Technology-Trends-Technology-Vision-2016.pdf

Accenture Technology Vision 2016People First:The Primacy of People in a Digital Age ContentsForeword 03Introduction 04Executive Summary 06Trend 1:Intelligent Automation 16Trend 2:Liquid Workforce 26Trend 3:Platform Economy 36Trend 4:Predictable Disruption 48Trend 5:Digital Trust 57Conclusion 66Research Methodology 67References 69Contacts 71Your digital forecast.#techvision20162Technology Vision 2016ContentsForewordWe are pleased to present the Accenture Technology Vision 2016,our annual view of the technology trends that will have a profound impact on enterprises for the next three to five years.We are in the midst of a major technology revolutionspecifically a digital revolutionwith digital now dominating every sector of the economy.And we are seeing an important new shift as the technology revolution begins to put people first.To put it simply,as businesses become digital,their people and cultures must become digital,too.The theme of our Accenture Technology Vision 2016,“People First:The Primacy of People in a Digital Age,”looks at the competitive advantage that awaits companies that move beyond digital culture shock to create a thriving digital culture.And we look at the early adopters who are leading the way.High performers of the future wont merely consume more technology.They will enable their people to accomplish more with technology.They will create new corporate cultures that use technology to enable people to constantly adapt and learn,create new solutions,drive change and disrupt the status quo.The critical message from our Accenture Technology Vision 2016 is counterintuitive.While technology is the driver,its the people,not just technology,that will transform organizations for the future.Indeed,digital culture and talent is a clear differentiator in a highly competitive business environment and an increasingly digital world.The Accenture Technology Vision 2016 is a must-read for leaders of organizations across industries and around the world.We hope it provides relevant ideas to help you in your journey to become a digital business and guides you as you transform your businessand your peoplefor digital success.Pierre Nanterme,Chairman and CEO Paul Daugherty,Chief Technology Officer3Technology Vision 2016 IntroductionPeople First:The Primacy of People in a Digital Age Winners in the digital age do much more than tick off a checklist of technology capabilities.They know their success hinges on people.The ability to understand changing customer needs and behaviors is,of course,vital.But the real deciding factor in the era of intelligence will be a companys ability to evolve its corporate culture to not only take advantage of emerging technologies,but also,critically,embrace the new business strategies that those technologies drive.4Technology Vision 2016Enterprises must focus on enabling peopleconsumers,workers and ecosystem partnersto accomplish more with technology.They will have to create a new corporate culture that looks at technology as the way to enable people to constantly adapt and learn,continually create new solutions,drive relentless change,and disrupt the status quo.In an age where the focus is locked on technology,the true leaders will,in fact,place people first.Succeeding in todays digital world is a challenge that cant be solved simply by consuming more and more technology,or,as some fear,replacing humans with technology.5Technology Vision 2016Introduction25%of the worlds economy will be digital by 2020.Executive Summary Digital Culture ShockWe are in the midst of a major technology revolution,specifically a digital revolution.Our research model and analysis shows that digital is now dominating every sector of the economy.This global digital economy accounted for 22 percent of the worlds economy in 2015.And its rapidly growing,as we forecast those numbers to increase to 25 percent by 2020,up from 15 percent in 2005.1 With digital pervading everything,its bringing with it ubiquitous and unprecedented amounts of change.There are new technologies and solutions,more data than ever before,legacy and new systems to tie together,an upsurge in collaboration(inside and outside the enterprise),new alliances,new startupsnew everything.Meanwhile,out in the marketplace,digital customers are also maturing.Their dramatically transformed expectations of service,speed and personalization are just the start.The rise of the millennial generation brings with it not just a new type of customer,but also a new kind of employee with very different outlooks and aspirations.This born digital generation demands a world fashioned to its needs and new expectations about how work should be organized.Pervasive collaboration technologies are reconfiguring long-established norms of employment.The push toward freelance and portfolio careers is reshaping the workforcehow,when,and where.These changes are no phase.Change,in fact,has become the new normal.According to our global technology