Trends Identified

The Outcome Economy: Hardware producing hard results
Intelligent hardware is bridging the last mile between the digital enterprise and the physical world. As leading enterprises come face-to-face with the Internet of Things, they are uncovering opportunities to embed hardware and sensors in their digital toolboxes. They are using these highly connected hardware components to give customers what they really want: not more products or services, but more meaningful outcomes. These “digital disrupters” know that getting ahead is no longer about selling things—it’s about selling results. Welcome to the “outcome economy.”
2015
Accenture Technology Vision 2015
Accenture
The Platform (R)evolution: Defining ecosystems, redefining industries
Among the Global 2000, digital industry platforms and ecosystems are fueling the next wave of breakthrough innovation and disruptive growth. Increasingly, platformbased companies are capturing more of the digital economy’s opportunities for strong growth and profitability. Rapid advances in cloud and mobility not only are eliminating the technology and cost barriers associated with such platforms, but also are opening up this new playing field to enterprises across industries and geographies. In short: platform-based ecosystems are the new plane of competition.
2015
Accenture Technology Vision 2015
Accenture
Intelligent Enterprise: Huge data, smarter systems—better business
The next level of operational excellence and the next generation of software services will both emerge from the latest gains in software intelligence. Until now, increasingly capable software has been geared to help employees make better and faster decisions. But with an influx of big data—and advances in processing power, data science, and cognitive technology— software intelligence is helping machines to make even more, better informed decisions. Business and technology leaders must now view software intelligence not as a pilot or a oneoff project, but as an across-the-board functionality—one that will drive new levels of evolution and discovery, propelling innovation throughout the enterprise.
2015
Accenture Technology Vision 2015
Accenture
Workforce Reimagined: Collaboration at the intersection of humans and machines
The push to go digital is amplifying the need for humans and machines to do more, together. Advances in natural interfaces, wearable devices, and smart machines will present new opportunities for companies to empower their workers through technology. This will also surface new challenges in managing a collaborative workforce composed of both people and machines. Successful businesses will recognize the benefits of human talent and intelligent technology working side by side in collaboration—and they will embrace them both as critical members of the reimagined workforce.
2015
Accenture Technology Vision 2015
Accenture
Digital–physical blur: Extending intelligence to the edge
The physical world is coming online as objects, devices, and machines acquire more digital intelligence. What’s emerging is more than just an “Internet of Things”; it’s a new layer of connected intelligence that augments the actions of individuals, automates processes, and incorporates digitally empowered machines into our lives, increasing our insight into and control over the tangible world. There are benefits for consumers and businesses. Consumers become better informed and better equipped to influence the ways they experience everything around them. And businesses get real-time connections to the physical world that allow machines as well as employees to act and react faster—and more intelligently.
2014
Accenture Technology Vision 2014
Accenture
From workforce to crowdsource: The rise of the borderless enterprise
Picture a workforce that extends beyond your employees: one that consists of any user connected to the Internet. Cloud, social, and collaboration technologies now allow organizations to tap into vast pools of resources across the world, many of whom are motivated to help. Channeling these efforts to drive business goals is a challenge, but the opportunity is enormous: it can give every business access to an immense, agile workforce that is not only better suited to solving some of the problems that organizations struggle with today but in many cases will do it for free.
2014
Accenture Technology Vision 2014
Accenture
Data supply chain: Putting information into circulation
Yes, data technologies are evolving rapidly, but most have been adopted in piecemeal fashion. As a result, enterprise data is vastly underutilized. Data ecosystems are complex and littered with data silos, limiting the value that organizations can get out of their own data by making it difficult to access. To truly unlock that value, companies must start treating data more as a supply chain, enabling it to flow easily and usefully through the entire organization—and eventually throughout each company’s ecosystem of partners too.
2014
Accenture Technology Vision 2014
Accenture
Harnessing hyperscale: Hardware is back (and never really went away)
Eclipsed by more than a decade of innovation in software, the hardware world is again a hotbed of new development as demand soars for bigger, faster, lower-cost data centers. Does your IT organization understand the new developments allowing companies to realize the benefits of “hyperscale” systems? In this new world, hardware matters more than ever in transforming enterprises into digital businesses with access to unlimited computing power that can be turned on and off as needed.
2014
Accenture Technology Vision 2014
Accenture
Harnessing hyperscale: Hardware is back (and never really went away)
Eclipsed by more than a decade of innovation in software, the hardware world is again a hotbed of new development as demand soars for bigger, faster, lower-cost data centers. Does your IT organization understand the new developments allowing companies to realize the benefits of “hyperscale” systems? In this new world, hardware matters more than ever in transforming enterprises into digital businesses with access to unlimited computing power that can be turned on and off as needed.
2014
Accenture Technology Vision 2014
Accenture
The business of applications: Software as a core competency in a digital world
The way we build software is changing. Mimicking the shift in the consumer world, organizations are rapidly moving from enterprise applications to apps. Yes, there will always be big, complex enterprise software systems to support large organizations, and it will still be necessary for IT developers to keep customizing those systems, providing updates, patches, and more. But now, as large enterprises push for greater IT agility, there is a sharp shift toward simpler, more modular, and more custom apps. The implications are significant for IT leaders and business leaders alike: they must soon decide not just who plays what application development role in their new digital organizations but also how to transform the nature of application development itself.
2014
Accenture Technology Vision 2014
Accenture