Trends Identified
Fourth-generation system development
From the mainframe era, through client-server, and into the era of the desktop, the history of computing has been shaped by new capabilities (new hardware, new algorithms, new ways of doing things) that in turn stimulate new kinds of demands. Simply giving the 1980s-era personal computer a network connection, for example, turned out to have far-reaching effects on how enterprise systems were designed, built and used. In this decade, a wave of new capabilities will push system architecture into unexplored territory, ushering in a fourth generation of system-building. The forces propelling this new era are, as always, both technological and economic. The technologies range from parallel chip architectures to multi-tenancy, from new data storage techniques to advancements in programming languages. The economies are economies of scale: the cost profile of modern data centers or the efficiencies wrung from the manufacture of mobile chips. But progress may not be as smoothly and broadly distributed as it was in the age of Moore’s Law. Instead, innovations may be more localized, confined to more narrow domains. Competitive advantage will go to those who are aware of the technology hot spots, able to discern what will prove useful—and ready with the skills to seize the opportunity.
2010
Accenture technology vision
Accenture
Data + decisions = differentiation
Insightful analytics can help organizations discover patterns, detect anomalies, improve data quality and ultimately take effective action. But as analytics tools have been incorporated into standard offerings from software vendors, it is becoming clear that the real advantage in analytics is gained before the analysis begins—in data collection; and after it ends—in decision making. Analytical maturity varies widely across companies and across industries: some organizations are already integrating analytical decision making into their business processes, while others are still working at basic measurement and collection. In the next phase, what may truly differentiate an organization is whether turning information into action becomes part of its DNA.“Everything elastic” is proving to be a durable concept, whose influence is spreading thanks to the technological developments sketched above. Business executives—and CIOs in particular—should consider reshaping their thinking in line with this concept. The idea of elasticity—scalable, infinitely flexible, adaptive—may be integrated into the very fabric of the business. Only then will high performance be achievable in this new market place.
2010
Accenture technology vision
Accenture
Data Takes its Rightful Place as a Platform
Generations of programmers and architects have grown up thinking in terms of applications—seeing the world through the lens of the functions that the business has needed and with data being the object, not the subject. That thinking will change. Although a focus on applications will continue to be important, it will give way to an emphasis on data. It is our belief that in the near future, platform architectures will be selected primarily to cope with soaring volumes of data and the complexity of data management—not for their ability to support this or that application.
2011
Accenture Technology Vision 2011
Accenture
Analytics Is Driving a Discontinuous Evolution from BI
Analytics drives insights; insights lead to greater understanding of customers and markets; that understanding yields innovative products, better customer targeting, improved pricing, and superior growth in both revenue and profits. That’s why farsighted companies are viewing analytics as essential for creating value. In contrast, their peers who think about analytics only as a simple extension of business intelligence (BI) are severely underestimating the potential of analytics to move the needle on the business. For one thing, they overlook the fact that traditional BI does not address the wealth of unstructured data that is now available.
2011
Accenture Technology Vision 2011
Accenture
Cloud Computing Will Create More Value Higher up the Stack
There’s no denying the momentum of cloud computing. Accenture’s research shows that enterprises are already moving applications into the cloud. 1,2 The demand is anything but an IT fad; it is coming from a host of business functions. And it is truly a global phenomenon; companies everywhere from Brazil to China are moving ahead rapidly with adoption. It’s clear that IT and business executives should expect cloud computing to become ever more pervasive– to the point that the term “cloud computing” itself becomes superfluous. But what’s needed now is a shift in thinking from obvious but nondifferentiating benefits such as cost reduction through cloud infrastructure to where the cloud will have its real impact. When we look at the different facets of cloud computing – Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), Platformas- a-Service (PaaS), and so on – it is easier to see that most of the current emphasis on cloud is focused on the lower levels of the technology stack. For many large enterprises, the logical next step after virtualizing their data centers has been to leverage IaaS to augment those centers.
