Jorge Castilla

What role does Mexico play within the international business strategy of Accenture?

Accenture is a global company, but has a specific division that takes care of growth markets because it is one of the spaces where the opportunities are bigger. Mexico is one of the important growth markets for Accenture in Latin America. Within the strategy and the growth perspective, we help many of our global clients enter the market and roll out not just projects but also important innovations. Many times, growth markets such as Mexico are places where things get tested so it works both ways. That is why Mexico is quite strategic for us.

What pilot programs are you seeing more in Mexico that we might start to see more in other emerging markets?

We are seeing payments. Since the pandemic hit, many tendencies have accelerated. The first one is the cloud service market, which is extremely important in Mexico. The country is a great place for companies to create pilot programs that can be implemented globally. Another trend is payments, because sometimes in Mexico we are making great strides to adopting a new technology. Payments is one example, as well as digital marketing, e-commerce, and AI, which we call applied intelligence because it is a mix of AI and analytics. Accenture is great for Mexican companies that need a global presence and that are probably still small in many other places. The other one is customer experience, designing customer experiences, and how one uses e-commerce to move the market. Mexico is a place where all these are happening.

What are the biggest challenges facing Mexican companies when it comes to digitally transforming their products and services?

Many companies have a large technological debt, which means they have not invested as they should have for the long term or they have invested but have not really used their investments. It is time to really accelerate the process and use that technology that was supplied before but has not been scaled to the place that it should be; the cloud is an example of that. In December, we conducted a study around the world. In Latin America, especially in Mexico and Brazil, at least 21% of companies have not capitalized on their investments in the cloud so now is time to do it.

What main added value does Accenture offer in comparison to other competitors in Mexico?

In late 2020, we put out our new purpose: to use the capabilities that technology presents and mix that with human engineering. That is what we do. We are not really about high tech; we are more about innovation and innovation at scale. One can innovate in a lab, but what we really do is help our clients innovate and scale.

What are your main priorities for 2021?

We will focus on four things. We have a product called Cloud First, and we told the market we are making a USD3-billion investment in the cloud. This is something we are truly going forward with, and Mexico is no exception. The other one is customer experience, and this experienced economy is helping us engage and connect better with clients through whatever channel they are using. The brand experience continues to be solid and homogeneous. The third one is cybersecurity; we need to help our clients protect their assets, investments, and IP. The fourth one goes around the supply chain, because it is modifying tremendously. There is a great deal of conversation about not only the last mile but also about 4.0, how automation and supply chain can happen, and how supply chains can be smarter and more flexible, and that is all through technology. That is really where we are at. There will be many things such as virtual reality, unique experiences, and machine learning that will be really critical to make decisions on the supply chain. These are all the areas that we will focus on.