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  • Over A Third of Asian Shoppers Would Let AI Switch Brands, Accenture Finds

    Over A Third of Asian Shoppers Would Let AI Switch Brands, Accenture Finds

    More than a third of consumers across Asia would let artificial intelligence switch their purchases to a competing brand if the algorithm found a better match, according to data from Accenture.

    The finding reveals that conventional customer loyalty offers little protection against automated shopping tools designed to optimize price and product fit.

    Shoppers who identify as loyal to specific labels are willing to delegate buying decisions to autonomous digital assistants. These systems evaluate alternative products in real time and execute switches without requiring consumers to compare catalogs manually.

    Automated choices challenge legacy loyalty

    Retailers across the Asia-Pacific region have invested heavily in points schemes, subscription tiers, and bespoke mobile apps to lock in repeat buyers. Autonomous software cuts through those incentives by prioritizing immediate utility over historical brand affinity.

    When an algorithm spots a cheaper alternative, faster delivery, or better specifications, consumer willingness to let the machine override personal habits leaves traditional retention strategies exposed.

    The change shifts power toward platforms that control the automated interface rather than the merchants producing the goods.

    Trust gaps determine adoption speed

    Consumer willingness to hand over purchasing authority depends directly on how much trust shoppers place in the underlying algorithms. Retailers operating in Asian markets must now compete not only on shelf presence and digital advertising, but on whether their product feeds are structured for automated evaluation by third-party AI agents.

    Brands that fail to provide clean, verifiable product specifications risk being bypassed entirely by autonomous recommendation engines.

    Enterprise retailers across the region are now reassessing product data infrastructure as agentic commerce tools move from experimental pilots into mainstream consumer applications across Asian digital storefronts.

  • Coles Lifts Underlying Profit to $1.26 Billion as Supermarket Sales Surge

    Coles Lifts Underlying Profit to $1.26 Billion as Supermarket Sales Surge

    Coles Group lifted underlying annual profit 13.7 per cent to A$1.26 billion in Melbourne, powered by grocery volume and fast-expanding digital channels.

    Group sales revenue advanced 2.8 per cent to A$45.58 billion across the 2026 financial year. Reported net profit came in lower at A$1.09 billion after the grocer set aside A$235 million to cover remediation costs and penalties from a Federal Court staff underpayment judgment.

    Supermarkets drove the operating momentum. Core grocery revenue rose 3.7 per cent to A$41.47 billion, while division earnings before interest and tax increased 12.2 per cent to A$2.37 billion as the retailer took market share. Supermarket e-commerce sales jumped 26.4 per cent to A$5.6 billion, pushing the group’s automated customer fulfilment centres into positive earnings in their second full year of operation.

    Shoppers pinched by living costs continued to trade down to private labels and loyalty discounts while eating more meals at home. That grocery strength insulated Coles from regional retail headwinds, contrasting with discretionary Asian department store and hypermarket chains that continue to struggle against softer household demand.

    Liquor Slump and In-Store Shrink

    The liquor arm proved the main drag on the group balance sheet. Liquor sales slipped 3.3 per cent to A$3.55 billion, and division operating earnings plunged 47.8 per cent to A$59 million. Management responded with a multi-year restructuring plan that includes shutting standalone shops, co-locating bottle shops alongside supermarkets, and bundling food and beverage offerings.

    Security issues also weighed on store operations. Victoria recorded an 85 per cent surge in threatening incidents against staff over two years, pushing Coles to trial facial recognition systems, though management has not committed to a full network rollout.

    Restructuring Corporate Roles Under Accenture Deal

    Coles will cut hundreds of corporate jobs in the 2027 financial year as part of an expanded technology partnership with Accenture. The retailer plans to spend about A$190 million during the year on restructuring and redundancy costs to establish a dedicated capability centre.

    Store and customer-facing teams will remain exempt from the staff reductions, with the company offering reskilling pathways for affected corporate workers. Capital expenditure will increase in parallel, with Coles allocating an extra A$300 million across FY27 and FY28 to fund technology upgrades, store refurbishments, and 45 new supermarket openings.

