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Jun 06, 2006: CEO Forum with William Green of Accenture

Accenture CEO William Green was the featured guest of the June 8 AmCham Russia CEO Forum – a series designed to facilitate dialogue between high-level Russian and American executives and to enhance Russia’s profile as a prime investment destination. Following his return to the U.S., Green took time to discuss his company’s strategy for Russia with AmCham News.

What specific opportunities have led you to expand operations in Russia?

Russia is a strategically important geography for Accenture and a key emerging market. During my recent trip to Moscow, I had an opportunity to meet with some of our key clients in Russia to understand their objectives and needs. What I saw is that Russia is a very dynamic market undergoing a great deal of change, and I’m excited about Accenture’s growth opportunities in Russia.

There’s a lot of foreign capital being invested in Russia, companies here are undergoing privatization and IPOs, and Russian companies are becoming more and more global, with international acquisitions. When companies are undergoing these kinds of changes and looking to improve their business performance, it creates opportunities for us to help our clients achieve high performance using the best worldwide experience and good local knowledge.

As one of the largest producers of oil and gas in the world, and with extensive natural resources, Russia holds – and will continue to expand – its prominence in the world economy. Russia will play a key role in providing the resources to fuel a number of the largest and fastest-growing economies – China, India and across Europe. As investments continue to be made in other industries as well, more and more Russian companies will be among the world’s top companies in terms of market capitalization.

In short, the entire economy in Russia is benefiting and expanding, and Accenture sees great things happening in the future. The momentum cannot be stopped.

How do these opportunities in Russia fit within your overall strategy for Accenture’s growth?

We plan to invest in Russia to grow our presence and be in a position to serve our clients with the right skills and capabilities. We operate under a principle of providing consistent service to our clients anywhere in the world they operate. In addition, we bring the ideas, skills, knowledge and know-how from where it is to where we need it, quickly and seamlessly.

We believe we can provide the full range of our services – business consulting, systems integration and technology, and outsourcing – to Russia’s domestic companies and to global companies operating in Russia today.

We serve a broad range of clients across nearly every major industry, from resources companies in the oil, gas, metals/mining and chemicals industries to companies in the retail, consumer goods, telecommunications, media and financial services industries, among others.

Resources is currently our largest sector, which is consistent with its share of the Russian economy, but we are doing business across nearly every major sector and are projecting significant growth for next year across all of these areas.

How long has Accenture worked in Russia? Compare your preconceived notions on doing business in Russia to your outlook today. What held true? What did not?

Accenture has been operating in Russia since 1992. Our local leaders would tell you that we’ve been able to execute the strategy we defined for developing our business in Russia. We serve companies in a wide range of industries and our offerings are relevant to helping Russia’s leading companies become high performance businesses.

Although Accenture itself is a truly global company and brings the Accenture reputation and experience to all of our work, we also are part of the communities in which we operate. It is important to us to serve clients with local resources in local markets – in other words, in Russia we need to deliver our work as a Russian company, with the best Russian talent. We work to be globally efficient, yet locally responsive.

There is growing competition in our industry in Russia, and there is a real war to attract the best people. Accenture’s people are our greatest asset and the most important element of our ability to serve our clients. It’s important that Accenture in Russia brings our global capabilities, but that we deliver with the best local talent.

The success of our business in Russia is based on having local talent, language, culture, and leaders, and building a strong local brand equity that is known for its ability to help clients achieve high performance.

The most impressive change I see in Russia is the business climate, the ambition of companies, the confidence and the desire to adopt the practices to compete and win on both the local and global stage.

What types of new services and products will you be introducing to the Russian market in the near future?

We have a significant track record in Russia in areas like strategy/business model definition, corporate reorganization and change management, process optimization and systems integration.

As we look to continue to grow our business in Russia, you will see us expanding our strategy and business consulting services, as well as our technology consulting services. Also, outsourcing is one of the fastest growing areas of Accenture’s business globally and although the outsourcing market is still young in Russia we see a significant potential for growth.