{"id":322981,"date":"2025-11-30T21:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T21:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/322981\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T21:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T21:02:08","slug":"accenture-dubs-its-800000-staff-reinventors-as-it-adapts-to-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/322981\/","title":{"rendered":"Accenture dubs its 800,000 staff \u2018reinventors\u2019 as it adapts to AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n

Accenture has started calling its nearly 800,000 employees \u201creinventors\u201d, as the consultancy overhauls itself to adapt to the explosion of artificial intelligence and advises companies adopting the technology. <\/p>\n

The label has already been used by chief executive Julie Sweet and the New York-listed group is pushing to have the term adopted more widely, according to people at the firm. <\/p>\n

The term \u201creinventors\u201d was born from a mammoth reorganisation announced by the consultancy in June, which united its strategy, consulting, creative, technology and operations units into a single business called \u201cReinvention Services\u201d. <\/p>\n

The rollout of the neologism follows a long tradition of corporate jargon to describe employees, including Disney\u2019s \u201cimagineers\u201d and Amazon\u2019s \u201cninja coders\u201d. <\/p>\n

Accenture has said its ambition is to be clients\u2019 \u201creinvention partner of choice\u201d by helping them to adopt AI<\/a> tools.<\/p>\n

On a September earnings call, Sweet referred to employees as \u201creinventors\u201d multiple times as she discussed the reorganisation. <\/p>\n

She also warned that more staff would be asked to leave<\/a> if they could not be retrained for the age of AI amid more sluggish demand for consulting projects.<\/p>\n

The consultancy has built a trial version of its internal human resources website in which staff are labelled \u201creinventors\u201d rather than \u201cworkers\u201d, according to a person familiar with the matter. <\/p>\n

The company has a history of creating its own corporate language. Its name, intended as a derivative of \u201caccent on the future\u201d, was ridiculed when it was adopted in 2001 after the business, Andersen Consulting, broke ties with accounting group Arthur Andersen and was forced to change its name. The rebrand was reported to have cost $100mn. <\/p>\n

Accenture\u2019s market capitalisation surged to more than $260bn during a boom in demand for consulting services following the Covid-19 pandemic, but has since fallen to about $150bn as the sector faces a growth slowdown. <\/p>\n

\u201cJargon is used in the consulting world to signal expertise or relevance without having to invest in underlying competencies and knowledge\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.[or make] boring or staid jobs or processes appear to be novel and exciting,\u201d said Andr\u00e9 Spicer, executive dean and professor of organisational behaviour at the Bayes Business School and author of Business Bullshit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He warned that while jargon can occasionally boost an organisation\u2019s image and its confidence internally, it also \u201cincreas[es] confusion, undermining trust and fostering a sense of corporate absurdity\u201d. <\/p>\n

Big Four accounting firm PwC in 2002 briefly rebranded its consulting division as \u201cMonday\u201d but the name was dropped when IBM bought the unit. PwC pointed out in a statement at the time that its unusual new name is \u201ca real word\u201d, seen by some commentators as a dig at Accenture.<\/p>\n

Deborah Cameron, former professor of language and communication at Oxford university, said that using terms for staff that are \u201cso out of step with what most people think your business is\u201d risked attracting \u201cincomprehension or ridicule\u201d. <\/p>\n

The term \u201creinventors might be getting into that territory\u201d, she said. \u201cWill clients, or the public at large, know what they\u2019re supposed to be reinventing? Will employees themselves\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009feel OK saying they\u2019re reinventors, or will they find that obscure, pretentious and silly?\u201d<\/p>\n

Accenture declined to comment. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322982,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,74],"class_list":["post-322981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322982"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}