From our Chair and CEO

I am writing to share the 360° value we created in fiscal year 2023, our view on the reinvention landscape ahead and the power of AI in reinvention.

While the pace of spending has changed, the fundamentals have not. All strategies continue to lead to technology, and companies will need to reinvent every part of their enterprise using tech, data and AI to optimize operations and accelerate growth. Despite the cautious macroeconomic environment, we are well-positioned for the future.

Our laser focus on creating 360° value for our clients and all our stakeholders is reflected in our overall strong results for the year. With record new bookings of $72 billion, we had a record 106 clients with quarterly bookings greater than $100 million in fiscal 2023, an increase from 100 last year.

We now have 300 Diamond clients, our largest client relationships, an increase of 33 from last year, demonstrating yet again the depth and breadth of our capabilities and the trust our clients have in us. Our brand is strong—our ranking on BrandZ’s Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands list rose from No. 26 to No. 22, our highest to date, with a brand value of $73.6 billion.

We delivered revenues of $64 billion for the year, representing 8% growth in local currency while continuing to take market share. We expanded adjusted operating margin by 20 basis points and delivered adjusted EPS growth of 9% while continuing to significantly invest in our business and our people, with capital deployed of $2.5 billion across 25 acquisitions; $1.3 billion in R&D, assets, platforms and industry solutions; and $1.1 billion invested in the learning and professional development of our people.

We generated free cash flow of $9 billion, allowing us to return over $7 billion of cash to shareholders. And we are delivering a little ahead of schedule on our business optimization actions we announced in March to reduce structural costs to create greater resilience.

We also continued to attract, retain and inspire outstanding people through our talent strategy. We are making progress toward our commitment to net zero by 2025, and we invested in our communities to help ensure we have vibrant places where we work and live. Read on for more detail.

The reinvention ahead

As we enter FY24, we know that there is more reinvention ahead of us than behind us. Our clients have even greater opportunities to transform, and we continue to be their partner of choice.

At the center of reinvention is the digital core. We continue to see significant demand in areas like cloud migration and modernization, modern ERP and data and AI, and the emergence of generative AI in particular, all of which represent areas of great opportunity. And it is still early. For example, we estimate that only 40% of workloads are in the cloud, only 1/3 of clients have modernized their ERP platforms, and less than 10% have what we define as mature data and AI capabilities.

We believe helping build a strong digital core and then using it to reinvent will be the drivers of our clients’ reinvention and of our growth. Our ability to advise, shape and deliver value-led transformation—leveraging the breadth of our services from strategy and consulting to technology to our managed services across industries and geographic markets, along with our privileged position with our ecosystem partners—is what makes Accenture unique.

360° value for our people, planet and communities

Core to our success is our ability to attract, retain and inspire our outstanding talent.

We continue to lead in our ability to attract people with different backgrounds, different perspectives, and different lived experiences.

These differences help ensure that we can attract the cognitive diversity to deliver a variety of perspectives, observations and insights that are critical to drive the innovation needed to reinvent. Our success is reflected in being the top-scoring company on the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index for the second year in a row, and we also earned the #1 position on the Refinitiv Global Diversity & Inclusion Index for the fourth time in six years. This index ranks over 15,000 organizations globally and identifies the top 100 publicly traded companies with the most diverse and inclusive workplaces.

We want our people to feel they are Net Better Off for working at Accenture. This strategy has four dimensions—people feeling healthy and well, physically, emotionally and financially; feeling connected with a sense of belonging; feeling their work has purpose; and feeling they are continuing to build market-relevant skills. This year, for example, our people participated in approximately 40 million training hours. We want all our people to believe that Accenture is the best place to achieve their aspirations, both personally and professionally. And this year we were a recipient of the Brandon Hall Gold Award for best benefits, wellness and well-being programs.

Building on our long-standing commitment to the environment, we are pleased to have hit a significant milestone on our path to net zero, achieving our goal of 100% renewable electricity across our Accenture offices. Additionally, we reused or recycled nearly 100% of our e-waste in fiscal 2023 and have eliminated single-use plastics in our office locations by purchasing reusable and plastic-free items.

