The Post-Digital Era Is Upon Us: Are You Ready For What'S Next?

The Post-Digital Era is Upon Us
ARE YOU
READY FOR
WHAT’S NEXT?
Accenture Technology Vision 2019
FOREWORD
#TECHVISION2019
As every business does indeed Persistent change, challenged assumptions, and this future, along with insights on how to steer your
become a digital business… disruption are now the norm, rather than the exception,
in business and society. And these indicators will only
organization toward continued success.
what is next? accelerate and multiply as we progress into the future. Here is the good news: the post-digital era offers
The lightning-speed of change, driven by technology, tremendous opportunities and value for business if
is taking us from the digital age toward a new reality, enterprises proceed responsibly and strengthen trust.
one we call the post-digital world. The power of cloud and artificial intelligence will
continue to advance. When combined with
The Accenture Technology Vision 2019 lays out the technologies such as distributed ledger, extended
inarguably bold and complex path that businesses will reality, and quantum computing, they will reshape not
encounter in the coming years, as digital continues to only the business sphere, but also the relationships
take hold and the next wave of powerful technologies with individuals—customers, employees and
ushers in a new era. ecosystem partners—that are critical to future growth.
First let’s look at what is happening today to see As you explore Accenture Technology Vision 2019,
where we are headed: everything is becoming digital. think ahead to this new reality with us, and decide
Organizations are making enormous strides and how your organization will get ready for what the
realizing the benefits of new digital business models post-digital world will bring.
and processes. We see examples of this everywhere—
in how people shop, work, learn, communicate, Thank you,
decide, respond and even elect leaders.
Now enterprises are at a crucial turning point. Digital

is indeed important, but now it is simply the price of
admission for doing business, especially as
technologies have swiftly evolved people’s
Paul Daugherty, Marc Carrel-Billiard,
expectations and behaviors. The next epic disruption Chief Technology & Senior Managing Director,
is coming, and our Tech Vision provides a glimpse of Innovation Officer Accenture Labs and Extended Reality
2 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

#TECHVISION2019
CONTENTS
Introduction ��4 Research Methodology � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �87
Trend 1: DARQ Power: Survey Demographics � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 88

Understanding the DNA of DARQ �� 16
References � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �� 89
Trend 2: Get to Know Me:
Unlock unique consumers and unique opportunities ��29
Trend 3: Human+ Worker:

Change the workplace or hinder the workforce �� 44
Trend 4: Secure US to Secure ME:

Enterprises are not victims, they’re vectors ��59
Trend 5: MyMarkets:
Meet consumers’ needs at the speed of now ��73

Introduction #TECHVISION2019
The Post-Digital Companies are taking their first steps in

a new world—one that tailors itself to fit
Era is Upon Us. every moment� It’s a world where
ARE YOU
products, services, and even people’s
surroundings are customized, and
where businesses cater to the
individual in every aspect of their lives,
READY FOR
shaping the very realities they live in�
WHAT’S
Japan’s biggest e-commerce company, Zozotown, is delivering
“custom fast fashion.” Its skintight spandex Zozosuits pair with
the company’s app to take customers’ exact measurements;
custom-tailored pieces from Zozotown’s in-house clothing line in
some cases could arrive in as few as 10 days.1
NEXT?
Gillette is catering to individual preferences in health and
beauty, partnering with 3D printing startup Formlabs to offer
customized razor designs.2 Consumers create their
personalized product through the company’s website; the
digitally-personalized design is then physically printed and
assembled, to be shipped directly to their door.

