Daybreak - The Big Four gain where Accenture and IBM feel the most pain

Episode Date: October 26, 2025

Accenture is reinventing itself. Literally. Its new “Reinvention Services” division, led by former Americas CEO Manish Sharma, is supposed to make Accenture the best version of itself for clients. But inside the company? "Reinvention" signals a deep internal culling after nearly 11,000 job cuts. The layoffs, however are also fuelling a new kind of hiring boom elsewhere.The Big Four—Deloitte, PwC, EY, and KPMG—are seizing the moment. As they race to turn themselves into AI and tech transformation powerhouses, corporate restructuring at tech-services giants like Accenture and IBM just made hiring tech talent a whole lot easier for the Big Four. Tune in.Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.</strong></em>

Hi, this is Rohan Dharma Kumar. If you've heard any of the Ken's podcasts, you've probably heard me, my interruptions, my analogies, and my contrarian takes on most topics. And you might rightly be wondering why am I interrupting this episode too? It's for a special announcement. For the last few months, I and Sita Raman Ganesh, my colleague and the Ken's deputy editor, have been working on an ambitious new podcast.

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And it is that simple. Now, back to the episode. On September 1st, Accenture's former America CEO, Mani Sharma, became the company's global chief services officer. His new role, something Accenture is calling reinvention services. Basically, a major restructuring of how the company works. In a LinkedIn post, Accenture CEO, Julie Sweet, explained that Accenture is bringing all its divisions, that is strategy, consulting, technology and operations under one roof. The idea is simple.

Clients want results faster and this structure is meant to help Accenture move quicker, deliver more value and make better use of generative AI. For the clients, that sounds like a pretty good deal, right? But inside Accenture, the move is being seen very differently. Several people think of it as a sign of more layoffs to come. And these concerns are coming on the heels of nearly 11,000 job cuts over the last few months. But in a twist, consulting giants like Deloitte, PWC, EY and KPMG are seeing a opportunity in Accenture's upheaval. And it is shaking up their hiring playbooks.

To understand why, let me take you back to a couple weeks ago. My co-host, Snickta Sharma, reported on the big force race in implementation. and performing AI. Here's what she said. The traditional engines, which was auditing and taxes, have slowed down. The dependable work still pays the bills, but it no longer delivers growth. And that is why transformation has become the new consulting product. Digital overhaul, strategy resets, AI roadmaps, projects that can be pitched as forward-looking, not backward auditing.

But here's the irony. For most of these firms, doing AI is not just about dramatic efficiency gains. It is about optics. Clients want proof that their advisors are living the future that they're selling. And it is not enough to know AI anymore. You have to perform it. Now, while AI might have triggered this shift, it's not just about AI. It's also about widespread tech development.

And so, the big four want to move beyond Pax, audit and advisory. into the world of tech implementation. Now, if you've put two and two together, you know that to make this transformational change, the Big Four need the right teams, people who have done this work before. Because while the Big Four are scaling their new businesses exponentially, the expertise for that kind of scale,

it just doesn't exist in house. So, the Big Four have started hiring tech leaders, all seasoned industry executives to run and lead. their own tech transformation practices. And guess who just paid that talent hunting process a whole lot easier? Welcome to Daybreak, a business podcast from the Ken. I'm your host, Rachel Warragis, and every day of the week, my co-host, Snickda Sharma and I

will bring you one new story that is worth understanding and worth your time. Today is Monday, the 27th of October. A senior leader at Accenture, who previously worked at Deloitte, shared his insights with my colleague, the Ken reporter De Banjali Business. He said that basically industry folk bring practical knowledge of implementation. They already know what challenges to expect and are familiar with how to pitch, how to deliver and how to hire. For example, at PWC, nearly 80% of new partner hires now come from outside the firm.

That's up from just 5% two years ago. Deloitte as well has been quietly poaching IBM cybersecurity and domestic capability center teams. So here's the irony. As Accenture and IBM cut jobs, the Big Four are adding them for the same kind of work. Why? Well, there's a simple explanation for it. The Big Four are laid to the tech implementation game. The Accenture senior leader told us that for Accenture, a $100 tech implementation project is now $60, with faster timelines and less manpower.

