Julie Sweet, CEO of management consultancy Accenture, is one of the world’s most influential women. An optimist regarding the global economic situation, she advises young people to look toward the Gulf States.
Julie Sweet has become one of the most influential women in the world.
Karin Hofer / NZZ
Ms. Sweet, you grew up in a small town in California and learned Chinese as a student. How did that happen?
Sometimes a single person can change your entire life. I come from a working-class family, my father was a painter, my mother a beautician. I won a scholarship for college. At the scholarship award ceremony, I sat next to a gentleman from the company who had awarded the scholarship. He asked me what languages I wanted to learn. I said: some French. And then he asked the one question that would change my life: «Why not Chinese?» That was 1985. Back then, people didn’t learn Chinese and didn’t think much about the country.
But you did?
Right after that event, I went home and told my parents: I’m going to college, I’m going to learn Chinese, and I’m going to China. My parents didn’t even have passports at the time, so it must have sounded completely unrealistic to them. But they just nodded and said, «OK.» And then it started. Before I went to college, my father told me: You are now entering a world that is very different from the one you grew up in. I want you to embrace everything new and always remember where you come from.
And that’s what happened?
For my third year of college, at the age of 19, I moved to Taiwan for six months and then to Beijing for six months. At that time, martial law was still in effect in Taiwan. In Beijing, there was the student movement that was later crushed in the Tiananmen massacre. There were hardly any foreigners. It was a completely different country than it is today. I learned there that the world can function in a completely different way than I had known before. That changes your own thinking and your willingness to embrace new things. I learned to be fearless in many ways. I still benefit from that today.
As a young lawyer, you later opened a branch for a U.S. law firm in Hong Kong.
I was there for the first time from 1994 to 1996, before the handover to China. We realized that Hong Kong was the gateway to China, but there wasn’t enough to do there at the time. China was just at the beginning of its opening-up policy. I was more active in Indonesia and Singapore, which were already developing enormously.
Julie Sweet
Julie Sweet has served as Accenture’s CEO since September 2019. Two years later, she additionally took on the position of chair of the firm’s board of directors. With annual revenues of nearly $65 billion (2024), Accenture is one of the world’s largest management consultancies. Before joining Accenture in 2010, Sweet was a partner at a law firm for 10 years. She is a member of the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees. She has been named by Forbes as one of the 100 most powerful women in the world. Sweet was born in 1967, is married and is the mother of two daughters.
The time of opening and reform in China seems to be over. Instead, the U.S. and China are engaged in an increasingly fierce systemic competition. With your experience in both worlds, what do you think about that?
I have friends all over the world. I think we all wish that countries would find ways to work together more closely again. When you live abroad, you learn that people in every country are the same. They laugh and cry about similar things, their families face the same challenges. We must not forget: We are all human beings. That gives us a different perspective on geopolitics and economics.
However, China and the U.S. are imposing sanctions on each other. Are the two economic areas slowly but surely decoupling?
This is not an exclusively American phenomenon. It can also be observed in Europe. Relations between China and the West are changing, but there are still close economic ties. The big question is whether the different countries can find a common way to continue to cultivate relationships in important areas while at the same time managing political problems. I think the world has succeeded in doing that so far.
Do you think so?
We work with clients all over the world. Those who used to be active in China are still active there today. Europe and the U.S. remain important export markets for China – and vice versa.
From a business perspective, that certainly makes sense. But what if policymakers want to cut these ties, as seems to be the case now?
I don’t think the American or Chinese presidents ever said they wanted to decouple their economies. One should be careful what one imputes to politics.
You don’t believe that the world is in the process of dividing itself into a U.S.- and a Chinese-led sphere?
We believe that companies should not be too guided by the big headlines in the media, but should rather look closely at the industries and markets. We help companies analyze whether they are sufficiently hedged against geopolitical and technological risks – and not just in China. But more so than with security issues, companies are currently concerned about their supply chains.
What do you mean?
Actually, it’s more around supply chain resilience. It’s not exclusive, but there have been more companies who have diversified their supply chains. They’re in China, it is an important market for them, and they’re producing for China, but they’re not as reliant on China as a supply chain for the rest of the world.
There was a time when a multinational company wasn’t considered truly global until it had a presence in China. Now it seems people are questioning whether that’s not too risky.
That depends very much on the industry concerned and its size. I have always told companies that they will be operating in a different environment in China. You need to have a certain size and resources to be able to deal with that successfully. And it also matters which industry you come from.
Europe, and Switzerland in particular, are to some extent trying to position themselves as a market that does not belong to either an American or a Chinese bloc, and from which one can do business with everyone. Can that work?
