Accenture Q4 2022 Earnings Results & Report

Accenture EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $2.60
• Consensus EPS: $2.57
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.03
• One Year Ago EPS: $2.20
• EPS Beat Rate: 8 of last 8 quarters

Accenture Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $15.42 billion
• Expected Revenue: $15.41 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$17.52 million
• YoY Revenue Growth: +14.90%

Accenture (NYSE:ACN) is a global professional services company that helps organizations transform their businesses through consulting, technology and managed services. Its work spans strategy and consulting, technology implementation, operations, and interactive customer experiences.

The company provides services in areas including cloud computing, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, data and analytics, digital engineering, enterprise software, systems integration and business process outsourcing. Accenture serves clients across industries such as financial services, health care, communications, media and technology, consumer goods, industrial companies, resources, and public-sector organizations.

Accenture was established in 1989 as Andersen Consulting, following its separation from Arthur Andersen, and adopted the Accenture name in 2001. The company operates internationally, serving clients in markets across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and other regions. Julie Sweet serves as Accenture’s chair and chief executive officer.

Accenture Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• Accenture delivered a record FY 2022 with $72 billion in bookings (100 clients with quarterly bookings > $100 million), $62 billion in revenues and growth more than twice the industry market.
• Profitability expanded with a 10 bp operating-margin increase to 15.2%, 22 % adjusted EPS growth to $10.71, and $8.8 billion in free cash flow, while deploying $3.4 billion on 38 acquisitions, $1.1 billion on R&D and another $1.1 billion on workforce training.
• Demand remains strong in “total enterprise reinvention” areas—cloud (now a $26 billion business, +48 % growth), AI, data and security—driving 31 % local-currency bookings growth in Q4 and record outsourcing wins.
• The workforce grew by nearly 100,000 to 721,000 people, with 47 % women, ~157,000 promotions, 40 million training hours and 85 % renewable power, underpinning Accenture’s 360-degree value commitments in diversity, communities and sustainability.
• For FY 2023, Accenture guides to 8–11 % revenue growth in local currency, 15.3–15.5 % operating margin, $11.09–$11.41 EPS, $7.7–8.2 billion free cash flow, and at least $7.1 billion returned to shareholders.

Presentation

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by and welcome to Accenture's Q4 fiscal 2022 earnings call. At this time, all participants are in a listen only mode. Later, we will conduct a question and answer session. If you wish to put yourself in the question queue, please press one then zero on your telephone keypad. If you should require assistance during the call, please press star then zero. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to our host, Managing Director, Head of Investor Relations, Ms. Angie Park. Please go ahead.

[Angie Park, CFO at Accenture]

Thank you, Operator, and thanks everyone for joining us today on our Q4 and full fiscal 2022 earnings announcement. As the operator just mentioned, I'm Angie Park, Managing Director, Head of Investor Relations. On today's call, you will hear from Julie Sweet, our Chair and Chief Executive Officer, and KC McClure, our Chief Financial Officer. We hope you've had an opportunity to review the news release we issued a short time ago. Let me quickly outline the agenda for today's call. Julie will begin with an overview of our results. KC will take you through the financial details, including the income statement and balance sheet, along with some key operational metrics for both the Q4 and full fiscal year. Julie will then provide a brief update on our market positioning before KC provides our business outlook for the Q1 and full fiscal year 2023.

[Angie Park, CFO at Accenture]

We will then take your questions before Julie provides a wrap up at the end of the call. Some of the matters we'll discuss on this call, including our business outlook, are forward-looking and as such, are subject to known and unknown risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to those factors set forth in today's news release and discussed in our annual report on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and other SEC filings. These risks and uncertainties could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed in this call.

[Angie Park, CFO at Accenture]

During our call today, we will reference certain non-GAAP financial measures which we believe provide useful information for investors. We include reconciliations of non-GAAP financial measures where appropriate to GAAP in our news release or in the investor relations section of our website at accenture.com. As always, Accenture assumes no obligation to update the information presented on this conference call. Now let me turn the call over to Julie.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Thank you, Angie, and everyone joining us today. Thank you to our 721,000 people around the globe for delivering a truly extraordinary year. We measure our success by both our financial results and the broader 360-degree value we create for all our stakeholders, our clients, people, shareholders, partners, and communities. Strong financial results allow us to deliver more 360-degree value. Let me share a few highlights of this extraordinary year. In FY 2022, we delivered record bookings of $72 billion. As our clients continue to execute compressed transformations, we had 100 clients with quarterly bookings greater than $100 million compared to 72 last fiscal year. We delivered revenues of $62 billion, representing a record 26% growth in local currency, adding $11 billion in revenue for the year.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

We continue to take significant market share, growing more than 2x the market. Our financial results reflect our commitment to creating value for our clients every day, which is why they are turning to us as their trusted partner across the enterprise. We now have 267 diamond clients, our largest client relationships, compared to 229 last fiscal year. We expanded operating margin by 10 basis points and had EPS growth of 22% over adjusted FY 2021 EPS, demonstrating our ability to grow profitably and at scale. We achieved this profitable growth while continuing to invest significantly in our business and people with $3.4 billion deployed across 38 acquisitions that are well balanced across markets, services, and strategic priorities.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

$1.1 billion invested in R&D assets, platforms and industry solutions, including growing our portfolio of patents and pending patents to more than 8,300. $1.1 billion invested in the training and development of our people to grow the skills needed to serve our clients. We continue to offer an employee value proposition that includes providing vibrant career paths and opportunities for our people with approximately 157,000 promotions and over 40 million training hours, while expanding our workforce by almost 100,000 and achieving 47% women as we continue our progress towards gender parity by 2025.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

