Accenture CEO on Trade, AI & Political Tensions

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00:00I think the idea of wait and see and pause is really yesterday's news.

00:04I'm talking to CEOs virtually every day, and there's two words that they're using, focus

00:09and leapfrog.

00:11And so for CEOs today, they're trying to find ways in this uncertainty to say, how can I

00:17actually leapfrog, whether it's leapfrog with technology, leapfrog with the new products.

00:23And focus is a big word because they know to focus that you need to accelerate.

00:28And our best advice to CEOs right now is that if you're not operating differently than

00:34you were a year ago, you may be falling behind.

00:37Differently in terms of AI, in terms of supply chains or trade, or is it just mentally how

00:44you look at risks?

00:45Really three dimensions.

00:47One is at speed.

00:49So many companies talk about they're too slow, they're too complex, they operate in silos.

00:56And this environment we've seen very clearly, for example, with the tariffs where things

01:00are having to turn on a dime as you think about supply chains, is that speed matters.

01:05And speed isn't just about working harder, it's about really changing the way they work.

01:10AI is certainly a big component because of the opportunities that are very important to

01:14this.

01:15And third, it really is about mindset as well, right?

01:20It's this idea of, yes, we need to build resilience, but we need to also build growth despite the

01:27environment.

01:29And that requires a different strategy than just a year ago.

01:32Do you see, actually, chief executives pulling back investments or not investing as much or

01:36even not doing M&A because of the environment?

01:39Because you're not really, you don't know what you're looking into like three, six, eight

01:42months from now.

01:43Well, you know, it really varies on the industry.

01:47So, for example, in telecom, right, they're not nearly as affected by the tariff situation.

01:53But also, one of the things that I'm telling all CEOs, particularly around investment in

01:58technology, is that because we work across 19 industries, in every industry we are seeing

02:04people actually increase investment because they want to leapfrog, because they want to

02:09win in this environment.

02:11And there's no one who is able to just sit on the sidelines because they think their industry

02:16may be a little bit slower and they can wait and see.

02:20And that's different than prior tech, you know, than prior tech trends.

02:24What are financial services companies telling you?

02:26I know you're, you know, you're a massive employer within financial services.

02:30Are you hearing from bank CEOs that they're uncertain about the future or actually have

02:34they figured out how to navigate this uncertain, you know, evermore uncertain environment under

02:39the Trump administration?

02:40Well, it's a great question here in London.

02:42We just opened our UK Innovation Center focused on financial services because this is obviously

02:48such an important industry here.

02:50So we're hearing every day about the innovation.

02:53And, you know, while of course we hear lots about what they view on the environment, what

02:58I would say in the industry, banking and insurance are both very much looking to invest to harness

03:06the power of AI.

03:07And so we're seeing it, for example, in fraud.

03:10We're seeing it in improving growth and insurance because you can now use Gen AI to read so many

03:16more submissions from brokers and manage your risk better.

03:20So very concrete examples at scale.

03:23And, you know, financial services is going to lead the way in using some of the power of

03:29AI, not just for productivity, but actually really focused on growth.

03:33How do you use AI actually internally?

03:36Is it through, you know, staffing?

03:38Is it changing the work of a lot of your people?

03:41And so do you need retraining?

03:43So we are upskilling our people across the board, just to give you some idea of the reinvention

03:48of Accenture around AI.

03:50When Gen AI hit in November of 2022, we had about 30 people working on Gen AI in our innovation

03:57labs and with clients.

03:58Today we have over 500,000 people who've had the fundamentals of Gen AI, including two-thirds

04:04of our employees here in the UK.

04:07And you know, we went from 300 million of sales in the first six months after ChatGPT was introduced

04:14to 2.6 billion in the last six months.

04:17When you think about the scale of that transformation in the last two and a half years, you can see

04:22that we've really focused on rotating all of our offerings, rotating how we deliver

04:28for our clients, and of course, using it to operate ourselves.

04:31But presentation, I mean, do you actually lose that valuable, you know, training for some

04:37of your workers and knowing how to do presentations, putting research together, which AI will now

04:43do for us?