And customizing for the individual doesn’t According to our Technology Vision 2019 survey of 6,672 business and IT executives,
necessarily require Zozosuits or direct design input. 45 percent report the pace of innovation in their organizations has significantly
Sam’s Club developed an app that uses machine
accelerated over the past three years due to emerging technologies�
learning and data about customers’ past purchases
to auto-fill their shopping lists, and plans to add a
navigation feature, which will show optimized routes
through the store to each item on that list.3,4 Virgin
Hotels greets its guests with a cocktail of their choice
and a minibar stocked with their favorites, thanks to a
digital platform the company uses in place of a
rewards program.5 Significantly accelerated 45%
Companies like these are figuring out how they can

shape the world around people and pick the right
moments to offer their products and services. Accelerated
Looking at these companies individually, there is a 49%
story of hyper-personalization and on-demand digital
services. But the collective enterprise efforts reveal a
fundamental shift in how people will experience the
world for generations to come. Soon, each individual
Stayed the same
will have their own reality, and every moment will 6%
represent an opportunity for companies to play a role
in shaping it.
What is enabling—and driving—this reality-shaping

shift? The emergence of a post-digital world. We as a Slowed
society are nearing a turning point in digital 0%
enterprise, where more businesses will have
completed their digital transformations than not.
Digital-era technology, which began as a
differentiating advantage years ago, is now expected
from every business. But its impact is still changing

the relationship between businesses and society, and As the playing field evens out, companies will need to
the expectations of individual people. acknowledge a shift in their reality too—around the
level of expectations they face from digitally mature
Digital-born companies and those completing their customers, employees, and business partners.
transformations have showered consumers with Businesses have used technology-driven mass
digital products and services. Facebook, Twitter, customization to get more granular with consumers
Snapchat, and a constant rotation of new social through a top-down approach: selling two different
media brands have become go-to destinations for options, then 10 different options, then 100 different
finding and sharing information. Smart home devices options. Companies’ success with this approach has
enable contextual interactions between the digital fostered the illusion that they can meet any need, no
and physical world (Hey Google, remind me to talk to matter how personal or custom. Now, to meet
the accounting staff when I get to the office), direct expectations in the post-digital world, they need to
requests for physical products and services (Alexa, turn that illusion into reality. That means
order more dish soap), and even digitally driven understanding people at a holistic level and
social interactions from wherever people choose (Siri, recognizing that their outlooks and needs change at
call Mom with FaceTime). a moment’s notice.
The digital saturation of reality has granted companies

with exceptional capabilities. They can understand
In the post-digital world, every moment will represent
a potential new market of one. It’s where demand is In the post-digital world,
their customers with a new depth of granularity. They communicated instantly and gratification is expected every moment will
have more channels than ever to reach those immediately. What’s more, both are constantly
consumers. And with every company finally changing, creating an infinite and never-ending represent a potential
converging on the same digital footing, there are stream of opportunities to be met through business- new market of one.
more digital ecosystems and more potential partners to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C)
to help companies create holistic experiences. engagement, as well as in the public sector. The post-
digital world is one where technology is the fabric of
But as we move collectively into the post-digital era, reality, and companies can use it to meet people
these capabilities and advantages are now available wherever they are, at any moment in time—if they rise
to every organization. Digital itself is no longer to the challenge.
differentiating. With every business heavily investing
in digital technologies, how will leaders set
themselves apart?

