A：In the fiscal year 2025, the company delivered a strong year financially, significantly elevated its competitive positioning, and took major steps towards growth. It grew 7%, adding $5 billion in revenue with over $80 billion in bookings. The company also achieved strong earnings per share growth and generated robust free cash flow. It returned a significant amount of cash to shareholders, an increase of 7% over the previous fiscal year, and gained market share at more than 5x its investable basket.

A：The major drivers of the company's revenue growth were the rapid shift in its business strategy by the end of the previous fiscal year to address challenging market conditions and the actions taken to fully capitalize on the competitive advantages built over time. These advantages include strong ecosystem partnerships, a record of investing in new skills, rotating business with successive technology revolutions, and the ability to invest strategically.

A：The company's partnerships were a key contributor to its success, as it remained the number one partner for all of its top 10 ecosystem partners by revenue. With 60% of revenue coming from work done with these partners, which grew 9% organically, they played an essential role in helping clients turn technology into business outcomes and scale the adoption of AI. The company's deep and long-standing relationships and global footprint enabled it to serve more of its clients' needs for large-scale transformations.

A：The company's revenue is composed of work done with major technology companies, which grew 9% and outpacing the overall revenue growth. In addition to its ongoing efforts around advanced AI, it is expanding its capital projects business, which grew 49% year on year, driven largely by organic growth. The company plans to further integrate AI into its offerings, using it as a core part of its services and solutions to better serve clients and drive business outcomes.

A：The company plans to reinvent what it sells, how it delivers services, how it partners, and how it operates. This includes embedding advanced AI into every aspect of its operations and using AI to enhance performance across key platforms and corporate functions. It also involves upskilling its workforce, developing new partnerships, and refining its talent strategy to ensure it can continue to provide innovative solutions and maintain its competitive edge in the evolving technological landscape.

A：The company is executing its strategy by training and retooing a large workforce of AI and data professionals. With over 77,000 AI and data professionals and experience on more than 6,000 advanced AI projects, it is delivering meaningful revenue and embedding AI into key platforms. It is also focusing on partnerships, talent strategy, and growth models to stay at the forefront of AI innovation, including developing new partnerships and enhancing corporate functions for additional investment capacity.

A：The company's financial performance is robust, with fourth-quarter revenues growing 4.5% in local currency and adjusted operating margin expanding to 15.1%. It continued to take significant market share, grew earnings per share, and generated strong free cash flow. The company returned $1.4 billion to shareholders through repurchases and dividends. Its focus on delivering shareholder value proposition while investing in long-term market leadership and reinventing services to sell and deliver a broader range of offerings aims to sustain and enhance its role as a trusted rein partner for clients.

A：The business optimization program is expected to lead to a net increase in headcount overall across all three markets, including the US and Europe, to meet the demand seen in the business. Cost savings from the program will be reinvested in people and the business.

A：In the Americas, revenue grew led by banking and capital markets, industrial and software and platforms, partially offset by a decline in public service. In EMEA, revenue grew led by insurance, life sciences, utilities, consumer goods, retail, and travel services, with a decline in public service, driven by the United Kingdom and Spain. In Asia-Pacific, revenue growth was driven by banking and capital markets, public service, and utilities, partially offset by a decline in energy revenue, with growth led by Japan and Australia.

A：Gross margin for the quarter was 35.9%, compared with 32.5% for the same period last year. Sales and marketing expense was 10.2%, compared with 10.7% for the fourth quarter last year. General and administrative expense was 6.6%, compared to 6.8% for the same quarter last year. Adjusted operating income was $2.7 billion with a 15.1% adjusted operating margin and an adjusted effective tax rate of 27.9%, compared with an adjusted operating margin of 15.3% and an adjusted effective tax rate of 26.2% in the prior year. Adjusted diluted earnings per share were $3.00, reflecting 9% growth compared with $2.79 in the prior year. Free cash flow was $3.8 billion, and the cash balance at August 31 was $11.5 billion, compared with $5.0 billion a year earlier.

A：For the full year, the company achieved bookings of $80.6 billion with record quarterly client bookings over $100 million, a booked-to-bill ratio of 1.2, and revenues at $69.7 billion, reflecting 7% local currency growth with nearly $5 billion in incremental revenue. Consulting revenues were $35.1 billion, up 6% in US dollars and 5% in local currency, and managed services revenues were $34.6 billion at 9% growth in both US dollars and local currency. Adjusted operating margin expanded by 10 basis points to 15.6%, adjusted earnings per share grew by 8% to $12.90, and free cash flow increased by 26% to $10.9 billion. The company returned $8.3 billion to shareholders through share repurchases and cash dividends while investing in 23 acquisitions.

A：AI technology is significant in the current business climate because it is still in its early stages, which implies substantial opportunity for both clients and the company. It is also a strategic area for enterprise reinvention, as traditional uses of technology do not apply to AI, which requires a new approach to business strategy and talent.

A：Companies face challenges such as understanding the technological landscape, developing new business strategies, acquiring new talent, and addressing organizational silos. The company is helping clients overcome these challenges by providing AI readiness assessments, scaling AI across enterprises, modernizing digital operations, and transforming core business functions. These efforts are driving the company's growth and expanding its contracts with clients.

A：AI is impacting the company's business strategy by expanding opportunities with clients, deepening long-standing partnerships, accelerating demand for transformation, and enabling the scaling of AI across enterprises. AI is now a catalyst for large-scale digital core transformations, and the company is seeing a pattern of growth where AI leads to more work and enhanced client relationships.

