An annual report from Accenture predicts that key technology trends will redefine businesses over the next three years as the digital world enters the “post-digital” era, where success will be based on an organization’s ability to master a set of new technologies that can deliver personalized realities and experiences for customers, employees and business partners.
According to Accenture Technology Vision 2019, digital technologies enable companies to understand their customers with a new depth of granularity, give them more channels with which to reach those consumers and enable them to expand ecosystems with new potential partners.
“It’s just interesting when all the ads say digital transformation. But why are we talking about post-digital era? At this point in time most of the companies are investing in digital technology, however, digital technology is no longer a differentiator, it has evolved. It functions now more as a price coordinator, a price admission. To understand what is to differentiate, we need to understand the different set of technology, wherein technology is part of the fabric of the eye,” said Accenture Philippines digital lead JP Palpallatoc.
About 79 percent of the more than 6,600 business and IT executives worldwide that Accenture surveyed for the report believe that digital technologies—specifically social, mobile, analytics and cloud—have moved beyond to become part of the core technology foundation for their organization.
The Technology Vision identifies five emerging technology trends that companies must address if they are to succeed in today’s rapidly evolving landscape.
Darq power
The technologies of distributed ledgers, artificial intelligence, extended reality and quantum computing or Darq are catalysts for change, offering extraordinary new capabilities and enabling businesses to reimagine entire industries.
When asked to rank which of these will have the greatest impact on their organization over the next three years, 41 percent of executives ranked AI number one—more than twice the number of any other Darq technology.
Get to know me
Technology-driven interactions are creating an expanding technology identity for every consumer. This living foundation of knowledge will be a key to understanding the next generation of consumers and for delivering rich, individualized, experience-based relationships. More than four in five executives (83 percent) said that digital demographics give their organizations a new way to identify market opportunities for unmet customer needs.
Human + worker
As workforces become “human+” —with each individual worker empowered by their skill sets and knowledge plus a new, growing set of capabilities made possible through technology—companies must support a new way of working in the post-digital age. More than two-thirds (71 percent) of executives believe that their employees are more digitally mature than their organization, resulting in a workforce “waiting” for the organization to catch up.
Secure us to secure me
While ecosystem-driven business depends on interconnectedness, those connections increase companies’ exposures to risks. Leading businesses recognize that security must play a key role in their efforts as they collaborate with entire ecosystems to deliver best-in-class products, services and experiences. Only 29 percent of executives said they know their ecosystem partners are working diligently to be compliant and resilient with regard to security.
MyMarkets
Technology is creating a world of intensely customized and on-demand experiences, and companies must reinvent their organizations to find and capture those opportunities. That means viewing each opportunity as if it’s an individual market”•a momentary market. Six in seven executives (85 percent) said that the integration of customization and real-time delivery is the next big wave of competitive advantage.
According to the report, innovation for organizations in the post-digital era is mostly experiential based on the need or want of people.
Tailoring products, services and even people’s surroundings is the emerging trend and where businesses cater to the individual in every aspect of their lives and jobs, shaping their realities.
“By using technology we understand customers at a more granular level. Second, we are seeing that they lack digital ecosystems because we are seeing and knowing more of the consumers.
And we use these data for personalization. But with post-digital we meant individual experiences,” Palpallatoc said.