We believe our unwavering commitment to diversity, broadly defined, and inclusion is an essential element of our ability to deliver market leading financial results because our diversity and inclusiveness makes us smarter, more innovative and more attractive to top talent. We achieved over 85% renewable electricity powering our offices and centers around the world on our way to 100% by 2023.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

We prioritize creating value around the world in the communities where we work and live, both through investments in job creation and through our direct support of meaningful local initiatives, including our apprenticeship programs in the U.S., U.K., Switzerland and Latin America, and our growing partnership with Youth Business International, which will help an additional estimated 240,000 young entrepreneurs, ages 18-35, build skills and success in a digital future on top of the 370,000 young entrepreneurs already supported through this partnership in many different communities throughout the world. This year, we are proud to achieved our highest brand value and rank to date on BrandZ's prestigious Top 100 Most Valuable Global Brands list, increasing 28% to over $82 billion and ranking number 26. Over to you, KC.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Thank you, Julie, and thanks to all of you for joining us on today's call. We were very pleased with our results in the Q4, which completes another outstanding year for Accenture. Once again, our results continue to provide strong validation of our leadership position in the marketplace, the relevance of our services to our clients, and our ability to consistently deliver on our shareholder value proposition, including both our financial results and creating 360-degree value for all our stakeholders. Let me begin by summarizing a few highlights from the quarter across our three financial imperatives. Revenue grew 22.4% in local currency, driven by double-digit growth across all markets, services and industries. We once again extended our leadership position with growth estimated to be more than 2x the market, which refers to our basket of publicly traded companies.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Operating margin was 14.7%, an increase of 10 basis points for the quarter. We continue to drive margin expansion while making significant investments in our people and our business. We delivered very strong EPS of $2.60, which represents 18% growth compared to EPS last year. Finally, we delivered free cash flow of $3.6 billion, driven by superior DSO management. Now let me turn to some of the details. New bookings were $18.4 billion for the quarter, our second-highest ever, with a book-to-bill of 1.2. Consulting bookings were $8.4 billion, with a book-to-bill of one. Outsourcing bookings of $9.9 billion were a record, with a book-to-bill of 1.4.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

We were very pleased with our strong bookings this quarter, which reflect 22% growth in U.S. dollars and 31% growth in local currency, including 26 clients with bookings over $100 million in the quarter. Turning now to revenues. Revenues for the quarter were $15.4 billion, a 15% increase in U.S. dollars and 22.4% in local currency. Consulting revenues for the quarter were $8.3 billion, up 14% in U.S. dollars and 22% in local currency. Outsourcing revenues were $7.1 billion, up 16% in U.S. dollars and 23% in local currency. Taking a closer look at our service dimensions, technology services grew very strong double digits. Operations grew strong double digits and strategy and consulting grew double digits. Turning to our geographic markets.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

In North America, revenue growth was 18% in local currency, driven by double-digit growth in public service, software and platforms, and consumer goods, retail and travel services. In Europe, revenues grew 26% local currency, led by double-digit growth in industrial, banking and capital markets, and consumer goods, retail and travel services. Looking closer at the countries, Europe was driven by double-digit growth in Germany, the U.K., Italy and France. In growth markets, we delivered 26% revenue growth in local currency, driven by double-digit growth in banking and capital markets, consumer goods, retail and travel services and public service. From a country perspective, growth markets was led by double-digit growth in Japan and Australia. Moving down the income statement. Gross margin for the quarter was 32.1%, compared with 33.3% for the same period last year.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Sales and marketing expense for the quarter was 10.2%, compared with 11.3% for the Q4 last year. General and administrative expense was 7.1% compared to 7.4% for the same quarter last year. Operating income was $2.3 billion in the Q4, reflecting a 14.7% operating margin, up 10 basis points compared with Q4 last year. Our effective tax rate for the quarter was 24.6%, compared with an effective tax rate of 25% for the Q4 last year. Diluted earnings per share were $2.60, compared with EPS of $2.20 in the Q4 last year. Days sales outstanding were 43 days, compared to 44 days last quarter and 38 days in the Q4 of last year.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Free cash flow for the quarter was $3.6 billion, resulting from cash generated by operating activities of $3.8 billion, net of property and equipment additions of $177 million. Our cash balance at August 31st was $7.9 billion, compared with $8.2 billion at August 31st last year. With regards to our ongoing objective to return cash to shareholders, in the Q4, we repurchased or redeemed 2.1 million shares for $605 million at an average price of $293.23 per share.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Also in August, we paid our Q4ly cash dividend of $0.97 per share for a total of $614 million. Our board of directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $1.12 per share to be paid on November 15th, a 15% increase over last year, and approved $3 billion of additional share repurchase authority. Now, I would like to take a moment to summarize our outstanding year. We were extremely pleased with our performance in fiscal year 2022, greatly exceeding almost all aspects of our original outlook that we provided last September. We delivered $71.7 billion in new bookings, reflecting 21% growth in U.S. dollars, hitting 100 clients with quarterly bookings of $100 million, which positions us well as we begin FY 2023.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