But for the Big Four, who was strategy only before, they have added the $6,000. $60 project on top of their existing services and have raised overall revenue. The thing is, while strategy work pays high rates, they run for only a few months at a time. Tech implementation projects, on the other hand, they run for almost 5 to 10 years and bring in a steady flow of cash. The Accenture Senior added that a project's main volume and nearly 90% of the revenue share comes from delivery. So to catch up the big four needed time, talent fast. A Deloitte partner told us that training people internally would have taken nearly six years. Naturally, the only option was to hire from industry. And that's where veterans from

Accenture, IBM and InfoSys come in. They bring the technical know-how and credibility clients expect. But there's a trade-off. See, more partners equals less revenue per partner. However, the Big Four are in a position where they have to prioritize delivery capacity over margins, at least for right now. Prashant Yadav, who is a partner at executive search firm Amrop India, told Ebangri that these firms have entered into complex deals at very low rates over the last couple of years. And now, they need experts to fulfil these deals. You see, many of the Big Four's new projects are massive, worth 300 to 600 crore rupees each.

And each project requires hundreds of people working across data, cloud and analytics. For context, traditional Big Four projects rarely crossed 100 crore rupees per project before. Accenture and IBM veterans also bring managed service expertise, meaning they not only implement solutions but manage them for clients over several years. A Big Four partner who worked at Accenture until 2024 explained that basically you become part of the client's business, an extended part of the organization working closely with the executives. The result? Forms that once only advised are now delivering. And what's working in the big force favor is a cultural shift that is underway in Accenture and IBM. More on this in the next segment.

You see, the old tech card is going through a major shift. After years of overhiring, Accenture and IBM are both cutting away the fat. Accenture has, had actually doubled its headcount to 800,000 between 2019 and 2024. But now, it's trimming teams, freezing hikes and chasing AI-driven efficiency. The thing is, Manish Sharma's reinvention services is meant to integrate AI deeply into Accenture's workflows. And employees see it as a sign that more jobs will soon be cut. The Big Four partner who used to work with Accenture told us that Sharma is actually known for finding redundant positions and getting rid of them. So, while all of this happens globally, at the same time,

India's role inside these companies is also changing drastically. Strategy and consulting work is increasingly moving to Singapore and the US. What remains to be done in India is technology and business process outsourcing, both functions that need fewer senior leaders than are currently in position. And to make things worse, the promotion cycle is frustratingly slow. For instance, at IBM, it can take three to five years to move roles. At Accenture, you're required to stay at the same position for two to four years before you're even eligible for a promotion. Not just that, even internal transfers take months. A former employee joked that it was actually easier to switch industries than switch teams. Between 2023 and 2025, both companies even froze

hikes and promotions altogether. And unfortunately, when they finally, reversed the freeze, it was too late. The demand for hiring in the US had already cooled down. And that was also when the political hit came. Their largest client base, the US market was under threat. The Trump administration's cost-cutting measures and new taxes on foreign services were taking hold. As a result, leadership morale has fallen. So, when the big four come calling with a partner title, faster growth and higher pay, for employees who always already fear a layoff, the answer is an easy yes. Stay tuned. The difference between working at Accenture or Deloitte finally comes down to one thing. Ownership. At Accenture or IBM,

you're an employee. At a big four firm, you're a partner, a part owner of the business. That means profits go to you, not shareholders. And that is a very powerful incentive. You see, incoming partners can see pay hikes of up to 50 to 100% depending on demand. And partners can also hire teams more freely, something entirely unheard of in the more stiff tech services hierarchies. One partner who made the switch in 2024 told us that they used to be stuck in operations at Accenture. Now that they're at Deloitte, they can run AI transformation end to end and with global

visibility. Another thing the big four firms have going for them is that they also have a broader client base. They cover audit, tax and risk, which makes it much easier to cross-sell tech services. A former IBM leader mentioned that if you already handle a client's taxes, it's easy to pitch them a digital transformation project on top of it. In contrast, Accenture and IBM use India as just a delivery hub to service global clients. This means that decision making powers lie largely outside the country and there isn't much scope to be on the front lines of projects. To put it in perspective, out of Accenture's over 300,000 India employees, only 5,000 work on India-specific projects. At IBM, the number is close to 20% of the workforce.

And of course, geopolitics is only making it worse. Countries like the US and France are pushing companies to buy and hire local. As a result, global roads are now. scares and regional ones are gaining weight. The thing is, Accenture and IBM's global first delivery heavy model has worked for decades. But now, as the big four rush into tech implementation, they are now competing on the very field Accenture and IBM once dominated. So if Accenture and IBM want to stay in the game, the least they can do is stop the talent drain.

And for that, they'll need to rethink what their top talent really wants. Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of the Ken, India's first subscriber-focused business news platform. What you're listening to is just a small sample of our subscriber-only offerings. A full subscription offers daily long-form feature stories, newsletters and a whole bunch of premium podcasts. To subscribe, head to the Ken.com and click on the red subscribe button on the top of the Ken website. Today's episode was hosted and produced by my colleague Rachel Varghis and edited by Rajiv Sien.