  • NTT DOCOMO GLOBAL & Accenture Pioneer Universal Wallet Infrastructure: A Leap Forward in Digital Trust Services

    NTT DOCOMO GLOBAL & Accenture Pioneer Universal Wallet Infrastructure: A Leap Forward in Digital Trust Services

    NTT DOCOMO GLOBAL and Accenture, two major players in the global tech industry, have recently entered into a partnership to create and grow a Universal Wallet Infrastructure (UWI) platform. This platform is designed to bolster digital trust services across diverse sectors, governments, and geographical locations.

    The infrastructure being developed by NTT DOCOMO GLOBAL and Accenture will permit organizations to issue, verify, and manage digital credentials and tokens associated with identity, payment, assets, and documents. A key focus of the platform is interoperability and compliance, ensuring secure data transfer while adhering to user consent and regulatory norms.

    As businesses and public institutions are under increasing pressure to safely handle data in progressively digital and AI-centric environments, demands for transparency and control over personal data usage are also rising among individuals. By integrating decentralized technologies with current enterprise systems, UWI seeks to address these issues, reducing dependence on centralized data structures.

    Establishing a Trustworthy Digital Environment

    The platform is designed to foster secure, real-time data sharing between organizations, while also facilitating AI-powered services at the network edge. Through enabling users to regulate access to their data, UWI aims to bolster trust and provide organizations with access to consent-based, verifiable information to support their operations, innovation, and customer services.

    Several potential applications of the UWI platform have been identified, encompassing government services aiming to decrease fraud and administrative burdens, employers managing recruitment and workforce mobility processes, and travel and transportation systems seeking to simplify identity verification across borders and service providers.

    Leadership Commentary

    Hiroki Kuriyama, President and CEO of NTT DOCOMO GLOBAL, spoke enthusiastically about the partnership, stating that it would speed up the global implementation of UWI, creating a new basis for digital trust worldwide. He also emphasized the growing importance of effective digital IDs and electronic credentials across national borders, highlighting the platform’s objectives of providing verifiable authentication and innovative trust models on a global scale.

    Atsushi Egawa, Chairman of Accenture, Japan, and co-CEO, Asia-Pacific, Accenture, also expressed optimism about the collaboration. He highlighted the synergies created by combining Accenture’s deep expertise in technology strategy, data, and AI with NTT DOCOMO GLOBAL’s well-established strengths in network infrastructure operations and advanced internet technologies. He believes this collaboration will pave the way for new AI-powered experiences that revolutionize how businesses and customers connect.

    Questions & Answers

    What is the main aim of the Universal Wallet Infrastructure platform?

    The platform aims to establish a secure and reliable digital trust environment, allowing organizations to issue, verify, and manage digital credentials related to identity, payments, assets, and documents.

    How will the UWI platform benefit its users?

    UWI will allow users to control access to their data, thereby increasing trust while providing organizations access to consent-based, reliable information to support their operations, innovation, and customer services.

    What potential applications does the UWI platform have?

    The platform can be utilized in numerous ways, such as reducing fraud in government services, streamlining recruitment and workforce mobility processes for employers, and simplifying identity verification in travel and transportation systems across borders and service providers.

  • Accenture Plans Major Zurich Campus

    Accenture Plans Major Zurich Campus

    The consulting firm plans to expand its activities in Zurich to house more than 1,000 people. The move is sparked by a pandemic-induced change to working ways.

    Accenture will build a more than 9,000-square-meter hub in the heart of Zurich’s banking district, it said in an emailed statement on Tuesday. The new space will house more than 1,000 of its employees.

    The move was sparked by a shift in the definition of work as a result of both digitalization and the pandemic. «With the move, we are not only responding to Accenture’s current growth but also the changing needs of our employees,» country head Marco Huwiler said.

    Accenture will relocate in phases through 2024. «If the pandemic has shown one thing, it is that the previously valid work culture is undergoing a major transformation»

    The consulting firm led a consortium including SIX’s digital exchange, Credit Suisse, and UBS which helped the Swiss and French central banks on a cross-border settlement of digital currencies, or CBDCs, experiment.

