HOW ACCENTURE LEFT INDIAN IT BEHIND

The US firm's strategic AI investments, aggressive acquisitions and consulting focus have created a yawning chasm

- Jas Bardia & Varun Sood

Julie Sweet, chair and chief executive of Accenture. The company is challenging the management notion that most buyouts fail.

(REUTERS)

The gulf between Accenture and Indian IT services exporters continues to grow wider and deeper. Last year, the American powerhouse grew at nearly twice the speed of its largest Indian rivals. But the truly astonishing statistic is this: In the 12 months leading up to August 2025, Accenture pulled in $4.78 billion in new business—a figure that surpasses the combined incremental revenue ($3.92 billion) generated by India's 15 largest IT services firms in 2024-25.

In other words, while the Indian IT cohort is struggling to find its footing in the new digital reality, punctuated by artificial intelligence (AI), Accenture is powering ahead. It simply makes Indian IT's growth story seem rather tepid.

So, what explains Accenture's eyebrow-raising performance? The short answer is its pivot to the new, to AI. Indeed, its quarterly presentation on 25 September, dedicated two slides to this “reinvention”. Over half ($2.7 billion) of Accenture's new revenue came from 'advanced AI' solutions. The company also claims that its advanced AI bookings totalled $5.9 billion.

Advanced AI includes generative (Gen) AI, agentic AI and physical AI, or tools interacting with the physical world. They do not include data, classical AI (foundational machine learning and analytics), or AI used in the delivery of services, Julie Sweet, chair and chief executive of Accenture, had clarified earlier.

Understanding Accenture's approach requires examining how it built its AI story—and where Indian IT missed the trick to load up on its outsourcing gravy train.

The $4.78 billion chasm isn't merely a result of smart salesmanship; it's the payoff for four years of strategic foresight. Accenture started with the basics.