Accenture Announces Its Cloud First with $3B Investment

Accenture announced the formation of Accenture Cloud First with a $3 billion investment over three years to help its clients across all industries rapidly become “cloud-first” businesses and accelerate their digital transformation to realize greater value at speed and scale.

“COVID-19 has created a new inflection point that requires every company to dramatically accelerate the move to the cloud as a foundation for digital transformation to build the resilience, new experiences and products, trust, speed, and structural cost reduction that the ongoing health, economic and societal crisis demands — and that a better future for all requires,” said Julie Sweet, chief executive officer, Accenture. “Accenture Cloud First and our substantial investment demonstrate our commitment to delivering greater value to our clients when they need it most. Digital transformation requires cloud at scale, and post-COVID leadership requires that every business become a ‘cloud-first’ business.”

Accenture Cloud First is a new multi-service group of 70,000 cloud professionals that brings together the full power and breadth of Accenture’s industry and technology capabilities, ecosystem partnerships, and deep commitment to learning and upskilling clients’ employees and to responsible business, with the singular focus of enabling organizations to move to the cloud with greater speed and achieve greater value for all their stakeholders at this critical time.

Accenture’s $3 billion investment will be used to continue advancing — often together with its cloud and broader technology ecosystem partners — industry roadmaps, data models, and solutions; cloud AI data and AI architectures; integrated full-stack infrastructure and applications capabilities; cloud tools, assets, and automation to drive lower unit cost and innovation; and research and development in edge computing and related cloud technologies.

Karthik Narain, a technology industry veteran based in Silicon Valley will lead Accenture Cloud First and join the Global Management Committee. Over his 20-year career, he has led many innovative technology programs for clients across a variety of industry sectors, including Software & Platforms, Financial Services, and High Tech. Karthik also previously led Technology services for Accenture’s Communications, Media, and High Tech industry segments.

“Cloud is the most disruptive and value-creating technology of our time — it is the foundation for the digital transformation that is driving profound changes in how businesses operate, compete and create value for all their stakeholders,” said Paul Daugherty, group chief executive, Accenture Technology. “With most businesses currently at only about 20% in the cloud, moving to 80% or more rapidly and cost-effectively is a massive change that requires a bold new model. Accenture Cloud First, along with our $3 billion investment and our market-leading Software as a service capability in Intelligent Platform Services, ensures that we provide our clients with value, speed, and innovation in every part of their cloud journey.”

The announcement comes as worldwide demand for cloud computing has skyrocketed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. According to Gartner, the worldwide public cloud services market is forecast to grow 6.3% in 2020 to total $257.9 billion, up from $242.7 billion in 2019. “When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, there were a few initial hiccups but cloud ultimately delivered exactly what it was supposed to,” said Sid Nag, research vice president at Gartner. “It responded to increased demand and catered to customers’ preference of elastic, pay-as-you-go consumption models.”