A PARALLEL TRANSFORMATION
Companies have not been alone on their journey to about which technologies they will or won’t adopt to Post-digital markets are made up of consumers,
digital transformation. People have been on a parallel get the experiences they want. Companies must pay business partners, and governments alike enjoying
path, incorporating new technologies at an close attention not only to the choices themselves, the spoils of the digital revolution. Fully on-
increasingly rapid rate. When mobile phones were but also to the powerful new insights those choices demand or fully customized products are now the
first introduced, they took 12 years to reach 50 million can provide about their customers—and about new standard in practically every industry, and sooner
users; the internet took just seven to get to the same market opportunities. than later, customers will expect every
point.6 Looking at purely digital technologies, the organization to achieve both.
rates become frantic: Facebook reached 50 million Post-digital workers are incorporating technology to
users in four years; WeChat, one year. Pokémon GO, complete tasks in new ways, in new types of jobs, but This is not to say digital is old or over. Far from it.
the augmented-reality gaming app from Niantic? they are still being hired, trained, and managed in Companies have used the power of digital
Nineteen days. pre-digital ways. With the war for talent continuing to transformation to shape themselves, to shape
rage, companies must adapt their technology customers and employees, and then to shape
People are adopting new technology both quickly strategies to close the divide between themselves people’s expectations. What’s left is using their
and completely, and whether they’re customers, and their digitally mature workforce. ongoing digital efforts to shape the market.
employees, or even threat actors, they are beginning Companies face a world of renewed expectations
to outpace enterprises in their digital transformations. Post-digital threat actors have nearly unlimited and core digital technologies are more critical than
They are more knowledgeable about technology points of entry to enterprise. With a global army of ever. But the time for pilots and experimentation is
itself and how companies use it, and are becoming connected devices ready to be pressed into service, long past, and leaders must begin to strategize for
selective and demanding of what they adopt, and an attack surface that includes not only the what’s next.
challenging companies to work with them or adapt to target company but every partner and vendor in the
them in different ways. company’s ecosystem, they have the clear
advantage. Businesses must respond to this post-
Post-digital consumers are enjoying the results of digital threat with a collaborative approach,
technology saturation. In a world of unprecedented recognizing that they are not just potential victims,
technology choice, people have strong sentiments but someone else’s vector.

GETTING TO THE NEW “MOMENT”

Realistically, the world is not yet at the point of Look at JD.com, an e-retail platform and one of the
everything being instantaneous. But post-digital fastest-growing companies in China. JD is radically
companies are already playing a different game. differentiating itself with its “Toplife” platform—a
Companies still completing their digital service that helps third parties sell through JD by
transformations are looking for a specific edge, setting up customized stores for unique shopping
whether it’s innovative service, higher efficiency, or experiences.7 Not only do these third parties benefit
more personalization. Post-digital companies are from the e-retail personalization, they also have
looking for much more. They are out to bypass the access to JD’s supply chain with cutting-edge
competition by changing the way the market itself robotics and drone delivery that can reach rural
works. From one market to many custom markets— areas. And through a partnership with Walmart, a
on-demand, in the moment. physical store in Shenzhen will offer more than 8,000
products available in person or delivered from the
Industry lines are no longer a boundary to growth, store in under 30 minutes.8 By offering
and the disruption that came in waves as technology unprecedented customization and speed, JD is
matured in the digital era is now ever-present. Any enabling other companies to capture moments, and
company can compete with any other or carve out a in doing so creating a new market for itself.
new market. Take Amazon partnering with Berkshire
Hathaway, an insurance and holding company, and It won’t be long before the standout examples of
JPMorgan Chase, a global financial services firm, to today are the norm. Companies are already
tackle challenges in healthcare spending. The three investigating the next generation of technologies
have pooled their resources in a joint effort that has such as artificial intelligence (AI), distributed ledgers
companies in entirely different industries preparing like blockchain, extended reality, and quantum
for foundational disruption. computing. The message is clear: “keeping up with
the digitals” won’t cut it for what’s coming next.