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  • Accenture acquires Australia Electro 80 to expand digital OT footprint

    Accenture acquires Australia Electro 80 to expand digital OT footprint

    Accenture has acquired Electro 80, a leading provider of operational technology (OT) for resource clients in Australia, including mining, energy, engineering, construction, and utility companies. The acquisition expands Accenture’s local digital OT capabilities, which help asset-intensive companies make manufacturing and production operations safer and more efficient. The acquisition also strengthens Accenture’s local capabilities for Industry X, which helps clients digitize their manufacturing, operations, and engineering.

    The acquisition comes at a time when Australia’s resources industries are looking to undertake significant transformation following the operational disruption caused by the pandemic.

    Founded in 1987, and headquartered in Perth, with offices in Brisbane and Melbourne, Electro 80 provides automation, electrical, instrumentation, safety, networking, and industrial IT services, as well as turnkey solutions encompassing the design and support of equipment, installation, and commissioning, through to operations support and client training. Electro 80 brings more than 100 employees with longstanding OT experience to Accenture.

    “Resources and asset-intensive companies are increasingly looking for ways to deliver more with less and, at the same time, in a more sustainable way,” said Tara Brady, market unit lead for Accenture in Australia and New Zealand. “Digital and automation technologies will be fundamental in delivering these outcomes and we are delighted to have Electro 80 on board.”

    Sergej Divkovi, Electro 80’s managing director said, “Combining our team’s deep digital and OT expertise with Accenture’s end-to-end capabilities presents immense opportunities for our employees and clients. As part of Accenture, we will bring integrated solutions at scale that transform the way capital projects are planned, managed and executed. These can help new and existing clients drive new revenue and growth.”

    “We are thrilled to welcome the Electro 80 team into our resources practice, which helps clients digitize and optimize their operations at scale,” said Glenn Heppell, Accenture’s resources lead for Australia and New Zealand. “Electro 80 brings to Accenture a strong industry footprint with clients in priority industries. By working together with Electro 80, we can ensure our resource clients can better detect and address quality issues, more accurately prevent machine failure in their operations, and most importantly, innovate for the future.”

    Accenture’s acquisition of Electro 80 follows other investments across Australia and New Zealand in the past 18 months, including supply chain and logistics consulting firm GRA, cloud-native solutions provider Olikka, SAP and cloud solutions technology firm Zag, data analytics and supply chain management company Icon Integration, business strategy and econometrics firm AlphaBeta and specialist government consultancy Apis Group.

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  • Accenture to digitally transform Bharat Petroleum sales and distribution network

    Accenture to digitally transform Bharat Petroleum sales and distribution network

    Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (BPCL) and Accenture are collaborating to transform India’s second-largest oil and gas company by digitally reimagining its extensive sales and distribution network. Accenture will use its capabilities in data, artificial intelligence (AI), and cloud technologies to build, design and implement a digital platform, called IRIS.

    This platform will integrate real-time data from across BPCL’s countrywide network, including more than 18,000 fuel retail outlets, 25,000 tank trucks, 75 oil installations and depots, 52 liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) bottling plants, and 250 additional industrial and commercial locations, to provide a consolidated view of its extensive operations.

    Driven by analytics based on AI and machine learning technologies, the IRIS platform will subsequently trigger automated alerts and actions, including rapid response to equipment failures or hazardous situations. It will also empower the BPCL workforce of more than 100,000 across the country to make faster and more accurate decisions, including preventative maintenance. This can help increase sales at fuel retail outlets by minimizing infrastructure downtime and ensuring consistent fuel quality, as well as improve the experience for customers.

    By embedding intelligence in BPCL’s sales and distribution network, Accenture is helping BPCL optimize its operational performance and efficiency, enhance security and safety and deliver a superior experience for its retail and commercial customers across the country.

    Arun Kumar Singh, director (marketing and refineries), BPCL, said, “Digital transformation opens up new opportunities for the oil and gas industry. As an organization passionate about embracing change and leading the charge, we look forward to leveraging technology to unlock tremendous value, sustainable growth, and improved efficiency.”

    “With the deployment of this highly automated command and control platform called IRIS, we will not only bolster our digital capabilities significantly but also improve customer experience and transform operations at scale. It will further ensure consistent and uniform delivery of BPCL’s brand promises of innovation, care and reliability to our customers,” said Rahul Tandon, head, digital transformation, BPCL.

