Accenture

Accenture — Offshore Delivery Model Transformation

Published Apr 15, 2026

Accenture, a Large Enterprise IT Services & Consulting company, achieved measurable value creation through General and Administrative. - **Revenue growth**: Net revenue grew from $31.

Company	Accenture
Industry	IT Services & Consulting
Company Size	Large Enterprise
Primary Lever	General and Administrative
Key Result	- Revenue growth: Net revenue grew from $31

What was the challenge?

In FY2015 (fiscal year ended August 31, 2015), Accenture generated approximately $31.0 billion in net revenue with approximately 358,000 employees, producing a GAAP operating margin of 14.3% ($4.44 billion operating income). The company's consulting heritage meant its delivery model relied heavily on onshore professionals working at client sites in high-cost markets (United States, Western Europe, Japan). Indian IT services competitors — Infosys, TCS, Wipro — competed with delivery models running 60-80% of headcount offshore, creating persistent pricing pressure in managed services and application outsourcing engagements. Accenture needed to reduce its blended cost-to-deliver while preserving the strategic advisory capability and client proximity that commanded premium bill rates.

What did they do?

Over FY2015 through FY2023, Accenture executed a systematic geographic rebalancing of its delivery workforce:

India headcount scaling: Grew India-based workforce to approximately 300,000 by FY2023, making India the single largest country by employee count — exceeding the United States. Accenture built full-stack delivery capabilities in India spanning technology delivery, analytics, business operations, and industry consulting, positioning India centers as sources of specialized talent rather than low-cost labor alone.
Global delivery center expansion: Expanded delivery centers across the Philippines, Eastern Europe (Poland, Romania, Czech Republic), Latin America (Costa Rica, Brazil), and North Africa. Each center developed specializations aligned with regional language capabilities, time-zone coverage, and industry expertise.
Workforce doubling at scale: Total global headcount grew from approximately 358,000 (FY2015) to approximately 733,000 (FY2023), a 105% increase. Revenue per employee remained roughly stable at approximately $86,600 (FY2015: $31.0B / 358K) to $87,400 (FY2023: $64.1B / 733K), indicating the geographic mix shift offset wage inflation in higher-cost locations.
Unified global career model: Implemented common career paths and performance standards across all delivery locations, enabling offshore centers to fill senior architect and delivery lead roles. This reduced the quality gap between onshore and offshore teams that limited competitors' offshoring efforts.

Sources

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What were the results?

Revenue growth: Net revenue grew from $31.0 billion (FY2015) to $64.1 billion (FY2023), a 107% increase over eight fiscal years.
Adjusted operating margin expansion: FY2023 adjusted operating margin was 15.4% ($9.87 billion adjusted operating income), approximately 90 basis points above the FY2015 adjusted level of approximately 14.5% ($4.50 billion, excluding a $64 million pension settlement charge).
GAAP operating margin: FY2023 GAAP operating margin was 13.7% ($8.81 billion), below the FY2015 level of 14.3% due to approximately $1.1 billion in business optimization costs (restructuring charges) recognized in FY2023. Through FY2022, before these charges, GAAP operating margin reached 15.2%.
Scale with margin preservation: Accenture more than doubled its workforce and revenue while expanding adjusted margins by approximately 90 basis points, demonstrating that the geographic delivery shift reduced blended costs sufficiently to offset wage inflation, competitive pricing pressure, and investment in digital capabilities.
Timeframe: FY2015-FY2023 (eight-year structural transformation).

What made it possible?

Scale provided investment capacity for delivery center infrastructure, training programs, and unified technology platforms across geographies
Premium brand reputation gave enterprise clients confidence in offshore delivery quality that smaller competitors could not match
COVID-19 (2020-2021) normalized remote and distributed delivery globally, reducing client resistance to non-onsite service models
Strategic tuck-in acquisitions in target geographies accelerated local talent acquisition and delivery center build-out
Unified global technology collaboration platform enabled seamless project delivery across delivery locations and time zones

- **Revenue growth**: Net revenue grew from $31

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