Vibrant communities are also important for our business success, and we continue to prioritize creating value in these communities around the world. For example, Accenture is helping to welcome refugees, recognizing how they enrich our communities with their courage, strength and talent. On World Refugee Day in June 2023, we committed to partner with organizations to help skill and support an estimated 16,000 refugee job seekers and migrants and to hire 100 refugees in Europe over the next three years.

AI and reinvention

We are entering the age of AI. AI will be a mega-trend, reinventing businesses, industries and the way we live and work.

Our research shows that one form of AI, generative AI, has the potential to be a significant driver of reinvention.

Accenture has been working with AI for more than 15 years, and we believe that it is in a place similar to where cloud was over a decade ago—fundamental to the future, but still maturing. Just as we successfully did with SaaS and with cloud, we are investing to take an early lead and have positioned Accenture to help clients act on AI.

In June, we announced an industry-leading $3 billion investment in our Data & AI practice over the next three years. We plan on doubling our AI talent to 80,000 people and expect to invest in assets, industry solutions, ventures and acquisitions. We appointed a Chief AI Officer, launched a global generative AI Center of Excellence, and created comprehensive AI training for our entire workforce. While still in the early stages, generative AI technology is maturing rapidly, and we believe it will be a significant source of value for us and our clients over time.

Some of the key ingredients of our success in generative AI are ecosystem partnerships, talent and responsible AI.

As always, we are starting with deep relationships and leadership in the ecosystem, from the hyperscalers to the model builders, to the startups and academics. It is important to emphasize that we are early in the maturity of generative AI for enterprise—and our depth, experience and insight on these platforms are essential to guiding our clients.

Second, talent. We start with a deep technical knowledge and understanding of AI and generative AI and blend that with our industry and functional expertise to reinvent across the enterprise, including processes and operating models, bringing together the depth and breadth of our expertise. And that is where Accenture is different, building the bridge from "as is" to the future. We have already trained approximately 600,000 of our people in the fundamentals of AI. Now with generative AI, the pace and impact are growing rapidly. And we are now taking a further step to equip more than 250,000 people with skills to use new AI tools equitably, sustainably and without bias.

Responsible AI is essential. At Accenture, we have an industry-leading responsible AI compliance program that is embedded in how we use and deliver AI. And we are using our experience and lessons learned to help our clients build out their own responsible AI program, which is necessary to address the risks and get the full value from AI.

Finally, we are embracing generative AI across our services, developing new cutting-edge tools and solutions and embedding it in the way we work. Our approach takes into account where the technology is today, the need to deploy it responsibly, and the recognition that we do work in highly complex environments. The extent and pace of this generative AI progression will become clearer over the coming quarters as the technology and the market continue to mature and progress.

Our leadership essentials

As we close, we want to remind you of our Leadership Essentials, which are critical to the trust we have with our clients and people and our ability to navigate tough macros as well as rapidly innovate as we have done in generative AI. We nurture and develop these leadership essentials at all levels of the organization, as this is critical to our long-term resilience and growth. Our Leadership Essentials set the standard for what we expect of each leader and enable us to successfully create 360° value.

• Always do the right thing, in every decision and action;
  
  
• Lead with excellence, confidence and humility, as demonstrated by being a learner, building great teams and being naturally collaborative;
  
  
• Exemplify client-centricity and a commitment to client value creation;
  
  
• Act as a true partner, to each other, our clients, our ecosystem and our communities—committed to shared success;
  
  
• Care deeply for all our people to help them achieve their aspirations professionally and personally;
  
  
• Live our unwavering commitment to inclusion, diversity and equality, as demonstrated by personal impact and overall results;
  
  
• Have the courage to change and the ability to bring our people along the journey; and
  
  
• Actively innovate—seeking new answers, applying a tech, AI and data first mindset, looking internally across Accenture and outside—to partners, competitors, startups, clients, academia and analysts—to learn, respectfully challenge our assumptions and apply the innovation, and cultivate and reward our people for doing the same.

Thank you

Delivering 360° value to all our stakeholders has never been more important as they embrace change in a fast-moving world.

I want to thank each of our incredibly talented people around the world for their hard work and commitment to delivering this value every day. And to our clients, shareholders, partners and communities: your ongoing trust and support help us make Accenture the best it can be, every day. Thank you for the trust you place in Accenture. We look forward to the reinvention that is ahead for us all.

Julie Sweet
Chair and Chief Executive Officer

October 12, 2023