Worrying times for Accenture Song as owner embarks on massive restructuring programme

For years it looked as though Accenture Song, home to Droga5 and multiple agencies including a digital line-up, would be impervious to the cutbacks affecting the rest of the ad holding company world.

After all, as one of the world’s handful of big consultancies Accenture was free to invest as much as it wished in the add-on business of advertising.

But now Accenture, the whole company, is cutting back under pressure from a business slowdown (especially at the hands of Trump’s US government) and the march of the dreaded AI. So far this year it has reduced its global workforce by over 11,000 according to the FT (about the same number of jobs WPP lost last year) and is embarking on an $865m “restructuring programme” seemingly aimed at those who either can’t handle or can be replaced by AI. Accenture employed nearly 800,000 at the start of the year.

Global CEO Julie Sweet says: “We are exiting on a compressed timeline people where reskilling, based on our experience, is not a viable path for the skills we need.” Which, in English, means no tech skills no job.

Accenture Song boss and D5 founder David Droga stepped back recently to be replaced by Ndidi Oteh (left), which possibly removes a layer of cover for Song employees who are bound to be affected. There have been a number of high level departures from Song in the US this year, mostly to independent agencies.

There was speculation earlier this year that Accenture might bid for some or all of WPP when Mark Read announced he was stepping down. It’s not inconceivable that Accenture might pull out of the advertising arena altogether as the combination of Trumponomics and AI hits its bottom line.