Big Data, Big Changes

Costa Rica is preparing for this new era of digital transformation, including big data and automation. How do you see Costa Rica aligning with Accenture’s global strategy?

It is key for us because we are now experiencing a new technological revolution. The way we approach this revolution is by shaping the future, unlocking clients’ potential, and harnessing the revolution by being ready with the right skill sets and talents for the market’s needs. Accenture always tries to be a step ahead in terms of the demand. We know what is trendy before it becomes trendy, and we prepare our talent for that specific disruption. We have been able to do this by shaping the talent and unlocking human resource potential through training, processes, and operational excellence. We are able to adapt whatever technological know-how and flexibility our people have. We try to specialize our people in several technologies and have experts in a lot of end-to-end processes.

What kind of processes are you seeing the most demand for?

Big data is one. User experience, cloud computing, and analytics are also trending right now. Analytics is where we are playing the most and where we are bringing in more resources. We recently acquired a company that operates mostly in big data and analytics specifically so that we can further expand our footprint and capabilities in analytics.

What do recent investments in acquiring new companies, such as Search Technologies, represent for Accenture?

Accenture is growing quickly through its acquisitions. We are acquiring companies that are innovative and offer value-added services. We are not doing acquisitions to add capacity, we care about innovation. We acquired Search Technologies specifically because of its big data skills and ability to organize unstructured data. This is something for which our clients are really looking. This acquisition allows us to organize data coming from different systems, files, and outcomes, and then make it predictable for our clients. This is bringing a lot of value as a tool to our clients.

What trends do you see coming in innovation over the next few years?

We will see more artificial intelligence, Internet of Things, and automation efforts that can translate into more robotics and less repetitive work. Over the next three years, human beings are going to see an opportunity to specialize in tasks that really add value and are not repetitive and boring. It is just a matter of specializing human talents in those new skills sets that are coming. Big data is going to be a huge area for us to continue targeting at Accenture, because of the amount of content companies now receive and have to absorb. We call this the Tsunami of Content, and it is coming from sources such as social media, reporting, analytics, and expert opinions. The companies that are able to use all this information in their decision making are the ones that are going to be successful in the future.

What are your goals and objectives for 2018 at Accenture?

We have had a 20% YoY growth rate. We are aiming for 25% growth in 2018. We are going to keep supporting our Diverse Workforce Initiative in order to reach a 50/50 gender balance. By 2025, Accenture will be fully balanced in terms of gender equality. We believe that companies that are more inclusive and diverse are the organizations that will get a comprehensive value internally and eventually for their clients. We are also going to continue to support our low carbon economy vision. This means we will continue to bring more digital into our environment to mitigate carbon emissions. The last goal for 2018 is to be more strategic in other geographies. Providing more services to more regions for Accenture is going to be huge for us.