Accenture says CEOs are postponing hiring consultants due to uncertainty

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A “significantly elevated” level of economic and geopolitical uncertainty is causing business leaders to hold off on hiring consultants for some new projects, according to the IT consulting and outsourcing group Accenture.

The company reported a slowdown in new business for the second quarter in a row, sending its shares almost 8 per cent lower in early Wall Street trading on Friday.

While the company beat earnings expectations, a 6 per cent decline in new bookings to $19.7bn for the three months to May 31 raised concerns over the longer-term growth outlook. Its consulting and managed services businesses both posted lower bookings compared with a year ago.

“We continue to see a significantly elevated level of uncertainty in the global economic and geopolitical environment as compared to calendar year 2024,” said Julie Sweet, chief executive, in an earnings call. “In every boardroom, in every industry, our clients are not facing a single challenge. They’re facing everything at once: economic volatility, geopolitical complexity and [changing] customer behaviour.”

With slower than usual bookings for smaller, discretionary consulting projects, Accenture has been concentrating on larger digital transformation projects. Sweet said business leaders were not sitting on the sidelines but were willing to do “the biggest things that are going to make a difference”.

The company is also battling a slowdown at Accenture Federal Services, which contracts with the US government and has been affected by the efforts of US President Donald Trump’s administration to reduce spending.

The US federal government accounts for about 8 per cent of Accenture’s revenues, and the company said the slowdown there would be a headwind for revenue growth in the next quarter. Sweet said it was “too early to be making ***umptions” about next year, but that the company was being affected by the cancellation of existing contracts and a slowdown in new work.

Accenture is one of 10 consulting firms that was specifically asked to relinquish contracts or cut prices to save the government money.

A Financial Times blockysis of federal contract data shows that 28 Accenture contracts have been “terminated for convenience” since Trump’s inauguration in January. These include four large umbrella contracts that together authorised close to $1bn in spending from the health and human services, interior and Treasury departments.

The FT blockysis confirms that Accenture has also seen a sharp slowdown in new work from the federal government. According to an official database, it is set to be paid $643mn for work commissioned in the three-month period that ended in May, a little more than half the same period in 2024.

Jefferies blockyst Surinder Thind said that bookings had now been softer than expected for two consecutive quarters. “The updated guidance implies growth will continue to slow down, which is worth calling out,” he said.

Accenture said it shrank its workforce in the most recent quarter, from a record 801,000 at the end of February to 791,000 as more staff left voluntarily.

The company also on Friday announced the departures of three senior executives — including the chief executive of its consulting business, Jack Azagury, and Karthik Narain, CEO of its technology business — along with a reshuffle of its organisational structure. Its five main business units will be combined under the leadership of Manish Sharma, who currently runs Accenture in the Americas.