Accenture to lay-off 25,000 low performers

Accenture is laying off as many as 25,000 posts worldwide as it seeks to limit down its nearly half-a-million strong workforce. The Australian Financial Review recently reported that the first round of lay-offs occurred earlier this month, and more cutoffs are yet to come. The lay-offs are done according to the employees’ performance and are targeted at the bottom five percent of Accenture Company. Accenture spokesman Mark Bonnaci wasn’t available for comment.

During Accenture’s June 25 financial analyst conference call CEO Julie Sweet stated: “As I’ve said before, we’ve recognized some real areas of efficiencies and so there are of course headcount implications to it, which is what you’re calling lay-offs.”  Earlier in July, the company cut 900 jobs in the UK, citing a downward curve in market demand. “We went into the bad crisis with more people relative to the demand,” the company stated. “The crisis brought additional strain on the businesses because of lower demand and reduced national attrition. Also, we have identified structural costs that needed to be addressed immediately.”

Accenture has cut down travel budgets, cut back contractors were required, and was limiting new recruiting, the report stated. Earlier in mid-March, as the US was looking forward to lockdowns and other restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sweet hit a good note and told investors that Accenture was well-positioned to withstand the pandemic and come out stronger on the other side. She said the shift to digital across working environments boosts Accenture’s strength as one of the world’s largest systems integrators. “I am extremely confident, and I think we’re now in a significantly strong position as we shift to this chapter,” she stated during the March 19 earnings call.

Accenture CFO KC McClure stated that “when emerged out of the last financial crisis, Accenture invested in market share, and as we look into a long term future, we will have a tremendous opportunity for all over the long term by staying closer to our clients.”  The company’s M&A activity hasn’t slowed during the crisis with Accenture recently completing its 20th acquisition of the year after the purchase of CreativeDrive.

Accenture is focused on security and big data analytics. These include the cybersecurity acquisitions of the Context, Revolutionary Security, and Symantec’s Cyber Security Services business and the data analytics experts AlphaBeta Advisors, Byte Prophecy, Clarity Insights, Mudano, and Sentelis.

About Accenture

Accenture is an Irish multinational professional services company based in Dublin, Ireland, since September 1, 2009. In 2019, the company earned revenues of a whopping $43.2 billion, with more than 492,000 employees across 200+ cities in 120 countries. In 2015, Accenture had about 150,000 employees in India, 48,000 in the US, and 50,000 workforces in the Philippines. The current clients include 91 of Fortune Global 100 and three-quarters of the Fortune Global 500.

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