Great companies typically have two things in common: 

One is a clearly defined, best-in-class portfolio of products or services that’s leveraged into industry-leading market share and profits. The other is the ability to know when it’s time to begin re-inventing the business model to avoid stagnation.

By this definition, the management consulting, IT services and outsourcing giant Accenture Plc (NYSE: ACN) is a great company.

Founded in 1989 (after a name change from Arthur Anderson Consulting), Accenture has evolved into an industry leader. Thanks to proven expertise in dozens of industries, the firm does business with three-quarters of the domestically-focused companies in the S&P 500. It has a large global footprint, too, with operations in 120 countries.

Since 2010, annual revenues have risen by more than 40% to almost $33 billion and earnings are up nearly 80% to $4.71 per share. In the nine years since it initiated a dividend, Accenture increased its payout nearly seven-fold, to $2.04 a share. Shareholders have also enjoyed outsized capital gains.

However, Accenture’s traditional businesses are fairly mature, portending  a substantially slower pace of expansion in coming years.

Accenture is already adapting, though, by moving aggressively into one of the highest-growth areas of the IT industry: digital services.

And once again the firm is making rapid headway. Although it only officially launched a dedicated digital segment about 18 months ago, digital services already account for about 20% of total revenue.

The goal is to provide diverse capabilities, such as determining how best to leverage mobile and other connected devices; formulating digital marketing strategies with social media and other online avenues; and helping to interpret the volumes of customer data that companies obtain through digital interaction (analytics).

To that end, Accenture offers a range of digital tools. A key one: Accenture Interactive, which is a service that integrates numerous aspects of digital marketing. These include content and campaign management; e-commerce and web development; and social media, among other areas.

The service should greatly facilitate Accenture’s expansion into the digital marketing industry, which is projected to grow to more than $40 billion over the next couple years, from about $22 billion in 2013. The firm also bolstered its prospects in digital marketing with last December’s buyout of Reactive Media, an Australian digital marketer that is well-versed in multiple areas including e-commerce, branding, technology development and website design.

Accenture has been beefing up its analytics offerings through acquisitions, too. About a year ago, it purchased i4C Analytics, an Italian firm specializing in industry-specific decision-making applications.

Earlier this year Accenture acquired Brazil-based Gapso, which designs systems that help to solve complex logistics and manufacturing issues. Both acquisitions complement an increasingly formidable analytics portfolio that also includes capabilities in fraud management, demand forecasting and quality control, among other areas.

On the cloud front, Accenture recently introduced the Accenture Hybrid Cloud Solution for Microsoft Azure. This software, which was jointly developed with Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), fully integrates companies’ cloud systems under a single management framework. Often, these systems have been acquired haphazardly over time and become bulky and cumbersome to operate, which impedes performance. That’s an issue that the new Accenture-Microsoft software helps to solve.

As sales efforts ramp up, the package is expected to resonate in particular with large firms, since they’re most apt to have extensive cloud assets. Regardless, the revenue-generating possibilities could be enormous. Surveys conducted by Accenture suggest that three-quarters of all businesses intend to switch to a hybrid cloud platform at some point to modernize their cloud infrastructure.

In what could be another big profit opportunity, the firm just formed a partnership with the online bank Moven. The two companies plan to develop next-generation mobile banking solutions and digital marketing methods. Among the possibilities are real-time marketing; real-time feedback on spending and saving behaviors; and biometric authentication (identify confirmation with unique biological features like fingerprints, voice patterns or iris scans).

The partnership is a smart play on the trend for banks to develop proactive, individualized customer relationships, rather than just being reactive and transaction-focused. Moven’s founder and CEO Brett King sees the potential to eventually develop a worldwide user base in the tens of millions.

In addition to offering broad technical expertise, Accenture has always been especially good at developing long-term client relationships. The evidence: 92 of Accenture’s top 100 clients (by revenue) have been with the firm for at least 10 years, according to Morningstar. This will be critical in capturing and keeping a top spot in the fast-growing digital services market.

Risks To Consider: Accenture is under constant pressure to evolve in order to meet changing client demands and fend off competition. There’s no guarantee that it will always successfully adapt.

Action To Take –> As core businesses mature, Accenture knows just where to look for new expansion opportunities. Indeed, the relatively new digital services market could account for around 30% of Accenture’s total revenue by 2017. And it could help propel the firm to 10%-a-year profit growth in the coming years, analysts say.

Notably, Accenture has continued to perform strongly despite substantial U.S. dollar headwinds. And with the greenback now noticeably off of recent multi-year highs, some positive revenue and earnings surprises could soon be in store.

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