We added significant scale with a record $11 billion in incremental revenue, almost double what we added in fiscal 2021. Revenue of $61.6 billion for the year reflects growth of 26% in local currency. Operating margin of 15.2% reflects a 10 basis points expansion over FY 2021. We were extremely pleased that we were able to deliver within our original guided range, particularly with the continued significant investment in our business and people, including higher wages. Earnings per share were $10.71, reflecting 22% growth over adjusted FY 2021 EPS, which is our highest growth in over a decade, reinforcing our ability to grow at scale profitably. As a reminder, we adjusted earnings last year to exclude gains on an investment.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Free cash flow of $8.8 billion was significantly above our original guided range, reflecting a very strong free cash flow to net income ratio of 1.3. With regards to our ongoing objective to return cash to shareholders, we exceeded our original guidance for capital allocation by returning $6.6 billion of cash to shareholders while investing approximately $3.4 billion across 38 acquisitions. In addition to these excellent financial results, let me turn to the 360-degree value we are creating for all our stakeholders. Through our partnership with Save the Children, we are preparing young people for a more sustainable and inclusive future by skilling an estimated 70,000 people to drive social and environmental change.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

For more information on the 360-degree value we are creating, please go to the Accenture 360-degree value reporting experience, which reflects new information each quarter. Again, FY 2022 was a truly extraordinary year, and we are now focused on delivering in fiscal 2023. Now let me turn it back to Julie.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Thank you, KC. We succeed by being close to our clients, understanding and anticipating their needs, helping them from strategy to execution with the best solutions for their businesses, whether for growth, cost optimization, or both, and resilience. It all starts with technology. With the breadth and depth of our existing capabilities, combined with our incredible learning organization, we are able to pivot as necessary, positioning us to serve our clients' changing needs and capture new market opportunities, all while being laser-focused on our own operational excellence. I will give some color on the demand we are seeing. First of all, against the backdrop of the current macroeconomic environment, we delivered $18.4 billion in new bookings in Q4, a year-over-year increase of 31% in local currency. While industries and markets are being affected differently, there are two common themes.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

All strategies lead to technology, particularly cloud, data, AI, and security, which are fundamental to a strong digital core. Our cloud business is now $26 billion and grew 48%, with cloud-first being the biggest driver of the growth. Companies are also seeking to execute compressed transformations, the second theme. These mean bold programs on accelerated time frames, often spanning multiple parts of the enterprise at the same time. Managed services have become increasingly strategic as companies seek to move faster and leverage our digital platform and talent. They are turning to Accenture because of our excellence across the enterprise. We are unmatched in terms of breadth and depth of capabilities and industry coverage.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

We continue to see a growing number of companies embrace the need to harness the five key forces of change that we have identified for the next decade, total enterprise reinvention, talent, sustainability, the Metaverse Continuum, and the ongoing tech revolution, which in turn will fuel our growth. Let me bring this demand to life. First, total enterprise reinvention. We are helping our clients transform every part of their business with technology, from building a digital core to optimizing operations to achieve agility, efficiency, and resilience, to accelerating their growth agendas. While it is still early stages, there are leading companies that have begun systematically transforming multiple parts of their enterprise, from moving to the cloud and adopting new ways of working, to digitizing manufacturing, to reimagining shared services, to creating entirely new business models.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Unilever, one of the world's largest consumer goods companies, is an example of a company that is leading in total enterprise reinvention. Together, we are setting a new industry standard by reinventing technology delivery with cutting-edge automation, delivering cloud migration at scale, the largest ERP migration to the cloud in the industry, and shifting to technology solutions that support their growth strategy. They have changed their business model from a matrix structure to being organized around five distinct business groups. Each business group is fully responsible and accountable for their strategy, growth, and profit deliberately globally. Now we are helping them build a B2B marketplace that will help millions of small retailers in emerging markets grow their business and create what the company calls shared prosperity.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

We helped launch in seven markets in just 12 months, implemented a cloud-native scalable commerce platform powered by data and advanced analytics, and we are managing front-end, back office operations and campaigns delivered in partnership with the Accenture Song team. Because across our industries, we are as relevant to the boardroom, to the CFO, to the business unit leader, to the GM of a factory, and we understand the connections across the enterprise, we are uniquely positioned to help our clients as they seek to often simultaneously drive growth, efficiency, cost reduction, and increased resilience. For example, we are helping Lupin Limited, a global pharmaceutical company, become an intelligent enterprise by enabling its data-driven transformation journey. A new digital platform will unlock enterprise data to increase efficiencies, and decision-makers will now have real-time visibility into integrated data across 100 countries and 15 manufacturing and research facilities.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

This consolidated view of global business operations and performance will help the company navigate supply chain disruptions and accelerate product innovation and speed to market while supporting the company's mission to provide affordable health care to people around the world. We see continued demand for our Industry X capabilities, which are all about digitizing engineering and manufacturing, which is the next digital frontier. Industry X revenues grew 38% in FY 2022 to total $7 billion. We are helping EDF, a French multinational utility company, digitize the construction of a nuclear power station that will provide low-carbon energy for more than 6 million U.K. homes. As part of a total enterprise reinvention, our Industry X team transformed EDF's digital construction processes by creating a global digital factory model on a secure cloud infrastructure, driving cost efficiencies.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Construction methods that used to be paper and blueprint-based will be digitized, and AI will consolidate parts information from millions of pages of supplier guides. Digital dashboards will provide real-time data visibility across all systems, and digital twins will help identify areas for automation across power plants, all of which drive safety, efficiency, and quality. We are leveraging our expertise of nuclear construction and our cutting-edge cloud, digital, and AI capabilities to help EDF deliver on one of the largest capital projects in Europe and accelerate its mission, helping Britain achieve net zero. Our operations services, now a $9 billion business with 19% growth in FY 2022, are fundamental to total enterprise reinvention for our clients because they help our clients digitize faster, access digital talent, and reduce cost.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

