The company is launching the Accenture Cloud Platform in anticipation of the shift in demand toward the public cloud. It is designed to provide services and solutions to help organisations integrate and manage the hybrid cloud environments that span multiple vendor platforms.

As part of this strategic initiative, Accenture will invest in cloud technologies, capabilities and training by 2015 to focus on delivering cloud services from its network of providers, as well as blending its own industry solutions and innovations with third party offerings.

“Already in use on more than 200 projects, the Accenture Cloud Platform features proven technologies and business processes to help our clients make the safe journey to cloud,” said Jack Sepple, global senior managing director – Cloud, Accenture. “We foresee the growing use of public cloud services and are uniquely positioned to offer the best of breed from a variety of vendors. We are committed to moving our extensive portfolio of cloud offerings, broad ecosystem of alliance relationships, and large global client base to the cloud in all forms – public, private and hybrid.”

According to the Accenture Technology Vision 2013 report, digital technology has become a strategic imperative and a tool of competitive intent for businesses today. Supported by the cloud, technology trends like mobile, social collaboration and big data are changing the landscape as an increasing number of businesses go digital. Industry analyst firm IDC predicts that the total market size for cloud will grow from approximately $40bn in 2012 to $98bn in 2016.

Accenture says it has already worked on more than 4,000 cloud projects for clients, including over half of the Fortune Global 100, and has more than 6,700 professionals trained in cloud.