    The new platform will be capable of accepting more than three million inputs per second from automated sensors, cameras, and Internet of Things (IoT) devices deployed at all key locations, tracking performance based on key parameters such as fuel stock, safety, compliance, equipment health and boosting asset uptime. BPCL’s field workforce and partner network will have a seamless experience thanks to supporting from a portal, mobile app and call centers in Noida and Chennai.
    The digital sales and distribution platform will use BPCL’s cloud infrastructure, making it more agile and scalable.

    “The future will belong to companies that purposefully combine advanced digital technologies with human skills and creativity,” said Piyush N. Singh, India market unit lead at Accenture. “We believe our industry expertise and extensive digital capabilities can help BPCL drive the next wave of growth and gain a distinct advantage in the market. The powerful combination of human and applied intelligence will facilitate transformative change to ensure BPCL’s operations are safer, more secure and more efficient.”

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  • Coles partners with Accenture to cut costs

    Coles partners with Accenture to cut costs

    Coles is powering ahead with plans for a more digitally-focused future by signing a long-term agreement with global technology services company Accenture.

    The partnership is part of Coles’ Smarter Selling initiative which is hoped will cut costs to the tune of $1 billion over the next four years through the rollout of new technology.

    As part of the strategy, the supermarket plans to increase automation of manual tasks and use artificial intelligence for quicker and more accurate stock ordering.

    The supermarket giant has amped up its technology since its demerger from Wesfarmers last year, having recently announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft to transform its shopping experience and improve productivity.

    Accenture has a global strategic relationship with Microsoft and will work alongside the tech giant to help Coles deliver “simpler, more efficient, and robust operations”.

    Accenture will also support the modernization of Coles’ supply chain with online grocery leader Ocado, which Coles partnered with in March.

    “We have committed to being technology-led in our stores and throughout our supply chain to reduce costs while delivering an even better shopping experience for customers and making life easier for our team members,” Coles chief executive Steven Cain said.

    “The partnership with Accenture will enable us to deliver the efficiencies we need for long-term sustainability, and provide the agility to respond to rapidly-evolving consumer needs. This is a vital part of Coles winning in its second century,” Cain said.

    As part of the expanded relationship with Accenture, the companies will invest in a joint innovation fund set up to explore new technology applications within Coles.

    “The evolution of the relationship with Accenture reflects the company’s strategy to win together through genuine partnerships with suppliers,” Coles chief information and digital officer Roger Sniezek said.

    “Accenture is a global leader in the digital space and in working together over the past years across a wide range of areas of Coles Group, we have each come to understand each other’s businesses, strengths, and ways of working,” he added.

    “By leveraging this enhanced relationship, we will work together to build Coles’ technological capability, so we have the tools we need to inspire our customers and make life easier for our team members.”

    Accenture will also support the implementation of SAP solutions across procurement, human resources, and finance at Coles.

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  • Executives blind to disruptive nature of 5G

    Executives blind to disruptive nature of 5G

    Accenture says business and technology executives underestimate the disruptive potential of 5G technology. Fifty-three percent of respondents in a global survey of 1,800 executives in 10 countries believe there are “very few” things that 5G will enable them to do that they cannot already do with 4G networks. Only 37% expect 5G to bring a “revolutionary” shift in speed and capacity.

    Competitive advantage

    5G is believed to have important competitive implications. Up to 60% of surveyed executives believe 5G will cover nearly all the population by the year 2022, and 70% believe that 5G applications will give them a competitive edge with customers. Speed will be a key advantage according to 46% of respondents while 42% cite its capacity.

    “The reality is that 5G will bring a major wave of connectivity that opens new dimensions for innovation and commercial and economic development,” said George Nazi, Accenture’s Network practice global lead. “Breakthroughs in three-dimensional video, immersive television, autonomous cars, and smart-city infrastructure will unleash opportunities that are difficult to imagine today but will soon be transformative. Telecommunications companies will play a pivotal role in bringing these prospects to light.”

    Role of carriers

    Up to 72% of executives said they need help to imagine future possibilities and use cases of 5G. These see telcos as just the right partner on their 5G journeys, cited by 40% of respondents. Hampering this partnership is the recognition by 60% of respondents who cite telcos’ lack of industry knowledge as a key challenge.

