Who needs Accenture in the age of AI?

WHO is consulting good for? Consultants, obviously. Chief executives, who can blame failure on bad outside advice and take credit for successful counsel. Also, for the industry’s one listed behemoth, its shareholders.

Between the start of 2015 and the end of 2024, Accenture, which split off from its accounting sibling in 2000 and went public a year later, generated a total return (including dividends) of around 370 per cent, handily outdoing not just the S&P 500 index but also Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, rival redoubts of advisory smugness. As America’s stock market climbed to an all-time high in February, the firm was worth US$250 billion, more than either investment bank.

Since then, however, investors have wiped some US$60 billion from its market value – and a self-satisfied smile off its face. On June 20, its share price tumbled by 7 per cent following a disappointing quarterly earnings report.