For example, we are collaborating with one of the world's largest commercial vehicle manufacturers to develop an independent finance operation, leveraging our deep functional expertise in finance and accounting. With our managed services, we will implement a new platform underpinned by SynOps. Automation, data, and analytics will drive and provide real-time decisions while digitizing processes to improve efficiency and user experience, all leading to significant cost reductions, better decision-making, and savings. As our clients build their digital core, security continues to be more important than ever. With over $6 billion in revenue and 45% growth, our integrated security capabilities, from identity to threat intelligence to managed security services to incident response, are critical as our clients respond to increasing risk as the security landscape widens.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

We are working with an Asian multinational conglomerate to deliver a comprehensive managed security services security operations center and holistic security solution to detect, monitor, and respond to global security threats 24/7. We will also manage tools to continuously monitor end-user devices to detect and respond to cyber threats like ransomware and malware, and we'll perform regular threat hunting activities to detect new cyber hacking techniques. This will provide its business units with timely detection and defense against cyberattacks, deliver threat intel for proactive defense, reduce false alarms by 90%, and minimize emergency incidents to less than 1% of total incidents. Moving from total enterprise reinvention to the other five forces, next, talent. Our clients look to us to help them access, create, and unlock the potential of talent.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

We collaborated with Sky, one of Europe's leading media and entertainment companies, to modernize its employee experience in human resources operations in the era of hybrid working. By migrating to a software-as-a-service multi-platform human capital management solution, all in the cloud, employees will be empowered with anytime, anywhere self-service solutions and access to real-time data and dashboards across all markets in one place. The solution supports all people management functions from recruiting and onboarding to performance management and learning, as well as compensation, benefits, and payroll integration. Employees have the full picture of their work experience at their fingertips, helping them to build their careers and perform at even higher levels. Now, sustainability. With $1 billion in revenues in FY 2022, we continue to believe clients will increasingly need our sustainability services in the decade to come.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

We collaborated with Swisscom, Switzerland's number one firm for communications, IT, and entertainment, on a climate strategy to reduce the company's emissions and help its customers reduce their emissions by 1 million tons of carbon by 2025, equal to 2% of Switzerland's total carbon emissions by leveraging technology such as cloud, data, AI, 5G, and IoT. These technologies will address faster and higher capacity data transmission with remote management and control of connected devices. We are also helping the company explore strategies to incorporate technologies within the emerging scope for classification that can help further reduce carbon emissions from customers, allowing Swisscom to positively impact the planet and provide their customers with a larger number of green products and services to choose from.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Moving to the Metaverse and the ongoing tech revolution, we continue to invest ahead of our clients' needs and have more than a decade of experience in leadership and Metaverse-related capabilities. In fact, we expect to onboard over 150,000 new joiners using Accenture's Nth Floor, and we use our experience and expertise to help our clients as we believe the Metaverse Continuum provides greater possibilities in the wave of digital transformation, and it is still early days. For example, we are helping Tokyu Land Corporation, a Japanese leading leasing, construction, and retail real estate company, leverage the Metaverse to transform the customer experience through digital twin technology, leveraging computer-generated imagery to recreate walkthroughs of its condominiums online to greatly improve its in-person model room tour.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Customers will be able to visualize the property online, including different home equipment options, and the company will attract more buyers and increase sales while reducing marketing costs and the environmental impact of the construction, operation, and removal of the model room. Into the future, we will help create continuous touchpoints with customers throughout the real estate life cycle and develop new collaborative digital businesses such as purchasing furniture and home appliances and ordering renovation services. With our continued focus on innovation on the ongoing tech revolution, we continue to invest in our business for the future. For example, in Q4, we invested in Pixxel, a leader in cutting-edge Earth imaging space technology. Back to you, KC.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Thanks, Julie. Now let me turn to our business outlook. For the Q1 of fiscal 2023, we expect revenues to be in the range of $15.2 billion-$15.75 billion. This assumes the impact of FX will be approximately -8.5% compared to the Q1 of fiscal 2022 and reflects an estimated 10%-14% growth in local currency. For the full fiscal year 2023, based upon how the rates have been trending over the last few weeks, we currently assume the impact of FX on our results in U.S. dollars will be approximately -6% compared to fiscal 2022. For the full fiscal 2023, we expect our revenues to be in the range of 8%-11% growth in local currency over fiscal 2022, which includes an inorganic contribution of about 2.5%.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

For operating margin, we expect fiscal year 2023 to be 15.3%-15.5%, a 10-30 basis point expansion over fiscal 2022 results. We expect our annual effective tax rate to be in the range of 23%-25%. This compares to an effective tax rate of 24% in fiscal 2022. For earnings per share, we expect full-year diluted EPS for fiscal 2023 to be in the range of $11.09-$11.41 or 4%-7% growth over fiscal 2022 results. For the full fiscal 2023, we expect operating cash flow to be in the range of $8.5-$9 billion, property and equipment additions to be approximately $800 million, and free cash flow to be in the range of $7.7-$8.2 billion.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Our free cash flow guidance reflects a free cash flow to net income ratio of 1.1. Finally, we expect to return at least $7.1 billion through dividends and share repurchases as we remain committed to returning a substantial portion of our cash to shareholders. With that, let's open it up so that we can take your questions. Angie?

[Angie Park, CFO at Accenture]

Thanks, KC. I would ask that you each keep to one question and a follow-up to allow as many participants as possible to ask a question. Operator, would you provide instructions for those on the call?

[Operator]

Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, if you wish to ask a question, please press one then zero on your telephone keypad. You may withdraw your question at any time by repeating the one-zero command. Our first question will come from the line of Lisa Ellis with MoffettNathanson. Please go ahead.

