{"id":47430,"date":"2025-09-28T01:12:28","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T01:12:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/47430\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T01:12:28","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T01:12:28","slug":"accentures-865-million-reinvention-includes-saying-goodbye-to-people-without-the-right-ai-skills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/47430\/","title":{"rendered":"Accenture’s $865 million reinvention includes saying goodbye to people without the right AI skills"},"content":{"rendered":"

Accenture\u2019s fourth-quarter earnings<\/a> not only surpassed expectations but also marked a moment when the consulting giant, which is playing a pivotal role in corporate America\u2019s adoption of artificial intelligence (AI), disclosed its own AI-related reorg. The company initiated a \u201csix-month business optimization program,\u201d recording up to $865 million in related charges, which includes a new talent strategy with three prongs. These charges include two divestitures of previously acquired companies, the company said.<\/p>\n

First, its primary focus is investing in upskilling people, next it will be \u201cexiting people in a compressed timeline where reskilling is not a viable path for the skills it needs,\u201d and third it will identify areas to drive more operating efficiencies. Sweet said on the subsequent earnings call<\/a> that Accenture expects savings of more than $1 billion from its business optimization program, which the company says will be invested into the business and its people. Regarding exits, she said Accenture is \u201ctrying to, in a very compressed talent timeline where we don\u2019t have a viable path for skilling, sort of exiting people so we can get more of the skills in we need.\u201d On the earnings call with analysts, Sweet said the company still expects to increase headcount overall in 2026.<\/p>\n

Investing in upskilling<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are investing in upskilling our reinventors,\u201d Sweet said on the call, using the term that Accenture adopts for all of its employees<\/a>. She said she sees a \u201chuge difference\u201d in how people are using AI in their individual lives that is incredibly easy and how to use it in an enterprise. Many companies are grappling with \u201cfragmented processes and siloed organizations\u201d and leaders need new skills to shape a business strategy that makes the most of AI. \u201cThe workforce needs new skills to use AI and new talent strategies and related competencies must be developed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is well recognized that advanced AI has taken the mindshare of CEOs, the C-suite and boards faster than any technology development we\u2019ve seen in the past two decades,\u201d Sweet said. At the same, time, she noted the widespread reporting that \u201cvalue realization has been underwhelming for many\u201d and, besides some digital-native firms, companies are finding adoption at scale to be slow-going. That\u2019s why clients are turning to Accenture, she added. To put it in perspective, Accenture has roughly 9,000 clients and reported 37 new clients with quarterly bookings greater than $100 million in the fourth quarter alone\u2014it reported 129 such bookings for the year. That is \u201creinvention\u201d at massive scale. <\/p>\n

Later during the call, Sweet said \u201cgen AI seemed so simple\u201d early on in its implementation, but Accenture is increasingly finding that \u201cit\u2019s not the technology that is the biggest barrier. It is actually being able to get the mindset reorganized around how best to use it, the ability to do the change management, the process reinvention.\u201d For example, she said, most CEOs would say their organization is too siloed, and many clients have a good proof of concept, \u201cbut then just can\u2019t scale it.\u201d <\/p>\n

Shortly before the earnings release, Sweet sat down with Fortune\u2019s Alyson Shontell, and elaborated on how Accenture is grappling with this transformation just as much as its clients. This included the emotional and strategic difficulties involved with the departures of senior team leaders depart and overhauling structural models, some of them established over many years.<\/p>\n

Humility and courage to reinvent yourself<\/p>\n

Sweet told Shontell: \u201cFirst of all, I think we\u2019re a good lesson in something that I\u2019m advising CEOs all about: in order to capture the opportunity with AI, you really have to be willing to rewire your company.\u201d She added that many times when she hears clients say that they aren\u2019t seeing a return on investment from AI, \u201cit\u2019s because they\u2019re trying to apply it to how they operate today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sweet added that collaboration is \u201csuper important\u201d but it\u2019s \u201cnot a business strategy.\u201d Accenture has to be the reinvention partner of choice for all its clients, she said, and that extends to Accenture\u2019s own affairs. Along the way, they realized this was \u201charder than it needed to be, because our strategy and our structure were not aligned.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sweet told Shontell that it was clear that \u201cwe really have to change, and this change is so big, this is reversing five decades of how we\u2019re working.\u201d If there isn\u2019t alignment between strategy, structure, ways of working and ways of measuring performance, she added, then \u201cwe just simply are not going to be able to go fast enough, and it\u2019s not delivering what our clients need.\u201d<\/p>\n

Restructuring on this scale presents immense challenges for employees. \u201cFor our people and our clients, it was hard \u2026 How do you have the courage to do that? That\u2019s where you have the humility, but also this idea of embracing change and innovation.\u201d Sweet said Accenture\u2019s culture of change enabled it to \u201cultimately make the hard decisions, which is what we\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fortune Global Forum returns Oct. 26\u201327, 2025 in Riyadh. CEOs and global leaders will gather for a dynamic, invitation-only event shaping the future of business. Apply for an invitation.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Accenture\u2019s fourth-quarter earnings not only surpassed expectations but also marked a moment when the consulting giant, which is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47431,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[40236,365,363,364,41336,111,139,69,145],"class_list":{"0":"post-47430","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-accenture","9":"tag-ai","10":"tag-artificial-intelligence","11":"tag-artificialintelligence","12":"tag-consulting","13":"tag-new-zealand","14":"tag-newzealand","15":"tag-nz","16":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47430"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47430\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47431"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}