Accenture brings together five business lines into new Reinvention Services unit
Global consulting and technology powerhouse Accenture has brought together five of its business lines into a single, integrated unit called Reinvention Services.
To be led by current Americas chief Manish Sharma, Reinvention Services – effectively advisory – will from September bring together Accenture’s existing Strategy, Consulting, Song, Technology, and Operations lines into a combined business.
The announcement follows Accenture’s third quarter financial report, which, despite being up by 7 percent year-on-year for a tally of $17.7 billion, delivered the second consecutive quarter of lower than expected bookings, according to analysts, down by 7 percent.
“Today, our clients need more value faster,” said CEO Julie Sweet. “These changes to our growth model will allow us to deliver that and continue to scale our business by being an even stronger engine of reinvention that more rapidly delivers the power of GenAI. We are writing the playbook for how to be the most AI-enabled, client-focused professional services company in the world.”
Whether the firm is writing the ‘playbook’ is debatable. In the face of ongoing business and economic headwinds which continue to stifle demand for consulting, practically every major global tech consultancy and each of the Big Four have tilted their advisory divisions away from traditional management offerings and towards AI.
In the Australian context, that includes moves from PwC and KPMG, which saw the loss of approximately 500 consulting jobs following earlier cuts, while the local branches of Deloitte and Ernst & Young have also recently executed organisational overhauls impacting their advisory divisions in line with manoeuvring from their global parents.
And like their counterparts downunder, the big consultancies are now facing increased pressure and a federal spending backlash in the US, where most derive the bulk of their revenues – or, in the case of Accenture, which is ‘domiciled’ in Ireland, close to half of its now $65 billion global take.
“We continue to see a significantly elevated level of uncertainty in the global environment as compared to 2024,” Sweet said during the third quarter earnings call. “In every boardroom, in every industry, our clients are not facing a single challenge. They’re facing everything at once: economic volatility, geopolitical complexity, and changing customer behaviour.”
Reinvention Services
The upcoming consolidation of its business lines hasn’t come with a job-loss caveat as yet – although the firm has already shaved its headcount by 10,000 over the past quarter from a recent peak of 800,000 – but has triggered a senior leadership reshuffle.
Manish Sharma, who was the CEO of the Americas, has been succeeded by current global Chief Operations Officer (COO) John Walsh, who in turn will be succeeded by Americas COO Kate Hogan, with a series of line bosses reporting to Sharma. These won’t include current consulting and technology global chiefs Jack Azagury and Karthik Narain, who have “decided to leave to pursue other opportunities”.
Australian-born Song CEO David Droga will meanwhile hand over to Ndidi Oteh to take on the vice chair role.
Another ‘Aussie’ however enters the picture, with University of Technology Sydney business and accounting graduate Jason Dess to take over from Azagury as consulting CEO. Currently global CFO & Enterprise Value leader, Dess spent three and a half years with Deloittein Australia across two stints before decamping with the firm to Canada in 2005.
Accenture’s latest pivot toward AI follows the $3 billion, three-year global investment the firm committed towards the emerging technology in 2023. Since then, Accenture has signed a $700 million AI joint venture with Telstra, while last year launching a generative AI studio in Australia and bolstering its local expertise.