Switzerland, with its long history of neutrality, may be a special case. But when China exports cheap, competitive products, it also affects Europe – and Switzerland.
What does this mean for companies?
Take the automotive sector. Companies need to constantly adapt to remain competitive. They cannot rely on politics to protect them. I have never worked with a car manufacturer anywhere in the world who was only competitive because politics protected them from competition.
However, U.S. import tariffs on Chinese electric cars are nothing more than an expensive aid for domestic producers …
The U.S. car manufacturers I work with are not resting on their laurels because of this. We would never advise a company to rely on the protection of politics to remain competitive. The rapid pace of technological advancement, data, artificial intelligence and new ways of working are forcing companies to change the way they are operating. Governments can promote or hinder this change. But that doesn’t eliminate the need to constantly reinvent.
What are you observing in Chinese companies?
I am not in the best position to speak to this, given that we don’t have a significant presence in China. We have some clients there, but they are mainly internationally active companies. China imports products, but not services. The country now has excellently trained specialists and its own experts in digitalization and AI, so is not as reliant on external sources like Accenture in this area.
The U.S. is in conflict with China. Will the presidential elections change that?
The U.S. relationship with China is complicated right now, and that goes for Europe and China as well. This is due to fundamental problems, and goes beyond current politics. Also, relations with China are a cross-party issue in the United States. So, whether Harris or Trump wins in November, both countries will have to work on their common future.
The West is losing influence in the world. It seems that the U.S. is primarily preoccupied with itself and is gradually withdrawing from world politics. How do you feel about that?
I hope that the U.S. will continue to be a country that enables its citizens to live good lives, and that it continues to take responsibility in the world. But we all contribute to this, every person, every state, including us as a company. No matter where Accenture operates in the world, it is our responsibility to contribute to a functioning society. I hope that the U.S. will continue to do so in the future.
In the future, data will be even more important than it is today. But increasingly strict data protection laws are hindering the free flow of data. How should companies deal with this?
We predict that about 20% of all workloads and data will reside in so-called sovereign national clouds. Currently, it’s around 15%. Companies need to align their technology and cloud strategy accordingly. But artificial intelligence relies on models as well as on data. Thus, you don’t necessarily need to access the data that is only available in national clouds. It is now possible to work with synthetic data sets – which imitate real data – and test products without having to take original data from a country.
So you don’t think China’s new data legislation is really hindering companies?
I would put it differently: Companies are able to comply with legal requirements, and thanks to technological progress, can still achieve the necessary business results. Sure, it costs more, but it’s possible. Five years ago, there were fears that China had a dominant competitive advantage in artificial intelligence because of its size and access to data. With today’s technological developments, you don’t hear that anymore.
If everything is developing so fast and in uncertain ways, how do you intend to advise companies on their strategy for the future?
Most companies have a five-year strategy, but they themselves think it is unlikely that they’ll stick to it. At the same time, they can’t just work in the here and now. That would be too shortsighted. That’s why we at Accenture question the assumptions of our medium- and long-term strategy every six months. The time of annual targets is over. That has fundamentally changed in the past five years.
A plan that is constantly being thrown overboard doesn’t exactly seem like a reliable operating concept.
Real-time data makes a lot of things easier today. Companies therefore need to digitize their processes to be able to react dynamically to changes. The problem is that industrial manufacturing is often not yet digitalized or connected to other processes within the company. Only about a third of all companies have seriously started doing so. In the future, what will be crucial is how quickly companies can react to changing consumer demand. This requires digital images of all production processes.
What would you recommend to young people for their future?
The future is digital. Soon there will be no job where you won’t use technology on a daily basis. It doesn’t matter what you study or what profession you choose. The important thing is to understand the basics of technology and the benefits it will bring for your daily work in the future. Next, I would say: Watch the Gulf states. The region is evolving dynamically. People there are full of energy and a desire for change. There are numerous growth opportunities. I think the region is what Asia was in my youth. If I were young again, I would go there.
And that’s how one should prepare for the future?
I became CEO of Accenture in September 2019, six months before the pandemic. It was a global event that no one saw coming and that had a huge impact. Previously, CEOs thought in long-term cycles. They expected one single unpredictable event during their careers. In my case, that would have been the pandemic. But in the past few years, we’ve had such an event every six to 12 months. So the unthinkable has happened again and again. For companies, this experience means the same as it does for the nations of the world: We have to constantly challenge ourselves, think in scenarios and take new, uncomfortable paths.
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Publish date : 2024-10-16 12:50:00
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