survey of more than 3,100 IT and business executives,86 percent of the executives anticipate that the pace of technology change will increase rapidly or at an unprecedented rate in their industry over the next three years.And many companies,already reeling from the impacts of technology and the changes they need to make in response,find themselves temporarily overwhelmedsome even paralyzed as they absorb the magnitude of the tasks ahead.Thats understandable.But once theyve paused for breath,theyll need to start changing their products,their business models,and all of the processes that support them.Theyll need to develop new skills.And theyll have to learn different,more agile ways of working across ecosystems composed of looser,partner-based collaboration.This requires a different way of looking at all the businesss moving partsand particularly its people.New ways of investing in their development,managing them and helping them adapt and embrace change are all foundational.The business is digital,so the organization,its people and its culture must now become digital too.Source:Digital Economic Value Index,Accenture,January 2016 25%#techvision20166Technology Vision 2016Getting past the digital culture shock that so many businesses find themselves in today sounds daunting.But fortunately there are models already available for inspiration.Not only have many large tech companies established thriving digital cultures,but there are also early adopters in other industries showing the way ahead.Virgin America,for example,is the only airline based in Silicon Valley,and it has learned to think like the disruptive tech businesses that surround it.It has experimented with everything from in-flight social networks to rethinking how to buy tickets.The company even went so far as to collaborate with its frequent flyers:30,000 people signed a Change.org petition to give the airline two gates at Dallas Love Field(which it was subsequently allocated).Virgin returned the favor with cash,by offering stock options to frequent flyers before the company went public.Most impressive of all,the rewards to the company have been very real:2014 revenue of almost$1.5 billion and a$306 million initial public offering(IPO).2How do you anticipate the pace of technology will change in your industry over the next three years?28%say pace will increase at an unprecedented rate58%say it will increase rapidly12%say it will increase slowly1%say it will remain the same1%say it will decreaseSource:Accenture Technology Vision 2016 Survey7Technology Vision 2016Executive SummaryAs perhaps the most basic of the four aspects,organizations must be built for change,which may mean changing how you operate as a company.Moving at the speed required for a digital business means developing new skills,new processes,new products,and whole new ways of working.Agile methodologies come to the fore.New IT is essential,with DevOps models and practices to drive continual delivery,service-oriented architecture(SOA)and the cloud for scalability,software-as-a-service(SaaS)for efficiency,architectures built for agility,and platforms for collaboration.The wraparound for all this is an acceptance of change by people,enterprise wide.Whatever their role,people need to expect change,understand its impact and keep pace with it by evolving and adding to their skills.Already,37 percent of business and IT executives we surveyed report that the need to train their workforce is significantly more important today compared to three years ago.The most advanced organizations will become champions for change,harnessing the latest developments to grow and improve the business.Pillars of the Corporate Cultural Shift So what is a vibrant and successful digital culture built on?There are four key pillars.Enterprises will need to strive to be built for change,be data driven,embrace disruption,and be digitally risk aware.Built for changeData drivenAs important(but still underdeveloped)is making the shift to becoming a fully data-driven organization.While much has been said over the last few years about increasing the capabilities within enterprises for using data and analytics,being truly data driven goes beyond just having better tools or even better skills.It means changing the basis for making decisions at every level of the company.Instead of relying on gut instinct,traditional experience,or even the HiPPO principle(i.e.,the highest-paid persons opinion is paramount),whats needed is for data to become so pervasive and readily available that it supports insight-driven decision-making throughout the enterprise.This doesnt just mean people using datamachines must also be equipped to harvest and act on intelligence.For shoe and apparel e-tailer Zappos,data transcends ad placements and site personalization,because they use it to make critical decisions about their customersmost notably,which are the customers they care about the most.Using a combination of their own and third-party data,Zappos marketing