[Lisa Ellis, Partner and Senior Equity Analyst at MoffettNathanson]

Hi. Good morning. Good stuff here. Just a question about the outlook for fiscal 2023. Can you elaborate a bit further on what underlying macroeconomic outlook you have embedded in guidance, above and beyond, you know, the six points of FX translation and maybe the broader question is sort of how, if at all, are you seeing the rising rate environment inflation sort of escalating dynamics of what we've been seeing all year long affecting your business? Thank you.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Great. Thanks, Lisa. Yeah, let me give you a little bit of color around our guidance assumptions. Our revenue range of 8%-11% for fiscal 2023, it includes 2.5% inorganic contribution, and that's compared to about 5% that we did in 2022. That would represent then about 8.5% organic growth at the upper end of our range. We continue to see so really strong demand for our services, Lisa. As you've seen, the most recent estimate for IT services continues to show that growth for our industry will be about 5%. Anywhere in our range, it will show us continuing to take share. At the same time, while our growth is not directly correlated with GDP, we read the same things that you do.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

The latest GDP estimate for most of the world's largest economies are lower in 2023 than 2022. Again, we're calling for double-digit growth at the top part of our range, another year of double-digit growth, which would have us adding significant scale yet again on top of our current $62 billion business.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Maybe I'll add, Lisa. Is that when we think about the macro environment, what we're really thinking about is what do our clients need, right? When I talked a little bit about this last quarter, right? This environment affects different industries differently. You got those who are really tied to the supply chain disruption and the inflation, you know, continuing to focus on cost. You also see that as the uncertainty increases, so over the last, you know, 90days-120 days, you saw changes in the estimates around the GDP growth for 2023. It, you know, makes all clients really think about, okay, what's my resilience? Is there more that I can do?

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Can I take advantage of the environment to push through deeper cost cuts that require you to change, you know, behaviors? We really think about the environment as what does that mean we need to do to help our clients, and how do we continue to pivot? It's very similar if you think about what we did in the early days of the pandemic, where we, you know, we pivoted a lot to, for example, cloud, you know, using all of our learning organization. That's the focus. You know, it's always an opportunity to better serve our clients.

[Lisa Ellis, Partner and Senior Equity Analyst at MoffettNathanson]

Okay. Yeah, great color. Thank you. Just a follow-up on bookings, realizing they're obviously always lumpy quarter to quarter, and the overall number this quarter was extraordinarily strong, continuing that 1.2 books to bill. Was it sort of an unusual shift in mix into outsourcing and less consulting? Is there any color or call out there, or is that just sort of the vagaries of the kind of quarterly fluctuations? Thank you.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Sure. You know, Lisa, as you mentioned, we feel really good about our bookings in Q4. It was our second-highest bookings ever, our highest also being this year in the Q2. What I really liked about it was driven by broad-based demand, so it was across all markets and all services. We peel it back, we had good book-to-bill in all dimensions of our business. With outsourcing at a record of almost $10 billion, and that was almost $1.3 billion more than what we did for our last record. We do continue to see a strong pipeline going into the year, even with those, the second-best record bookings. I will say that as we often do, we have seasonally lower bookings in 1/4, and we are seeing that again this year.

[Lisa Ellis, Partner and Senior Equity Analyst at MoffettNathanson]

Terrific. Thank you.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Next.

[Lisa Ellis, Partner and Senior Equity Analyst at MoffettNathanson]

Mm-hmm.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Tien-Tsin Huang with J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

[Tien-Tsin Huang, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at JP Morgan]

Hey, thanks. Just tacking on what Lisa just asked there with this larger book-to-bill in outsourcing relative to consulting. Is the shift to larger deals, does that tell you or should it tell us anything about client priorities? I'm curious if that changes or even improves your visibility overall for fiscal 2023, given you have so much more in the way of larger deals in the backlog.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Yeah, I mean, I don't. I mean, obviously we've got, you know, larger deals. You have more visibility around larger deals just because they're larger deals, and you see how it is. It's not really how we think about the business so much. I mean, I think if you just take a step, your underlying question is what are clients focused on, right? What we do see is, and what we actually more than just see, what we are recommending is that, you know, leadership teams remain sort of focused on prioritizing where they can get, you know, good time to value, making sure that they're doing things that are material, you know, not having 1,000 different pilots as opposed to actually getting, you know, to scale.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

A lot of that does lead to a focus on larger transformation deals, and it's tied to what we call total enterprise reinvention, right? What we're talking to clients about is systematically reinventing. You know, actually we've got some research coming out at the end of September that says, you know, 68% of CFOs say they today have either three or more transformation programs either going right now or about to start in parallel. What that really does mean then is that you've got more companies do what we've been talking about since the early days of the pandemic, which is systematic transformation, you know, real, trying to do it, you know, faster. That does lead to larger programs.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Probably the bigger impact for us is less about visibility, but those obviously convert to revenue differently.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Yeah. Maybe, Tien-Tsin Huang, I'll just add in terms of if you just look at our bookings this year. From an outsourcing type of work compared to consulting type of work, compared to our history of the last few years, there's really no difference, right? We actually have, you know, a slight percentage uptick in what we closed out this year in consulting type of work booking versus outsourcing. There's no real difference in our mix.

