoming the first member of his family to graduate from college.

After working briefly at his father's stationery shop in Manhattan, he joined the accounting firm Arthur Andersen & Co. in 1968 and was named a partner in 1976. He helped set up Andersen's consulting arm.

In 1989, he jumped to Computer Sciences Corp., El Segundo, Calif., which designed and assembled complex IT systems for other firms. He said he was tired of internal squabbles at Andersen. "I want to solve client problems, not internal problems," he told The Wall Street Journal. He added that he saw plenty of scope for growth at Computer Sciences: "This is a chest-high fast ball. If I miss it, well, shame on me."

In his new post, he helped arrange a then-novel contract under which General Dynamics Corp. outsourced information-technology operations to Computer Sciences.

Mr. Bergstein spent about two years in senior executive roles at Technology Solutions Co., Chicago, and then left to set up his own consulting company, Diamond. In 2010, the year it was sold, Diamond employed more than 500 consultants and had offices in the U.S., London and Mumbai.

Mr. Bergstein is survived by his wife of 51 years, Tina, two sons and five grandchildren.

Write to James R. Hagerty at bob.hagerty@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 20, 2017 05:44 ET (10:44 GMT)

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