analytics team unearthed two key customer segments to find and nurture.The end result is still ads,but ads targeted at the right people.And to drive this data and consumer culture home,Zappos famously offers new hires$3,000 to leave after four weeks,effectively cutting loose anyone who is not inspired by the companys obsessive customer focus.3#techvision20168Technology Vision 2016Executive SummaryWith people,at every level,driving change with new tools,new skills,and new machines,leaders will have a critical role to play.Instead of focusing primarily on efficiency gains from digital,the real frontrunners will embrace disruption as part of their corporate DNA,inspiring their people with a vision for how technology enables processes to be done differentlyto be done betterso that the business can follow a completely new direction.As a key part of this,theyll listen carefully to peoplecustomers,partners and employeesusing technology as the channel to deepen understanding of the emerging needs,requirements and attitudes that drive disruption.Theyll create and embed strategies to underpin their success in a dynamic world.And theyll be at the forefront of reshaping their(and others)industrys boundariesplaying a lead role in the formation and coordination of existing and future ecosystems.Take,for instance,what Samsung is doing.Samsung is pushing out a constant stream of next-generation wearables and smart appliances:refrigerators that text you when a door is left open,washing machines that use spot energy prices to determine when to run a load of laundry,robot vacuum cleaners controlled by a smartwatch or smartphone.“Imagine a world in which these appliances are connected to each other,”says David Eun,a Samsung executive vice president.“What youd have is one of the largest platforms for distributing content and services and appseven ads.”4 Moreover,the disruption doesnt stop with Samsungs products:on the people side the company launched its C-Lab program where employees pitch ideas as part of a competition.Winners take a year or more off from their regular job to run a small team to research and develop the idea.“Imagine a world in which these appliances are connected to each other.Youd have one of the largest platforms for distributing content and services and appseven ads.”David Eun,Executive Vice President at SamsungUnfortunately,change at the pace were seeing from the digital economy also creates new areas of risk.Compounding the risk is the recognition that the huge scale that gives software much of its opportunity also amplifies the potential problems.Digital businesses will encounter and create risks that traditional businesses were never exposed to:new security vectors;responsibility for consumer privacy;demand for transparent use of data;and questions around the ethical use of new technologies.In response,leaders will inherently need to take digital trust into consideration in everything they do.Security,privacy and digital ethics cant be reverse-engineered around a technology;instead,they must be integral to the development process from the outset.Embrace disruptionDigital risk awareness#techvision20169Technology Vision 2016Executive SummaryWeve come a long way in a short time.Companies no longer just serve customers;they collaborate with them.They no longer just compete with rivals;they partner with them.Theyre no longer limited by industry boundaries;they ignore them.The connecting tissue for all this may be digital,but the defining factor is people.And its much,much more than a means of improving business today.Digitals power is to drive fundamental change in the status quowhether thats the industries that companies operate in,the markets they serve or the talent they employ.However,its increasingly clear that technology,on its own,will not be enough to propel organizations toward their new strategic objectives.Winners will create corporate cultures where technology empowers people to evolve,adapt,and drive change.In other words,the mantra for success is:People First.Digital Means People Too#techvision201610Technology Vision 2016Executive SummaryTrend 1:Intelligent Automation Intelligent automation is the launching pad for new growth and innovation.Powered by artificial intelligence(AI),the next wave of solutions will gather unprecedented amounts of data from disparate systems andby weaving systems,data,and people togethercreate solutions that fundamentally change the organization,as well as what it does and how it does it.Trend 2:Liquid WorkforceCompanies are investing in the tools and technologies they need to keep pace with constant change in the digital era.But there is typically a critical factor that is falling behind:the workforce.Companies need more than the right technology;they need to harness that technology to enable the right people to do the right things in an adaptable,change-ready,and responsive liquid workforce.Technology Vision 2016 Trends:Reinventing the World Again and AgainDigital is now firmly embe