Accenture’s startup innovation hub coming to India soon?

At a time when startups are mushrooming all over the country, Accenture is planning to bring its startup innovation hub concept to the country too. This won’t deter the company to continue working with Indian startups. In an exclusive interview to Economic Times, Gianfranco Casati, group chief executive - growth markets at Accenture said, "I would say that it is more than a possibility (placing a startup hub in India). Collaboration with Indian startups is something already being done."

Casati also said that he is very “optimistic about becoming a source of innovation for the world. Potentially, even more disruptive than China.”

Accenture currently has innovation hubs centred on new-generation technologies such as internet of things (IoT) in Silicon Valley. The global consulting and IT giant is already working with Indian startups in its FinTech Innovation Lab in Hong Kong. Not just this, the firm has also given grants to researchers from IIT-Bombay, IIT-Chennai, BITS-Pilani and IISc-Bangalore for research in natural language programming, cognitive learning systems, and dependable software.

There is no denying the fact that innovation boom in India is in its early stages. While on one hand, this has led to the rise in the number of startups, on the other hand, it has got IT majors worried because most of them feel they are losing talent and high-performing employees to startups.

However, Accenture India’s newly appointed chairman, Rekha Menon has a different point of view. She says, “We are always training our employees — keeping them future-ready and engaged, because the newer generation wants to learn constantly. And we understand that some employees will want to move to startups, and we support that, because that's the in-built risk in hiring top talent. We have also supported startups started by ex-Accenture employees."

Menon said that the company was training its India workforce of more than 100,00 on newer digital technologies, not just to serve global clients, but also to serve the India market.

"We are already seeing the shift in demand to Accenture's new offerings. We are working with State Bank of India to make them digital, and partnering with Arunachal Pradesh on their digitisation drive. There is states and companies leapfrogging into the digital age," Menon added.

The company is also working on bringing its 3D printing and IoT solutions to India as part of its growth market strategy. Despite volatility in markets such as China and Brazil, Accenture logged double-digit growth in revenues its newer markets for its financial year ended August.
John O'Brien, analyst with TechMarket-View, pointed out that Accenture achieved double-digit growth across both consulting and outsourcing services, and across all three main geographies of North America (12%), Europe (10%), and growth markets (11%).

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