Business leaders looking to do more than just future opportunity. Distributed ledger technology, the low altitudes at which drones fly, partnered with
complete their transformations must set new goals in Artificial intelligence, extended Reality, and Microsoft Azure to create a platform that gives state
their sights, including: Quantum computing (DARQ) are already having and local authorities authorization, enforcement, and
an impact in disparate areas of enterprise. DARQ restriction abilities for drone operation in their areas.10
•
Move your focus to the end. As companies begin technologies will drive the post-digital wave, but The platform also lets companies incorporate
to understand instant demand and supply options catching that wave will only be possible with the security and compliance checkpoints into drone-
expand, they will have more opportunities than firm foundation of SMAC. Looking even further related workflows.
they can pursue. Success will mean carefully down the road? DARQ technologies will enable
choosing the specific opportunities companies innovation in such core aspects of the business By positioning themselves as the curators of reality,
want to target—and just as important, the ones that they will be foundational for whatever comes companies already have a new level of obligation to
not to target—then working backward to after that. society. But being able to deliver for specific and
determine how they will get there. constantly changing moments creates challenging
As companies move to meet these goals, they must additional questions for businesses that are used to
•
Define what it means for your business to be post- also accept a new level of responsibility. As one market of many and long-static circumstances.
digital as the world moves into a new phase of businesses use technologies to reach further into With limitless opportunities, how do you measure the
cooperation. As companies settle on their new people’s lives, shaping the very fabric of reality, they potential impact of products and services on society?
goals and the pathways they will take to reach must address the privacy, safety, ethics, and How do you avoid crossing ethical boundaries where
them, they must also determine which ecosystem governance questions that come along with that level there are different lines for every reality and moment?
partners they need and where their own place in of access. And how does a company responsibly pick the
the ecosystem should be. opportunities to target in the first place? When you
Look at drone usage, which companies are reach the point of being able to deliver nearly
•
Master SMAC as a core competency and a incorporating for everything from agricultural anything instantly, it is critical to remember that “can”
foundation to rotate to what’s next. When it comes services to public safety, utility monitoring, and doesn’t always mean “should.”
to enterprise-level technology strategies, product delivery. They’re even changing what’s
companies can never stop moving. Social, possible in healthcare, with Switzerland’s postal It’s every company’s responsibility to understand the
mobile, analytics, and cloud (SMAC) combined to service provider using drones to move time-sensitive impact of its moments at scale.
drive the biggest enterprise and market lab samples between hospitals and bypass the delays
transformations since the dawn of the industrial of ground transport.9 But this does raise issues of
era. At this point, the failure to complete a patient safety, privacy, and data protection that the
mastery of SMAC will leave businesses unable to involved organizations must address, as well as
serve even the most basic demands of a post- navigating potentially restricted airspace. AirMap,
digital world. But success will unlock boundless which operates an airspace management system for

2019 TECH
TRENDS
This year’s Accenture Technology Vision highlights five emerging trends that will
shape businesses over the next three years. In each trend, you will see how
digital saturation is raising expectations, abilities, and risk across industries, and
how businesses are seeking new ways to differentiate themselves as the world
moves into the post-digital era.
DARQ Power Get to Know Me
1 2
TREND TREND
Understanding the DNA of DARQ Unlock unique customers and unique opportunities
New technologies are catalysts for change, offering Technology-driven interactions are creating an
businesses extraordinary new capabilities. Distributed expanding technology identity for every consumer. This
ledger technology, artificial intelligence, extended living foundation of knowledge will be key to not only
reality, and quantum computing will be the next set of understanding the next generation of consumers, but
new technologies to spark a step change, letting also to delivering rich, individualized, experience-based
businesses reimagine entire industries. relationships in the post-digital age.

Human+ Worker Secure US to Secure ME
3 4
TREND TREND
Change the workplace or hinder the workforce Enterprises are not victims, they’re vectors
Workforces are becoming human+: each individual is While ecosystem-driven business depends on
empowered by their skillsets and knowledge plus a new, interconnectedness, those connections increase
constantly growing set of capabilities made possible through companies’ exposures to risks. Leading businesses are
technology. Now, companies must adapt the technology recognizing that just as they already collaborate with entire
strategies that successfully created this next generation ecosystems to deliver best-in-class products, services, and
workforce to support a new way of working in the post- experiences, it’s time security joins that effort as well.
digital age.
MyMarkets
5
TREND
Meet consumers’ needs at the speed of now
Technology is creating a world of intensely customized
and on-demand experiences, and companies must
reinvent their organizations to find and capture those
opportunities as they come. That means viewing each
opportunity as if it’s an individual market—a momentary
market.