[Tien-Tsin Huang, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at JP Morgan]

Very good. No, that's really helpful. Just on my follow-up on margins, if you don't mind, just thinking about investment priorities, organic versus inorganic. I know it's a lower inorganic assumption on growth this year, but any update there in terms of the balance? I'm wondering, you know, I wrote down, I think you said 48% growth in cloud, you know, for the year, and I think back to the cloud-first investment you did. I think it was a $3 billion investment. Seems like you got a good return out of that. Could we see more investments like that at this point in the cycle? Yeah, just thinking about organic versus inorganic investing. Thanks.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Maybe I'll take the inorganic point, and then I'll hand it over to Julie to give some more color. First of all, there's no change overall to our capital allocation strategy, right? We will continue to use M&A to fuel our organic growth. You'll see, you know, the 2.5% inorganic is an inorganic contribution. It's generally in the zone of what we've done, you know, in previous years. Maybe I would also just take a chance to talk about what that means in terms of how we're gonna invest in our business next year and how that relates to how we're seeing our profit.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Because I think it's really important to point out that we're really proud of what we accomplished this past year in 2022, where we did 10 basis points of expansion. In tandem, we were continuing to invest at scale in our business, right? Also in our people, particularly this year with managing wage inflation. As we look through next year, we expect to continue to invest in our business. We expect wage inflation to continue. It's across all industries and across the globe. For us, it's gonna vary by geography and by skill. We will navigate that like we did this past year, with a focus on pricing, which we all know can lag compensation a bit. Just wanna point out that we did see the benefit of improved pricing in our P&L in 2022.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Again, we're gonna do all of this while changing the mix of people in our contracts and use the technology to absorb the higher investments that we're making organically and the higher investments that we're making in our people. It's really important that we continue on our investment profile. With that, like, I'd be really happy next year to land anywhere within the 10-30 basis points of op margin expansion. I would say that based on how we're gonna invest throughout the year, there's a bit more potential for us to have a more variability in the quarters, as we go throughout fiscal year 2023 on our way to 10-30 basis points of expansion for the year.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Yeah. Tien-Tsin Huang, I would just emphasize, we believe it is very important to continue to invest at higher levels in our business every year, and that's our commitment. You know, it's been, you know, we think a big reason for our success is that through every cycle, we continue to invest.

[Tien-Tsin Huang, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at JP Morgan]

Yep, for sure. Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from the line of Keith Bachman with BMO. Please go ahead.

[Keith Bachman, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Hi. Many thanks. I wanted to ask, to start with on the outlook, in particular, Julie, if there's any comments, directional or otherwise, you could give on bookings. I understand you provided the revenue guidance and constant currency. Even the backlog runoff of the tremendous bookings you've given so far, the revenue guidance seems very reasonable, if not a touch conservative. As you indicated in your prepared remarks, you had record bookings this year. Your clients are facing a deeper economic challenge. Is there any comments you could give, whether book-to-bill or the growth rates or any parameters on how we should be thinking about bookings this year? Because it seems like the trajectory there could be different from the revenue growth.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Well, I'll let K.C. McClure start, and then I'll add on.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Yeah. Keith, maybe I'll start with a little bit more color on how we actually see revenue kind of breaking out for the year. From a type of work perspective for the full year 2023, we do see consulting revenue growth to be, you know, within our, you know, within the context of the AT 11 that we gave out overall, which remember has a 6% FX headwind embedded in that. We see consulting revenue to be high single digits to double digits, and outsourcing, we see being double digits. When you think about what our bookings expectations are, while we don't guide to bookings, you should, you know, our view remains the same. We look for over a rolling Q4 period of time for a book to bill to be over one.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Great. Keith, what I would just say is that, remember, our focus is helping our clients create value within whatever environment that they are operating in, right? Which is very different depending on your industry. You know, like take right now, providers in the U.S., right? They are focused on cost cutting because they went through a tough time, you know, with COVID. They're behind in digitization, so they're investing there, and they have to because they're facing one of the most difficult labor markets they've ever had. Now the, you know, sort of resistance and difficulty in automating before, that is a completely different than a global consumer company like Unilever, who we talked about on our script, who's reinventing everything that's, you know, been on this journey for a few years.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

It's, you know, looking to, you know, the next thing, right? They're dealing with supply chain disruptions, right? Cost inputs. That is how we continue to succeed, is by understanding the depth of difference in our industry. We're using knowledge that we had from other industry to now accelerate what the providers are doing because, you know, they're now implementing SaaS solutions to connect their patients that we've been doing for years, you know, in retail, right? And in banking and in lots of other industries. That you know, our outlook for the year reflects our confidence that we are gonna continue to be able to use that knowledge, stay close to our clients, and deliver on what they need.

[Keith Bachman, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Okay. Thank you. My follow-up is then focused on free cash flow. The free cash flow guidance is a touch certainly lighter than what we had modeled, and I think Street had modeled. Your margins continue to move higher. I was just wondering what the puts and takes that you might wanna call out with the free cash flow guidance for the year, and then I will cede the floor. Many thanks.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Yeah. Thanks, Keith. As you know, when we set our guidance, we always first start with looking at the ratio. The ratio that we have in our free cash flow guidance is a very strong 1.1 free cash flow to net income ratio. We're happy with that. We also are allowing in that guidance a bit of an uptick in DSOs from our current level. Also we are assuming, you know, we are going to have the FX impact of, you know, 6%. That will obviously impact our free cash flow as well. As you know, it's not unusual for us to start guidance at the beginning of the year with a free cash flow guidance range that's below where we delivered the previous year.

