Accenture lays out three-year plan to approach $100 billion revenue despite macro drag

Accenture Plc chief executive Julie Sweet is banking on legacy technology overhauls and a new push for mid-sized clients to get closer to becoming a $100 billion revenue behemoth in three years, even as a tough spending climate offers no tailwinds.

Outlining the Dublin-based company’s next three-year plan during her opening address at its investor day on Wednesday, Sweet said, “The next chapter will be about scaling reinvention for our clients and for us. Our three-year financial ambition is to achieve at least mid-single-digit revenue growth in constant currency in fiscal year (FY27) and FY28, and then a step up in the range of growth from mid-single digit to high-single digit, starting in FY29, and taking market share throughout the entire period.”

To be sure, the company has not grown more than 7% annually in dollar terms in the past four years. It ended the fiscal year ended August with $74.2 billion revenue, up 6% annually. A little more than a fourth of incremental revenue came from its products business, which includes retailers, manufacturers and life sciences companies. Accenture gets almost a third of its overall business from these sectors.

Sweet added that the company is looking to expand its operating margins even as it embarks on a three-year plan. It ended last year with operating margins of 15.4%, up 70 basis points from a year earlier. One basis point is a hundredth of a percentage point.

For now, Accenture expects revenue growth between 3-6% in local currency this year, of which 2-2.5% is expected to come from acquisitions. The IT firm also expects this to be its most acquisitive year yet, budgeting around $8 billion for buyouts, including $3 billion deferred to last month for cybersecurity acquisitions. The company spent about $4.9 billion across 17 acquisitions in the previous fiscal year, its highest in two years.

The company is betting on two key strategies to achieve its financial goals in the AI era, which Sweet said presents a bigger opportunity “than ever before”.

Firstly, the company is betting on its core business, which makes up 94% of its business and is growing in mid-single digits. “We see a few growth drivers in the core. Most of our growth will continue to come from large-scale reinventions. Those will have different flavors depending on the client. For many, it's still about building the digital core, modernizing ERP, modernizing the mainframe, moving to cloud, eliminating technical debt, and creating the technology foundation needed for AI,” said Sweet.

The second core growth driver will be an expansion of its client base. Sweet added that selling IT services to mid-sized IT firms will be another growth driver. “Over the last couple of years, we bought mid-market focused companies to test our strategy. And starting in FY27, we are going intentionally into the mid market to take market share. This means that we are able to grow by taking more of Accenture to more clients, and the mid market will be part of our core and part of our network,” Sweet said.

In June, Accenture announced a business unit called Accenture Edge for companies with $300 million to $3 billion in annual revenue. The world’s largest IT services company will offer Microsoft’s software to mid-sized clients in areas including cloud, AI and cybersecurity.

Phil Fersht, CEO of HFS Research, said, "It is the right direction, but growing the core and adding clients will only move the needle meaningfully if Accenture also changes the economics of how it delivers the work. Its core business still accounts for 94% of revenue, so adjacent businesses cannot carry the growth story on their own.”

"The biggest opportunity, in my view, is to help existing clients redesign and run more of their business operations with AI, rather than simply compete harder for the same technology budgets," Fersht added.

Two weeks ago, management also threw light on increasing client spending. During a post-earnings conference call on 1 October, management said it expects companies to spend more on automation tools as the costs of deploying them reduce, even as it passes more productivity benefits to clients.

For now, the company is not troubled by an uncertain macroeconomic environment. “We're absorbing AI efficiencies in our business. We also have a macro that's contributing to a challenging spending environment, and as we look forward, what we actually achieve will, of course, reflect what's happening in the macro. But we're not waiting for a meaningful tailwind,” Sweet added.

The company’s ambitions have a bearing on homegrown tech services firms including Tata Consultancy Services Ltd, Infosys Ltd, and HCL Technologies Ltd, as Indian IT services companies often track the world’s largest tech services firm in terms of client demand and business opportunities.

While Accenture spoke about growth plans in its first investor day since 2022, two of the country’s largest tech services firms disclosed their AI-led revenue for the first time. On 17 February, chairman Nandan Nilekani sought to reassure investors that the rise of generative AI is expanding business opportunities for the company, even as anxiety triggered by the launch of new AI tools sent shares plunging. He added that the lag between the advancement in AI tools and adoption by clients creates an opportunity for Infosys. India’s second-largest IT services provider disclosed that AI-related revenue stood at $280.4 million in the October-December 2025 period (Q3FY26), accounting for about 5.5% of its $5.1 billion total revenue.

This came two months after TCS CEO K Krithivasan said the new technology would drive higher spending. The country’s largest IT firm also disclosed its AI revenue for the first time, reporting an annualized run rate of $1.5 billion as of the end of the September quarter. Krithivasan added that AI is more of a fundamental shift than just a new technology.

Jas Bardia is a Bengaluru-based business journalist covering India’s information technology (IT) services sector and Global Capability Centres (GCCs). Known for his investigative depth and attention to detail, Jas has a knack for breaking stories on leadership shifts, high-stakes deals, and evolving industry trends long before they hit the mainstream. If the news is anything IT-related, chances are this author has broken it. Before joining Mint in November 2023, Jas honed his financial reporting skills at Bloomberg News in Mumbai, where he covered bonds and currencies following his graduation from the Asian College of Journalism. When he isn’t chasing his next exclusive, Jas is likely scouting the city’s newest culinary spots, cool events, or is immersed in the electric atmosphere of a Bengaluru FC match at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium. Jas has an eye for detail, an ear for history, and a weakness for a great cologne, and values a good conversation as much as a good lead. If you want to talk about your favourite war movie, funny drunk stories, or a supposed “scam”/wrongdoing in a company, get in touch with him at jas.bardia@livemint.com.

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