2011
Accenture Technology Vision 2011
Accenture
Architecture Will Shift from Server-centric to Service-centric
Information technology is evolving from a world that is server-centric to one that is service-centric. Companies are quickly moving away from monolithic systems that were wedded to one or more servers toward finer-grained, reusable services distributed inside and outside the enterprise. The evolution is being driven by the ongoing maturation of supporting tools, frameworks, and methodologies. There is still much to be done to decouple infrastructure, systems, applications, and business processes from one another. This shift has major repercussions for all levels of the enterprise architecture stack, from infrastructure to applications. Decoupling will enable components to operate independently while making software architectures reconfigurable during run time to adapt to various environments and design objectives, which will increase the flexibility of application deployment and maintenance. Although dynamic reconfiguration is not a new concept in academia, advances in cloud technology at all layers of the stack create a burning platform for such architecture.
2011
Accenture Technology Vision 2011
Accenture
IT Security Will Respond Rapidly, Progressively—and in Proportion
There is no such thing as watertight IT security. Yet for years, business and technology leaders have acted as if the only alternative to a “fully secure” state is an unacceptable “fully breached” state. This “fortress mentality” is outdated— and no longer realistic or practical. Leading security specialists are devising reflex-like systems whose responses step up with the severity of the breach. In extreme cases, counterattacks may even become part of an organization’s repertoire of responses. We believe that new security solutions and architectures will, like human reflexes, respond instinctively to the growing speed, scale, and variety of attacks. This implies that for the first line of defense, people will not be part of the decision loops; the speed and frequency of attacks dictate that human responses must make way for automated capabilities that detect, assess, and respond immediately. And the increasing “attack surface” – across more devices, more systems, more people, more business partners, and broader physical infrastructure— supports the case for automated capabilities that detect, assess, and respond to external threats immediately.
2011
Accenture Technology Vision 2011
Accenture
Data Privacy Will Adopt a Risk-based Approach
In an age when WikiLeaks has become a household name, every business leader is right to be even more paranoid about data privacy. Just as leading organizations now realize there is no such thing as 100 percent IT security, so complete data privacy is being exposed as a myth. In one study, the Wall Street Journal assessed and analyzed the cookies and other surveillance technology that companies use on the Internet. The study found that the nation’s 50 top web sites on average installed 64 pieces of tracking technology onto the computers of visitors, usually with no warning. A dozen sites installed more than a hundred each. 9 It will not be enough simply to accept the reality of data leaks. It will require very proactive responses from organizations to understand the risks surrounding the use and misuse of personal data. And it will require constant vigilance because things are changing so fast.
2011
Accenture Technology Vision 2011
Accenture
Social Platforms Will Emerge as a New Source of Business Intelligence
The rapid growth of social media has been eye-popping—especially so in the last few years. Facebook, founded in 2004, now has more than half a billion users and is spending heavily to accommodate more. Twitter’s service generates billions of tweets per month. Social networks are not just a product of and for the young consumer: Many of the world’s Internet users aged 50 and over are active users of social media. And increasingly, businesses and government organizations are using social media to connect their constituents in an effort to improve collaboration. This is just the tip of the iceberg. The evolution of social media will continue to disrupt the way companies do business, posing new challenges to IT as it attempts to harness social media in the enterprise. The key driver of this change? The transformation of social networks into social platforms, each with its own ecosystem to fuel increasingly deeper levels of interaction. Social platforms have three major dimensions: functionality, or the basic capabilities these platforms offer; community, or the groups of people who belong to them; and user identity, the unique name and associated information that characterizes an individual.
2011
Accenture Technology Vision 2011
Accenture
User Experience is What matters
Today, business process design is driven by the need for optimization and cost reduction. But tomorrow it will be driven by the need to create superior user experiences that help to boost customer satisfaction. But in the future, great user experiences will require more layered approaches than what is typical today. Leading IT providers are thinking way beyond the next great touch-screen interfaces or gesture-driven devices. They are preparing to address three specific factors: the integrated user experience, with no cognitive cost of switching from one context to another; a compelling experience, which minimizes tedium and boredom; and a natural device interface – one that involves little or no learning time. Apple has mastered all three factors; for instance, its iPhone and iPod products can be used right out of the box, with little need to resort to a user manual.
2011
Accenture Technology Vision 2011
Accenture