[Keith Bachman, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets]

Okay. Many thanks.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Bryan Keane with Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

[Bryan Keane, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Hi, good morning. You know, obviously a lot of folks are asking about the macro, so just curious how the macro has changed for you guys over the last three months and how that's influenced your business 'cause it doesn't really show up much in results. Just curious how you would frame that.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Well, as KC said earlier, our guidance for the year takes into account the current estimates for 2023 for GDP, which, as we all know, over the last sort of 90 days have decreased. We take that into consideration. Where we see that really affecting our business is our ability to help our clients and think about what to do, right? How do you execute a faster transformation? Are there new opportunities? You know, I'm talking to a consumer goods client now where, you know, we're helping them think about, well, how do we cut marketing and get more effective because they need growth, but marketing is one of the biggest spend areas for a consumer goods company.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

You know, by the way, let's not waste a good environment to, you know, be able to catalyze cultural and behavioral change, you know, as they think about things. That's where we are seeing it. Otherwise, our guidance reflects, you know, as you know, it's not a one for one, but we obviously take into account the economic environment.

[Bryan Keane, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Got it. Yeah. Yeah. I was just looking at Europe in particular, up 26% in local currency. Given all the concerns around Europe, it's just a pretty amazing number. It doesn't seem to have come off much from the growth rates you've been putting up.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Yeah. We're very proud of our European team because they are really close to our clients.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Yeah. Maybe, Bryan, I'll give you a little bit of color on that, you know, as it relates to Q1. Let me give you a little peel back on the revenue outlook that we have for the Q1. When we look at the markets, we see all the markets for the Q1 within that 10%-14% revenue range that we gave. They all have the potential to be double digits, and that includes Europe. For the consulting type of work in Q1, we see a high single digit to low double digit growth range within that 10%-14%. I would peel back consulting a little bit for you too.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Within consulting, we see that the tech portion of consulting, the systems integration will have continued strong demand. S&C, we expect to be in lower single digits percentage.

[Bryan Keane, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

No, that's really helpful. Just a quick follow-up, just thinking on, KC, on visibility. How has visibility changed at all, if at all, for Accenture when you look out further on in the quarters? You know, as we get to Q4, it's obviously almost 12 months away, so it's probably a little bit hard to figure out exactly the right growth rates. Just thinking about the visibility of the business.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Yeah. Obviously, Bryan, that, you know, in terms of looking at the back half of the year, I mean, that's no different than the way it is honestly every year. You know, we talked a lot about what we just mentioned on how we look at the macro and the market. You know, the back half of the year, you know, we always. You know, it's always less certain at this time of the year than obviously the Q1 and the H1.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Yes.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

It's no different than what we have experienced every year.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

As always, most of our clients are calendar year-

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Yeah

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

They'll set their budgets, you know, and we'll know more about that in January. It's really the same.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

It is.

[Bryan Keane, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Deutsche Bank]

Got it. Great. Congrats on the results.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Thanks.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question comes from James Faucette with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[James Faucette, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

Thanks very much. Appreciate all the commentary today as usual. Looking at kind of the supply and kinda how you're managing your own employees, et cetera, how does the shift in client priorities manifest itself in where and how your services are being delivered? How is that influencing your talent strategy right now around pace of hiring, where you hire, et cetera?

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Well, as you know, we have a very deep competency in supply and demand. Actually, over the course of the last couple of years, we continue to innovate. We have an incredible, what we call integrated talent control tower that is able to predict earlier and earlier in our sales cycle where the skills will be needed and what type of skills. You know, for us, this is just normal business, right? You know, keep in mind, technology demand is really incredible, right? I mean, you saw that in our results.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

All strategies lead to technology. You know, we're super pleased with not only our performance there but what we're seeing ahead as clients continue to build the digital core as fundamental to all of their other strategic needs. You know, our talent supply chain is able to see that, predict it, understand the skills, and keep you know moving forward.

[James Faucette, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

That's great. Turning to pricing, just wondering what the tone and tenor of pricing conversations have been, how those have progressed. You know, how are you building in or how should we think about what's being built into your formulation of outlook around magnitude of potential uplift to revenue from pricing versus margins, etc.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Let me just remind you that when I'm talking about pricing in my answer, I'm talking about the margin on the work that we've sold. I'm really pleased that we've continued to see improvements in pricing. We are seeing the benefits. I mentioned this earlier, but I'll just repeat it. We are seeing the benefits come through in our P&L. We continue to focus on improvements in pricing as we enter fiscal year 2023. I'm really pleased with the progress we've made.

[James Faucette, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley]

That's great. Thank you very much.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Thank you.

[Operator]

Thank you. Our next question will come from the line of Jason Kupferberg with Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[Jason Kupferberg, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Morning, guys. Thanks. Kacy, just wanted to pick up on your comment on one of the prior questions around, I think you said strategy and consulting up in the low single digit range in Q1. Curious if that's the same kind of range you anticipate for the full year fiscal 2023, and is that below corporate average level just reflective of the more kind of discretionary nature and growth-oriented nature of those services?

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Yeah. Thanks, Jason. Yeah, in terms of Q1, it's really just a few simple things. One, we got a tough compare. Two, when I mentioned less inorganic, that really does also hit in essence in the S&C part. Then as Julie talked about, you know, a lot of our S&C practitioners are really focused on a lot of the larger transformational deals. That just has, Jason, a different revenue yield, and it bleeds in later throughout the year.

[Jason Kupferberg, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Okay. Understood. Maybe just turning to the supply side for a second. Looks like attrition was unchanged in Q4 versus Q3. Wondering what you're expecting there in fiscal 2023, as well as what you're expecting for wage inflation relative to 2022, and whether or not some of the broader layoffs across other parts of the tech industry is that taking some of the pressure off some of your supply metrics at all?

