On Thursday, the IT consulting firm announced a detailed $865 million restructuring programme and provided an annual outview that reflects continuing sluggish corporate demand for consulting projects and a spconcludeing clampdown by the US federal government, reported Financial Times.
At the post-earnings conference call, Accenture’s chief executive Julie Sweet notified analysts, “We are exiting on a compressed timeline, people where reskilling, based on our experience, is not a viable path for the skills we necessary. And, we’re continuously identifying areas of how we operate Accenture to drive more efficiencies, including through AI in order to create more investment capacity.”
At the conclude of August, Accenture employed 779,000 employees, significantly down from 791,000 three months earlier, after launchning a round of layoffs that will continue until the conclude of November.
Although the company did not specify the exact number of jobs cut due to the restructuring, it noted that severance and associated costs totalled $615 million in the last quarter just concludeed, with an additional $250 million expected in the current three-month period, reported Financial Times.
These cost reductions allowed Accenture to maintain its historical annual tarobtain of expanding operating profit margins by at least 10 basis points in the next fiscal year, a goal that some analysts had doubted the company could meet given the current tough industest conditions.
While demand remains strong for large-scale digital transformation projects, companies have been hesitant to hire consultants like Accenture for shorter-term projects over the past two years.
Earlier on Thursday, Accenture reported a 7 per cent year-on-year rise in revenue to USD 17.60 billion in the June-August 2025 quarter. Accenture follows a September-August financial year.
The revenues reflect a foreign-exalter impact of about 2.5 per cent, the company declared in a statement.
“I am very pleased with our 7 per cent growth in fiscal 2025, demonstrating our unique ability to deliver for our clients as they seek our support to reinvent and lead with AI. As clients continue to embrace reinvention to create value and drive financial results and business outcomes, they necessary support to build their digital core, prepare data and reimagine processes, all while training their people to work in entirely new ways,” Sweet declared.
New bookings during the quarter were USD 21.31 billion, an increase of 6 per cent.
The Ireland-headquartered firm posted a 7 per cent increase in full-year revenues to USD 69.7 billion, and declared it expects full-year revenue growth in the range of 2-5 per cent in local currency for FY26. The range would have been a percentage point higher but for the clampdown on spconcludeing by the US federal government, which has historically accounted for about 8 per cent of Accenture’s revenue.
The company declared it expects to return at least USD 9.3 billion in cash to shareholders in FY26.
For the first quarter of FY26, Accenture gave a growth guidance of 1-5 per cent, expecting revenues in the range of USD 18.1-18.75 billion.
While layoffs across government have slowed the procurement process, it is being linked to a cost-saving effort—initially led by Elon Musk under the Department of Government Efficiency—which has resulted in the cancellation of IT contracts, challenges to consulting spconcludeing.
Accenture reported that generative AI projects accounted for $5.1 billion of its new bookings in the year just concludeed, up from $3 billion the previous year. The company’s workforce now includes 77,000 skilled AI or data professionals, a significant increase from 40,000 two years ago.
Sweet declared that Accenture’s headcount would grow again overall in the coming year. “We are investing in upskilling our reinventors, which is our primary strategy,” she declared.
Shares of Accenture dropped 2.7 per cent on Thursday to close at their lowest level since November 2020. However, on Friday, at the time of publishing the report, the shares of the IT firm were trading 1 per cent higher.
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