04:44Well, actually, we are really finding the opposite by being able to use some of the work that

04:50is pretty rote, right, in terms of the presentations.

04:53We're able to mentor our young leaders about like the underlying, you know, content, you know,

05:01more, and they're actually able to focus to do more shadowing of, you know, senior leaders.

05:06What we are talking to every day to our clients about is what is their talent strategy?

05:11Because as you use AI to take care of some of those tasks, how are you able to leverage

05:17it to actually invest in their development and having a bigger impact and using AI to augment them?

05:23Do you see AI as a way to cut costs or boost revenue?

05:27It should be both. And where clients are focused only on cost, which is where we find a lot,

05:34they're actually missing the value. But one of the things that I think is a really important

05:38takeaway is that you cannot use AI to its full extent, whether growth or value, unless you're

05:44willing, going back to our earlier conversation, to change a lot more than, you know, we're seeing

05:51clients sort of think at the beginning. And of course, you know, here in London and Tech Week,

05:55this is a big topic, right?

05:57It's a topic. And yesterday, and actually last week, we had also South by Southwest in London for

06:01the first time. We recently reported that, you know, Accenture resumed some of the promotions

06:06after pausing the normal promotion cycle in December. I mean, is your staff happy? How's

06:11Maura?

06:12Well, first of all, we're pretty excited that our EMEA business last quarter grew 8%

06:18driven by the United Kingdom. So that is a, you know, real sign. And we did that on the back of

06:23investment. So, you know, just 18 months ago, we were talking about our United Kingdom business

06:28having challenges. It's now driving our growth. And actually, the UK is the number two country

06:35in the world in the last five years where we've done acquisitions. And, you know, we've used our

06:40investment over the last 18 months to really pivot to the areas of growth, like the defense sector.

06:46We bought 6.6, which is obviously a big focus for the government and the economy. And so we're

06:54really pleased with, you know, how our business here and in Europe is growing. And we are absolutely

07:01investing in technology and innovation and really being part of the fabric of the UK as well.

07:10But why is the UK doing so well? Do you think companies need a little bit more

07:14consulting help to get in shape? Or is it because it's growing?

07:18Well, one of the things is that we are seeing the UK companies really want to innovate,

07:23going back to that leapfrog, right? They want to lead in AI. And, you know, one of the things I

07:28always talk about is that innovation cannot be done only within the four walls of any company,

07:33including Accenture. You really need to partner to be able to succeed. And, you know,

07:38we see from the government, from the prime minister to the companies, a real commitment. And we were

07:44super, super excited yesterday to be part of the announcement with about the 7.5 million people

07:50that we're going to be joining the 11 other companies to partner with the prime minister and

07:55the government to train. But that demonstrates a real appetite and commitment for the UK to be

08:03a leader in AI. And of course, there's phenomenal AI talent here.

08:06Julie, overall, I mean, more broadly, Accenture and many of the rivals, of course,

08:11you know, have been dealing with a slowdown in business, certainly from the heyday of 2021,

08:152022. What's your strategy going forward to, you know, keep costs down and then grow maybe longer

08:22term? The fundamentals of the industry are really clear. Every company needs to reinvent using tech

08:27data and AI. And so what we see is by being a leader in gen AI in particular, this is helping

08:35fuel our growth. And actually, if you think about what's happening with the modern enterprise,

08:40is that, you know, 10 years ago, we were replatforming to be on the cloud.

08:45Now, wherever you are from a digital perspective, you have to now adjust not just your technology

08:53and build a cognitive brain, we call it for AI, but actually change every way you work.

08:59And in order to accelerate clients need partners. And we have been the reinvention partner of choice.

09:06It's fueling our growth today. We have the largest numbers of diamond clients,

09:11our largest relationships in our history. They've been growing faster in our history.

09:16And it's very much driven by the need to reinvent. So we see the industry as a is,

09:22you know, as a long term grower. And of course, we're using AI to drive down productivity ourselves.

09:28And most importantly, though, we're using things like the innovation hub to be the leader in

09:33innovation. And that's what our clients are looking to us for.

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