A：Recent advancements in digital core modernization for banking include the modernization of the Bank of England's real-time gross settlement service using a private cloud and end-to-end automation. This upgrade has improved security, reliability, speed, and scale, processed massive transactions, and supports the potential adoption of AI-driven payment services, thereby strengthening the national payment platform and creating a foundation for innovation.

A：Recent acquisitions include CyberCx, the largest cybersecurity acquisition to date, which aids in geographic expansion and brings AI-powered security platforms applicable globally. Additionally, the acquisition of Imam Concepts, a Canadian identity security specialist, expands managed security capabilities and supports the adoption of secure AI.

A：Ecolab has partnered with Accenture to lay the foundation for their growth transformation, which includes redesigning the lead to close process with AI. This has resulted in a 60% reduction in manual work and a decrease in errors while speeding up processes. Ecolab is on track for an estimated 5-7% sales growth and 20% operating income without increasing costs, aligning with its mission to deliver water hygiene and infection prevention solutions.

A：The partnership with the leading energy company has reinvented field operations using cloud data and AI. By consolidating data from over 25 legacy systems into a single cloud-based digital core and using AI-powered scaled digital twins, real-time monitoring, optimization, and control of field operations have been achieved. This has led to reduced emissions, up to 2-4% loss production decrease, up to 28% productivity increase, and up to 22% cost reduction while also lowering field exposure and unplanned visits.

A：UOB, a leading bank with a 20-year relationship with Accenture, is scaling AI usage to transform customer experience and core operations. With the help of an AI refinery platform, high-value use cases such as customer engagement, risk management, and workforce enablement are being empowered, resulting in faster, more personalized service, stronger decision-making with predictive insights, and accelerated response times.

A：Industry X is seeing strong demand and is expected to grow further as it focuses on digital manufacturing and engineering with the use of AI and data to reinvent customer experience. Recent acquisitions such as Momentum ABM and Super Digital in the US extend Accenture's edge in B2B and social and influencer marketing.

A：For the upcoming fiscal year, revenue is expected to grow 2 to 5% in local currency over fiscal 2025, including a 1% to 1.5% impact from a federal business. Adjusted operating margin is expected to be 15.7% to 15.9%, and the annual adjusted tax rate is in the range of 23.5% to 25.5%. Full-year adjusted diluted earnings per share are expected to be in the range of $14.52 to $13.90, indicating 5% to 8% growth over adjusted fiscal 2025 results. Operating cash flow is expected to be in the range of $10.8 to $11.5 billion, with property and equipment additions of approximately $1 billion, and free cash flow to be in the range of $9.8 to $10.5 billion.

A：The balance between Gen AI and managed services is being managed to push revenue and margins higher. The company is focusing on consulting and managed services in the low to mid single-digit range for FY 26.

A：Companies are using managed services to invest in proprietary capabilities, buy necessary capabilities, and go faster by partnering. For companies that are not far along in their tech journey, managed services offer both cost takeout and the use of advanced AI platforms to advance their AI capabilities.

A：The projected impact of AI on CapEx is an increase of about $400 million, with a total of about a billion dollars expected for this year. This increase is attributed to expanding real estate and leasehold improvements in major markets.

A：Pricing for Gen AI projects is evolving with a focus on being accretive to Accenture's average. Many projects that were initially in the proof of concept stage are now transitioning to production as the company helps them scale.

A：While data is foundational to AI and indeed part of the digital core that the company is building, it is currently excluded from the definition of advanced AI to focus on new market spend. However, data pull-through is significant in many projects and the data business is growing.

A：Accenture is responding to the rapid demand and importance of new technology by accelerating training in new skills and leveraging its strong base of classical AI training. This approach is considered faster than previous technology evolutions in terms of demand and talent rotation.

A：Client behavior is changing with more clients seeking to leverage Gen AI solutions themselves, driven by efficiencies in technology like software development. Initially, clients may try themselves but then realize they need help to scale, leading them to return to the company for assistance.

A：The business optimization plan aims to achieve savings and evolve operations sustainably. It may be combined with Gen AI adoption internally to operate at a higher utilization rate, which could have contributed to the increased utilization observed in the current quarter.

A：The company expects savings of over a billion dollars from a business optimization program, which will be reinvested in the business and in its people to ensure future growth.

A：The main focus of the company's talent strategy is upskilling to acquire the necessary skills for the business, particularly in a compressed timeline, rather than retaining staff that doesn't possess these skills.

A：The company is looking at new structures around reinvention services to see how technology can be utilized to deliver services and operate the core business of Accenture. This includes simplifying operations to facilitate the use of AI and exploring new opportunities as the technology is fully rolled out.

A：The company is observing a calmed pace of procurement changes from the government side, which allows for better forecasting. On tariffs, there is more clarity leading to increased capital investment, especially in product areas. H1B changes are not a significant issue for the company as they only have about 5% of their U.S. employees on H1B visas. The company's business model thrives on helping clients navigate change, so policy changes drive more business for them as they assist clients with compliance and take advantage of new rules.

A：The company expects headcount to grow across all markets, although it does not provide a specific number. The timing and magnitude of this growth are tied to the demand being seen. The current utilization rate reflects the momentum in demand and is expected to continue moving in the low 90s. AI is being embedded in platforms like Gen Wizard to drive efficiencies, which is reflected in bookings and is expected to continue as a leadership position that can be extended to clients.