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Accenture's Sweet on Q3 Earnings: Driven By Digital (Audio) · Bloomberg Intelligence

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  Speaker 1: that's a bloom Bird business splash. This is taking stock
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  Speaker 1: with pin Box and Kathleen as on Bloombird Radio. Accenture
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  Speaker 1: earnings out today, they're boosting their You're adjusted earnings per
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  Speaker 1: share of view. That's a plus. We have the CEO
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  Speaker 1: for North America joining us now. And of course you
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  Speaker 1: know Accenture probably very well, leading global professional services company,
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  Speaker 1: lots of services and solutions and strategy consoling digital technology
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  Speaker 1: and operations. I've certainly dealt with a lot of Accenture
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  Speaker 1: professionals when during the banking crisis and all that. Lots
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  Speaker 1: of value added there. Julie Sweet adding some value today
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  Speaker 1: on taking Stock. She's located in the Washington d C
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  Speaker 1: in metropolitan area, but coming all the way to New
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  Speaker 1: York to join us in studio today. Absolutely excited to
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  Speaker 1: be here. Thanks. So, Julie. Uh, how is it looking?
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  Speaker 1: How about earnings per share looking good? A better luck
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  Speaker 1: for the future. What's driving it? Well? We had a
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  Speaker 1: great quarter obviously in North America, where we're at eleven
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  Speaker 1: percent growth in revenue and local currency and ten percent globally,
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  Speaker 1: and we raised our outlook for earnings per share to
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  Speaker 1: ten to eleven percent. We're ten percent year today, so
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  Speaker 1: very excited. And it's being driven by two big things.
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  Speaker 1: Our investments in UM acquisitions and in our business which
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  Speaker 1: are really differentiating us, and then leading in the new
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  Speaker 1: digital cloud security. It's now forty of our business and
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  Speaker 1: it's growing double digit. I was gonna say, the security
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  Speaker 1: part of the business and the cloud part of the business.
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  Speaker 1: I mean this is, as you said, forty percent. Do
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  Speaker 1: you see a time when it's going to be more
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  Speaker 1: than fifty percent of the business. Absolutely. I mean it's
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  Speaker 1: really based on demand. And we're seeing two big things
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  Speaker 1: from our clients. The first is amidst the digital revolution,
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  Speaker 1: they're coming to us to understand how is technology impacting
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  Speaker 1: our business and then take that from insight to execution.
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  Speaker 1: And the second thing we're seeing is around productivity, efficiency
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  Speaker 1: and sustained investment capacity in a large part to be
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  Speaker 1: able to fuel the investment needed for the digital transformation.
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  Speaker 1: And it's not ending. There's no finish line in the
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  Speaker 1: digital revolution, and there's no one and done. Break that
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  Speaker 1: down for a little bit for us, efficiency productivity, investment, capacity,
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  Speaker 1: all that kind of thing, real words, a concept and example,
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  Speaker 1: what what does that mean? Sure? So if you think
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  Speaker 1: about our portfolio always serve forty industries, they're all in
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  Speaker 1: different places. So if you're in oil and gas today,
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  Speaker 1: your focus very much on UM, cost cutting more, being
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  Speaker 1: able to do more with less because of the pressures
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  Speaker 1: in that business. If you're in retail, financial services, consumer goods,
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  Speaker 1: you're trying to take advantage of the digital consumer experience
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  Speaker 1: and growing your top line. But that takes investment, right,
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  Speaker 1: that takes modernization, new capabilities, changing the workforce, and so
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  Speaker 1: in both cases you're looking at better ways to be
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  Speaker 1: to have UM, to deliver more with less, and to
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  Speaker 1: have more ability to invest, but driven by different pressures.
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  Speaker 1: What are some of those pressures? So UM on the
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  Speaker 1: on we're growing top line, it's around the disruption that's
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  Speaker 1: coming from the digital revolution, which is about new entrants.