    Other barriers include the need for upfront investment (36%), security (32%) and employee buy-in (29%). While 78% of executives believe that using 5G in the workplace will make their business more secure, 32% have concerns about the security of the new connectivity standard.

    Anders Lindblad, Accenture’s Communications & Media industry lead for Europe, said, “Despite the knowledge gap, there is excitement among business leaders about the value that 5G can bring to enterprises. This value is currently trapped within the perceived risks and uncertainty around 5G, which can be unlocked by organizations that understand customer needs, can overcome barriers to adoption and can drive collaboration among service providers.”

  • Chiling Lin asked by H&M to help reinvent fashion industry

    Chiling Lin asked by H&M to help reinvent fashion industry

    The H&M Foundation is seeking a new round of innovators to help entrepreneurs “reinvent the entire fashion industry.

    Swedish fast-fashion retailer H&M has contributed a further €1 million into the foundation’s fund and reappointed Taiwanese actress Chiling Lin, who is also a sustainability influencer, to the expert panel overseeing applications for funding new ideas that help reduce waste across the industry.

    Intended as a means to speed up the shift from the standard linear fashion model, where clothes often end up in the landfill, to a circular model where materials can be reused or recycled, the Global Change Award was initiated in 2015 by the H&M Foundation, in collaboration with Accenture and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

    Now the foundation has opened the fourth round of its annual innovation challenge Global Change Award. With more than 8000 entries from 151 countries over three years, it has become the go-to competition for circular innovation and has been described as “the Nobel Prize of fashion”.

    “It provides powerful funding and yearlong coaching to innovators who come up with solutions to spark the shift towards a circular fashion industry, protecting the planet and our living conditions,” said an H&M Foundation spokesperson.

    Applications for this year’s program close on October 17 – and t year there is a special eye out for ideas embracing digitalisation.

    “New ideas are the foundation for change, but scaling them is an enormous challenge for every innovator,” observed Karl-Johan Persson, H&M’s CEO who also sits on the foundation. “Together with our partners Accenture and the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, we’ve seen previous winners cut years off their timeline through our accelerator program. Now, we are eager to welcome five new circular heroes and encourage everyone who wants to reinvent one of the world’s largest industries to apply.”

    The Global Change Award sets out to find innovations with the potential to make fashion circular and thereby protect the planet and our living conditions. Other criteria are its impact and scalability, that it is novel and economically sustainable, and that the team is suited to make a difference.

    Chiling Lin described it as an honour to be part of the program again this year.

    “We need to unite together to protect our planetary earth by contributing ideas and efforts to sustainability,” she said. “The planet needs our care and dedication to safeguard this world and through this meaningful event, we can gather ground-breaking ideas that provide the fashion industry possible solutions to make fashion truly sustainable.”

    Current winners’ progress

    This year’s Global Change Award winners are currently taking part of the one-year Innovation Accelerator Program, taking them to Stockholm, New York and Hong Kong.

    Crop-A-Porter makes sustainable bio-textiles by using leftovers from food crop harvests

    Its parent Agraloop received €300,000.

    Agraloop is more than one year ahead of its original development schedule and about to begin the optimisation of its Closed-Loop system. Initial patent filings will be developed in the second half of this year at the same time as it runs pilots to produce a prototype Agraloop BioFibre from banana, pineapple, and oil seed hemp. These natural fibres will be processed using their proprietary bio-chemical approach and applied to commercially viable yarns and fabrics. This will go into ground-breaking design collaborations with some of the world’s biggest brands.

    The Regenerator aims to recirculate fashion by separating cotton and polyester blends, turning them into new textile fibre. Parent company Swerea IVF received €250,000.

    Swerea IVF is focusing on the technical development of its process and how to scale it up, both technically and economically. A new, larger reactor is being installed and will be up and running during later this year. The company is also working on improving the efficiency and yield in the process.

    Algae Apparel is turning algae into bio-fibre and eco-friendly dye that is also good for the skin. Parent Algalife received €150,000.

