and add to CGI's IT portfolio. Most importantly, our plans for operational excellence are a critical elements our clients are looking for, not only for us to be a safe pair of hands, but also for us to deliver in a cost-efficient manner. The support delivery and operational excellence objectives, the three-year plan we announce includes increasing head account by 15% on a three-year compound annual growth rate basis across all of our global delivery centers particularly in India. In Q1, our current hiring pace in India is almost two and a half times more than before the pandemic. This hiring contributed to the 20% year to year growth in our Asia Pacific operations. Given CGI's strong value proposition, our attrition rate in India stands well below the India peer group average. For our ability to deliver these results is ensuring we have the right talent in both our client proximity and global delivery operations. Over the past few months, we've continued to evolve our hiring strategies to meet increasing client demand. In Q1, the number of new hires more than doubled compared to this time last year. The end of the quarter, with 82,000 employees, a year-over-year net increase of 6,000 consultants and professionals. We continue to employ an effective and efficient talent attraction and onboarding approach, with two-thirds of candidates coming directly to CGI either through referrals from current employees or through direct applications for open positions on cgi.com. In addition, to support our proactive recruiting outreach, we've increased our recruiting capacity across all operating units. Our operational leaders, the same leaders who are responsible for client delivery, are involved in candidate sourcing, assessment, and decision-making at every step of our hiring process. This ensures tight alignment between candidate skills and client needs and reduces overall time to fill open, fillable positions. In moving to the growth outlook for the rest of the year, we expect client demand for end to end digitization to continue accelerating across most of the key industries we serve. In government, as I stated earlier, we see positive client demand momentum, particularly in areas well aligned to CGI's positioning and offerings. This includes helping agencies address, arrange a domestic priorities, spanning social and health services, infrastructure, space-based data solution, environment and the climate, and cybersecurity. In manufacturing, supply chain disruptions continue to require reshaping and reconfiguration. This is driving demand for data-driven enterprises to improve service quality and generate new revenue streams through use of digital services, including AI and advanced analytics. In retail and consumer services, the permanent shift to more digital orders is requiring prioritization of omni channel investments, while supply chain challenges are creating pressure on customer service and loyalty, driving demand of AI and predictive analytics to improve forecasting, inventory management, and workforce planning. And in financial services, banks are aggressively implementing their digital transformational agendas to better understand their customers and improve organizational performance. Banking client initiatives now often include, if not hinge on faster modernization of legacy assets, advanced data analytics, and a need for greater operational efficiency… include, if not hinge on, faster modernization of legacy assets, advanced data analytics, and a need for greater operational efficiency, include, if not hinge on, faster modernization of legacy assets, advanced data analytics, and a need for greater operational efficiency, include, if not hinge on, faster modernization of legacy assets, advanced data analytics, and a need for greater operational efficiency, include, if not hinge on, faster modernization of legacy assets, advanced data analytics, and a need for greater operational efficiency, include, if not hinge on, faster modernization of legacy assets, advanced data analytics, and a need for greater operational efficiency, include, if not hinge on, Faster modernization of legacy assets, advanced data analytics, and a need for greater operational efficiency, include, if not hinge on, faster modernization of legacy assets, advanced data analytics, and a need for greater operational efficiency, include, if not hinge on, faster modernization of legacy assets, advanced data analytics, and a need for greater operational efficiency, include, if not hinge on, faster modernization of legacy assets, advanced data analytics, and a need for greater operational efficiency. That, um, decision, um, is that maybe a function of just, you know, the, the many opportunities that you see as inaudible cap allocation for the upcoming year? Yeah, thanks, inaudible. It's Francois. I'll take this one. Uh, you're right, uh, you know, and, and that's, uh, what we indicated, uh, at the, uh, investor day. You know, uh, we feel that, you know, the acquisition and many activities, uh, uh, will be a lot more active this year. Uh, we're talking a- about allocating a billion, uh, on, on this, and, and that we're on a right path, uh, for now, so, so, uh, and what we're seeing is that, uh, we, we think that we'll be able to achieve at this objective. So, uh, that's why we thought that, again, uh, to wait, uh, uh, again, for, for the dividend. Uh, we as, as indicated, uh, we did, uh, we will renew our NCIB, so, uh, you know, if needed, we will put some, some investment in the, uh, in the short buyback. But, uh, we think that the, you know, uh, versus this, versus last year, uh, a lot more in the inaudible. Okay. Uh, thank you, Francois. George, crosstalk could you just talk a little bit? You, you touched in it in the comments on the IP solutions, but maybe talk about where you've been and, and the journey of sort of globalizing more of the solutions. I know about a year ago this time, you started down that path. Maybe give us an update on how you see things trending. Yup, no, it's a, it's a great question, because, uh, you're right. We, uh, I call it our, our unified approach to, uh, to growing IP, and, uh, it really is first and foremost about having processed the methodology to propagate the existing IP across the entire, uh, channel of, uh, CGI. So, uh, this is everything from approved value proposition through add-ons to our existing IP, broader target market, across industries, geographies, and functions in, and having a, a more efficient and, uh, profitable, uh, delivery model. So just to give you a quick update in the quarter, uh, we do have over 10% increase in the pipeline. We have an over 10% increase in the deal size of the bookings that we have. So that's… that gets to that, uh, improved value, uh, proposition and that broader, uh, delivery mechanism, and then we have an over 10% increase in the win rate. So those are some nice early proof points, um, that say that what we're doing around that propagation is, uh, is working. Uh, in fact, we have three of our SBUs that are art the 30%, and, uh, and the two fastest growing are the ones that are under 10%. So we have a, we have opportunity and, uh, and of course, uh, propagating that IP is the way to get there. Uh, we're also making increased investments in the sourcing the new IP. So this is, uh, everything from