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  Speaker 1: So you've got Amazon and UM and Netflix, you know,
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  Speaker 1: pressuring sort of anything that's around content, television, cable. You
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  Speaker 1: have new entrants in terms of you know, logistics, it's
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  Speaker 1: not just about uber, it's about how that's transforming the
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  Speaker 1: business to business. So you've got a lot of every
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  Speaker 1: industry has some kind of disruption and companies are having
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  Speaker 1: to step back and say, what does it mean for us?
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  Speaker 1: Both from an opportunity and from a risk perspective. Who's
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  Speaker 1: your biggest competition? So we have five different businesses, and
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  Speaker 1: we have competitors in each of those businesses, so it's
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  Speaker 1: not a single We have strategy, can sulting, digital, technology,
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  Speaker 1: and operations, and the competitors are different by business. Is
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  Speaker 1: it also just different by geography because you are the
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  Speaker 1: CEO of North America? Absolutely, and so every there's some
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  Speaker 1: companies that are more global that we're one of the
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  Speaker 1: most global in terms of we're in fifty six countries
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  Speaker 1: where people operate in a hundred different countries at any
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  Speaker 1: given time. But each market also has individual players who
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  Speaker 1: are competitors. And in fact, we think a lot now
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  Speaker 1: about leveraging, about being local and leveraging global because it's
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  Speaker 1: more important that now than ever, and to be really
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  Speaker 1: in your local markets. Again, who would be the client?
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  Speaker 1: What kind of company that would be saying? Ge Et
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  Speaker 1: Centa told me I need to be local and leverage globally?
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  Speaker 1: What does that mean? What's give me again a concrete
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  Speaker 1: example sure. So if you're consumer goods company, um, consumers
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  Speaker 1: today want personalization and the nature of the consumer in
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  Speaker 1: the US versus China versus Brazil is really different, and
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  Speaker 1: so the products may be the same, but how you're
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  Speaker 1: marketing it, how they're the buying patterns, the way they
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  Speaker 1: buy are very different depending on the market. And that's
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  Speaker 1: the personalization that consumers now expect, and that's the innovation
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  Speaker 1: that companies are coming to us to look at, is
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  Speaker 1: how do we real time personalize for our consumers. Now.
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  Speaker 1: I know that one of the biggest projects you've been
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  Speaker 1: working on is the Affordable Healthcare website for the US government,
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  Speaker 1: trying to make that better and more efficient. How's that going.
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  Speaker 1: It's going really well. In fact, we were just renewed
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  Speaker 1: in our contract there and we're extremely proud of that
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  Speaker 1: work because that's really improving the way the world works
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  Speaker 1: and lives. It's bringing healthcare to millions of America, and
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  Speaker 1: we're very proud of the work we do. How do
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  Speaker 1: you price your services? Can you give us any sense
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  Speaker 1: of what I would pay if I were that company?
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  Speaker 1: Needing to figure out how to uh globalize my local company? Kevin,
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  Speaker 1: it's interesting your asset because what we're really seeing is
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  Speaker 1: a shift to actually paying a lot more based on
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  Speaker 1: outcome and well as on service. And so we have
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  Speaker 1: UM we have a commercial contracts now where just as
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  Speaker 1: our client is having to deliver an outcome like patient
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  Speaker 1: improve patient care, we're also saying we will be paid
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  Speaker 1: based on how we're helping you achieve that. We also
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  Speaker 1: have commercial contects where you buy as a service, you
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  Speaker 1: buy as you use, and then of course traditional fees
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  Speaker 1: for service and so UM. What we find is it's
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  Speaker 1: important to think about what the client needs and adjust
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  Speaker 1: our commercials. Thank you very much for coming in and
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  Speaker 1: spending time with it, and thanks so much for having me.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks Kathleen, it's great to be here. Julie Sweet the
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  Speaker 1: chief executive of North America for Accenture. They're based in Alexandria, Virginia.
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  Speaker 1: Talking about a company to does thirty four billion dollars
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  Speaker 1: of business a year. This is Bloomberg Radio. Taking stock
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