William D Green, chairman and CEO of Accenture, the $20 billion global management consultancy and technology services company, is in India to chair a select meet of the board of directors. He refers to the board members as "people who know Accenture's secrets." Speaking to the media in Mumbai, he said, "They (board members) will get a chance to meet our people and see the amazing work done here." On global economy, he said that there are some pockets of challenges (slowdown) and other pockets of great success (accelerators). "Firms will continue to outsource and offshore as they aspire to become globally efficient and locally responsive," he said, adding: "We help them in that process."
But what about Accenture's own exposure to financial companies (read the effect of the sub-prime crisis)? "While we surely have witnessed a pause in financial companies, less than 20 per cent of our revenue comes from financial services. Of this, our exposure to the capital markets is in single digits."
Green said that Accenture has a global footprint and can hence move businesses around from one delivery centre to the other to de-risk them. "We do the same for our clients," he said, adding, "India has a large role to play in this process which is our future, both in terms of leading our innovation and differentiation strategies."
Indeed, Green has much to show his board members in the country. It employs 37,000 people here and the figure is set to rise to 50,000 in a year's time. "We get better than average talent in India. People join us for adventure, not for jobs," he said.
And with people, comes innovation. It was just last year that Accenture set up a laboratory in Bangalore (its fourth in the world) and a centre of excellence (COE) in New Delhi. "India is a very important part of our Global Delivery Model (GDM), and as a centre of innovation.
We are onto something very special here," said Green, without divulging details. He likes to break up innovation into ideas, assets and knowhow. Accenture spent $307 million (around Rs 1,200 crore) on research and development (R&D) in FY07.
Green says Accenture's businesses in China, Brazil and central Europe are doing well. He added there "is good demand around the world in sectors such as retail, telecom and energy". But admitted that IBM outplayed it when it comes to telecom deals in India.
In India, Accenture competes with global IT players like IBM, Capgemini, Electronic Data Systems (EDS) besides Indian IT firms like Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), Infosys, Satyam Computer Services, Wipro and HCL Technologies. Last month, the company reported a profit of $406.6 million (around Rs 1,600 crore) for the quarter ended February 29.
