How India is powering Accenture’s big GenAI push globally

WHEN ANDERSEN Consulting was forced to change its name following a dispute over profit-sharing with the accounting, auditing, and tax part of what was then one of the world’s Big Five accounting firms, an employee is said to have come up with ‘Accenture’ for ‘accent on the future.’ Accenture was born on January 1, 2001, but it was a costly birth: It had to spend over $100 million on rebranding campaigns. In hindsight, the break with the Andersen name was a blessing: the Enron accounting fraud became public in October, leading to the break-up of Arthur Andersen, its auditor.

Better still, no more internal quibbling over profit shares. Today, the latest Brand Finance report names Accenture as the world’s most valuable IT services brand, valued at $41.5 billion. And that’s for the seventh year in a row. Brand Finance cites the firm’s “strong global presence, diverse service offerings, and strategic investments in AI” as helping it dominate.

India is at the centre of Accenture’s talent strategy. Outlining the hiring strategy for FY25 at an earnings call on September 26, Julie Sweet, Accenture’s chair and CEO, said, “We are hiring primarily in India, so a lot of that hiring is technology, in India.” From a consultancy service, the post-2001 outfit set up a development centre in Mumbai in 2001, followed by a BPO centre two years later.

India has 3,50,000 heads, or nearly 44%, of Accenture’s worldwide workforce of 800,000-odd employees, making it the largest talent pool in countries where Accenture operates. The company has set up over 34 centres across 15 cities, ranging from large metros to Tier-II cities such as Coimbatore, Nagpur, Indore, and Bhubaneswar. It provides technology, BPO, and strategy and consulting services to clients worldwide from India.

Ajay Vij, senior country MD, Accenture in India, says the company’s talent strategy rests on four pillars: “Reshaping our people skills at scale through continuous learning & development, tapping into unconventional talent sources, expanding niche capabilities, and ensuring that our people in India feel ‘net better off’ for working at Accenture and experience a sense of belonging.”

Accenture’s centres in India work for its global clients and Indian corporates, as well as the Union and state governments. The beginnings were slow: It was in 2004 that Accenture got one of its first big contracts when Dabur outsourced its IT functions to it for 10 years. Since then, Accenture has bagged clients across industries such as HDFC and Union Bank in banking and financial services, Bira91, Puma & Aditya Birla Fashion & Retail Ltd. in consumer goods and retail, Lupin and HealthCare Global Enterprises in life sciences, and also the energy sector, among others.

Accenture has set up innovation hubs in Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Pune, as well as a Generative AI studio in Bengaluru, where its data and AI team can work with clients to develop solutions based on GenAI.

Indian talent rides AI wave

Accenture is the only company among its peers to call out its revenue from GenAI. In FY24, the company had nearly $3 billion in new GenAI bookings and nearly $900 million in revenue, globally. This is a nine-fold increase over FY23 when it reported $300 million in sales and around $100 million in revenue from GenAI. In Q1 FY25, Accenture got $1.2 billion in new bookings and nearly $500 million in revenue. In FY24, Accenture spent $6.6 billion in 46 strategic acquisitions, $1.2 billion in R&D, and $1.1 billion in learning and professional development. That’s roughly half of Infosys’ annual revenues.

Last year, Accenture spent $6.5 billion buying businesses and investing, net of cash acquired. It acquired Camelot Management Consultants, an SAP-focused management and consultancy firm, Parsionate, a data consultancy firm (both based in Germany), and semiconductor designer Excelmax Technologies in Bengaluru, among others.

The AI drive has also boosted the company’s decade-old venture capital arm, Accenture Ventures. In 2020, Accenture launched Project Spotlight, where start-ups are welcomed to work with Accenture at its Innovation Hubs, Labs and Liquid Studios. Then, in 2022, Accenture invested in Bengaluru-based hyperspectral start-up Pixxel through its venture arm.

The company has consistently increased its data and AI workforce to 69,000 and aims to have around 80,000 such professionals by the end of the next fiscal year. A large part of this talent comes from India. The Center for Advanced AI and GenAI Studio in Bengaluru is also an integral part of designing and piloting several innovative AI and GenAI solutions, tools, and assets.

“We make substantial investments in helping people build market-relevant and future-ready skills. These include functional and industry expertise, leadership skills, deep technology skills, and digital fluency. In FY24, we invested $1.1 billion in our people learning and professional development globally,” Vij says.

The company has also rapidly adopted AI internally across functions and processes, such as GenWizard, an AI platform for enterprises, and Microsoft’s Copilot to act as a co-worker for decision-making and improving productivity.

“We believe technology, talent and trust are the foundation on which we can aim for the next frontier of innovation, efficiency and growth in India,” he says.

Diversity, equity & inclusion

Accenture has an impressive diversity number, with women accounting for nearly half (49%) of its workforce in India, 30% in leadership roles.

“As a talent-led organisation, we have always made significant investments in creating an environment where our people feel like they belong, can grow, and thrive,” Vij says. Accenture has several community initiatives such as ‘Skills to Succeed’, a programme that has upgraded the skills of more than 19 lakh people in the past fourteen years. In FY24, Accenture skilled 2.7 lakh people, of which 60% were women and over 2,800 persons with disabilities.

It has also tied up with Industrial Training Institutes under the ‘Future Right Skills Network’, an industry collaboration to help students build future-ready skills. It has partnered with over 1,000 institutes, has 14 active memoranda of understanding with several state governments for skilling, and has reached over 500,000 young people in India. It has teamed up with Microsoft to teach digital, cyber and AI skills to undergraduates from economically disadvantaged sections of society. The aim is to improve their employability in high-demand job sectors in the digital-enabled economy.