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Yeah. I'll start, Jason, with the last part. I mean, I was really pleased with the way we were able to grow at scale profitably while managing the wage inflation in FY 2022. As I said a little bit earlier, but just to repeat, we do expect wage inflation to continue, and we have factored that into our guidance.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Yeah. Look, I would just say to you that technology skills are in demand by both companies, you know, as well as our competitors, because technology is at the core of strategy. We're expecting to have a continued tight labor market, and we continue to expect us to really excel because despite that market, you know, as you know, even this last year, we added 100,000 people. I don't think the fact that there's been some layoffs in certain markets hasn't really, I think, gonna change much.

[Jason Kupferberg, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Great. Thank you.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Okay.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Operator, we have time for one more question, and then Julie will wrap up the call.

[Operator]

Thank you. That question will come from the line of Bryan Bergin with Cowen. Please go ahead.

[Bryan Bergin, Managing Director of Equity Research at Cowen]

Hi. Good morning. Thank you. I wanted to start on the growth outlook. Can you just give us a sense on how you're thinking about the H2 trajectory just in the fiscal 2023 range? Just given the significant uncertainty, just curious how you went about building that H2 forecast. Then just within the year, are you expecting the strategic priorities to hold a double-digit growth, so across Song and Cloud for SNEX or any of those a little bit more exposed to potential slowdown and uncertainty?

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

I'll maybe just start with the overall outlook that we have. Right? You can see that we started with 8%-11%. I already gave you know the color on that. Within that, obviously we have a strong start at 10%-14% growth. In terms of really what that looks like for the rest of the year, I mean, we'll continue to give guidance like we typically do as we progress through FY 2023. I mean, as Julie mentioned, we see continued strong demand in our technology, our areas of technology. Other than that, you know, we don't really give any more guidance and kind of view on revenue outlook than what I've already shared.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Yeah. Just, I think it's always important that we are continuously thinking about both, the near term, this fiscal year, and the longer term, and anchoring on the five forces of change for the next decade. Total enterprise reinvention, talent. You know, we talked about the investments we're making in sustainability. We just made a great acquisition this quarter in Carbon Intelligence, which is all about, you know, consulting around, carbon, getting to net zero strategies. The Metaverse Continuum, you know, small today.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

We're the leading enterprise, you know, user in our own way of onboarding, but, you know, lots and lots of interest and we're already, you know, making those investments. The ongoing tech revolution. That's why as you think about our results, right? We are investing for today and tomorrow and really are, you know, looking at the demand that we see, you know, over the next decade.

[Bryan Bergin, Managing Director of Equity Research at Cowen]

Okay. It looks like just on M&A, it looks like you did close on more in 4Q than you initially anticipated. How should we think about the planned spend in fiscal 2023 for M&A underlying the 2.5% growth contribution? How do you start off the year in 1Q with the inorganic assumption in that outlook? Thank you.

[KC McClure, CFO at Accenture]

Yes. Yeah, sure. You're right. We did end up spending $3.4 billion for the year in 2022 because we were able to get some of the regulatory approvals done this last fiscal year in 2022 that we weren't sure of the timing. You know, you'll see that because of that, we're going to continue to always provide the inorganic outlook on a full year basis. That 2.5 is a full year. We don't really do that by quarter because that can also be lumpy. We're not going to continue to provide the capital allocation amount as we go into 2023 just because it can really vary by the end of the year. We'll be able to. You'll be able to see it and we'll report it every quarter.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

Yeah. It's probably worth reminding that last Q1 we had Umlaut and Novetta, which were both very large acquisitions, come in in Q1. Probably just good to remind everyone that's part of what's driving the Q1 S&C results too. Great. Before we wrap up, I do wanna mention that Angie Park, who has been our head of investor relations for the past six years, has been promoted to become the CFO for our really outstanding technology services business. Angie has been an absolutely incredible head of IR, and we're particularly grateful for how she has helped lead us through some of the most turbulent times in the history of Accenture. I know from speaking to our investors and analysts how much they've appreciated Angie's steady hand, her commitment to transparency and connection.

[Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO at Accenture]

I know we'll all miss her in this role, but are extremely excited to see her start the next chapter of what has already been an incredible career. Thank you very much, Angie. I'm also pleased to welcome Katie O'Connor, who will become our new head of investor relations. She's got incredible experience. She's held many finance roles during her 25 years at Accenture. Please join me in welcoming Katie, and I know she's looking forward to getting to know all of you, in the days ahead. In closing, I do want to thank again all of our people and our managing directors for what you're doing every day. Our people, our actions, and our results in FY 2022 have positioned us to be very strongly going into FY 2023 and create even more 360-degree value. Finally, and very importantly, thank you to all of our shareholders for your continued trust and support. Thank you.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. The replay will be available after 10 A.M. Eastern today through December 16, 2022. You may access the AT&T executive replay system at any time by dialing 1-866-207-1041 and entering the access code 4002764. International participants may dial 402-970-0847. Those numbers again are 1-866-207-1041 and 402-970-0847 with access code 4002764. That does conclude our conference for today. We thank you for your participation and for using AT&T conferencing service. You may now disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Angie Park, CFO
• Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO
• KC McClure, CFO

Analysts

• Bryan Bergin, Managing Director of Equity Research at Cowen
• Bryan Keane, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at Deutsche Bank
• James Faucette, Managing Director at Morgan Stanley
• Jason Kupferberg, Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America
• Keith Bachman, Analyst at BMO Capital Markets
• Lisa Ellis, Partner and Senior Equity Analyst at MoffettNathanson
• Tien-Tsin Huang, Managing Director and Senior Equity Analyst at JP Morgan