    Algalife has received its first Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) and is preparing a second. The company has a fully equipped laboratory and is recruiting staff. The production of algae fibres has started in cooperation with German and Swedish institutes, and it is finishing the final formulas for the dye process of each colour, with fabrics from different brands.

    Smart Stitch is a dissolvable thread that makes repairing and recycling easy. Parent Resortecs received €150,000.

    Resortecs presented its first prototype of dissolvable stitching thread in March, and two months later featured its first fully dismantlable jacket. By July, it had four different solutions meeting all industry requirements and it is currently initiating seven pilots for testing these solutions on products, such as jeans and backpacks.

    Fungi Fashion is producing custom-made clothes from decomposable mushroom roots. Parent MycoTex received €150,000.

    MycoTex has launched the MycoTex shopper, a bag made from 100 per cent mycelium. The company worked with Utrecht University where it researched how to integrate electronic components in MycoTex, resulting in a light strand covering the bag which responds to a sound; and a chip directing customers to a website with more information. The company is now working on improving the material and testing different dyes. MycoTex was recently named “The modern-day makers” by the World Economic Forum, recognising pioneers which are reviving traditional techniques and developing cutting-edge technologies, or merging the old and the new.

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  • Accenture and Quick Retailing be a part of forces to develop digitally enabled shopper providers

    Accenture and Quick Retailing be a part of forces to develop digitally enabled shopper providers

    Quick Retailing, the dad or mum firm of Japanese trend chain retailer Uniqlo, is forming a three way partnership with administration consulting agency Accenture to speed up the digital innovation of shopper providers for its clients globally.

    Increasing on a long-standing relationship, the 2 corporations will discover methods to increase their collaboration to ship personalised buyer experiences throughout all of Quick Retailing’s retail channels.

    Quick Retailing – which has operations throughout Asia, Europe and the USA – owns seven main manufacturers: Uniqlo, GU, Principle, Comptoir des Cotonniers, Helmut Lang, Princesse tam.tam and J Model. To enhance the personalised multi-channel expertise for Quick Retailing’s clients, Accenture will assist the retailer develop new digital enterprise fashions that embed buyer innovation, knowledge analytics and digitised operations in product improvement, merchandising, manufacturing, logistics, advertising, gross sales and customer support. This could allow shoppers to pick, attempt, buy and obtain services anytime and anyplace, which is a key goal of Quick Retailing’s working mannequin.

    As a part of the initiative, Accenture will assist Quick Retailing construct a cloud-based know-how platform, together with provide chain and buyer relationship administration techniques, to gather actionable buyer insights that may allow the personalisation of the client expertise. The know-how, together with provide chain and buyer relationship administration methods, will probably be absolutely reworked as a cloud based mostly infrastructure. Accenture Digital will present the digital commerce, mobility and analytics capabilities wanted to rework the client expertise.

    Underneath the joint initiative, Accenture may even assist Quick Retailing practice and recruit the expertise mandatory to construct an enhanced buyer expertise staff, looking for candidates with expertise in digital applied sciences together with mobility, analytics and cloud. As well as, the 2 corporations will set up an advisory panel that features main teachers, opinion leaders and start-up corporations to assist form Quick Retailing’s future digital providers for its clients.

    “We’re pursuing a coherent technique to determine an revolutionary enterprise scheme that seamlessly combines actual and digital markets and to take the lead within the altering retail business,” stated Tadashi Yanai, Chairman, President and CEO, Quick Retailing.

    “By way of this collaborative framework with Accenture, Quick Retailing will globally current and introduce the potential of an revolutionary enterprise mannequin past the retail business and speed up creating the world’s main direct enterprise mannequin. Quick Retailing, partnering with Accenture, will improve retailer technique, create a state-of-the-art provide chain community and develop progressive expertise to satisfy the buyer calls for within the period of digitalisation.”

    “Immediately’s retail clients are a formidable pressure with shifting expectations, demanding a seamless expertise – whether or not in shops or on-line – that’s on their phrases. Main retailers know that digital is the important thing to creating the seamless expertise clients need, and we’ll work with Quick Retailing to make sure they’re making sensible funding decisions to create new worth whereas making certain environment friendly and efficient operations throughout their complete organisation,” stated Gianfranco Casati, group chief government, Progress Markets at Accenture.

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