THE POST-DIGITAL
FUTURE Just as people no longer say they live in the “age of
electricity,” the days of calling something digital to
insinuate that it is new and innovative are numbered.
The word is already passé in the consumer space. Soon, it will be the same for
enterprise. There is no need to say you are a “digital business.” If you’re still in business,
investing in digital is understood.
What does “post-digital” mean for companies? Doubling down on completing their
digital transformations to get the most value from those investments—and at the same
time, turning a strategic eye toward what’s next. By moving the company’s focus to
targets of opportunity, finding a place among the ecosystems of the post-digital era,
and mastering digital investments with an eye toward the post-digital future, leaders will
position themselves for success for years to come. Your digitized organization will be
the foundation from which you drive all future innovation.
It’s a tall order; thanks to the power of digital now and post-digital next, the next era will
be one of massive customer, employee, and societal expectations. Fortunately, it’s an
era of equally tremendous possibility: to deliver for any moment in any reality.

COMPLETING THE PICTURE

The current three-year set of 2019 DARQ Get to Human+ Secure US
to
My
Trends Power Know Me Worker Markets
technology trends relating to Secure ME
Accenture’s Technology Vision

includes our reports from 2018
and 2017.
Accenture’s Technology Vision comprises a three-year

set of technology trends, and it’s important to recognize 2018 Extended Data Frictionless Internet
Citizen AI
that this year’s trends are part of a bigger picture. As Trends Reality Veracity Business of Thinking
companies continue to grow as digital businesses, they
will need to keep up with the latest technologies, as well
as continue to master those that have been maturing.
These technologies will collectively inform how
enterprises build the next generation of business and
create paths toward future growth.
2017 AI is the Ecosystem Workforce Design for The

Trends New UI Powerplays Marketplace Humans Uncharted

2018 Trends
Trend 1 Trend 3 Trend 5
CITIZEN AI DATA VERACITY INTERNET OF THINKING

Raising AI to Benefit Business and Society The Importance of Trust Creating Intelligent Distributed Systems
As artificial intelligence grows in its capabilities—and By transforming themselves to run on data, Businesses are making big bets on intelligent
its impact on people’s lives—businesses must move businesses have created a new kind of vulnerability: environments via robotics, AI and immersive
to “raise” their AIs to act as responsible, productive inaccurate, manipulated, and biased data that leads experiences. But to bring these intelligent environments
members of society. to corrupted business insights, and skewed decisions to life, they must extend their infrastructures into the
with a major impact on society. dynamic, real-world environments they want to reach.
Trend 2
Trend 4
EXTENDED REALITY
The End of Distance FRICTIONLESS BUSINESS
Built to Partner at Scale
Virtual and augmented reality technologies are
removing the distance to people, information, and Businesses depend on technology-based
experiences, transforming the ways people live and partnerships for growth, but their own legacy
work. systems aren’t designed to support partnerships at
scale. To fully power the connected Intelligent
Enterprise, companies must first rearchitect
themselves.

2017 Trends
Trend 1 Trend 3 Trend 5
AI IS THE NEW UI WORKFORCE MARKETPLACE THE UNCHARTED
Experience Above All Invent Your Future Invent New Industries, Set New Standards
Artificial intelligence (AI) is about to become your The future of work has already arrived, and digital Businesses are not just creating new products and
company’s digital spokesperson. Moving beyond a leaders are fundamentally reinventing their services; they are shaping new digital industries. To
backend tool for the enterprise, AI is taking on more workforces. Driven by a surge of on-demand labor fulfill their digital ambitions, companies must take on
sophisticated roles within technology interfaces. platforms and online work management solutions, a leadership role to help shape the new rules of the
From autonomous driving vehicles that use computer legacy models and hierarchies are being dissolved game. Those who take the lead will find a place at or
vision, to live translations made possible by artificial and replaced with open talent marketplaces. This near the center of their new ecosystem, while those
neural networks, AI is making every interface both resulting on-demand enterprise will be key to the that don’t risk being left behind. From technology
simple and smart—and setting a high bar for how rapid innovation and organizational changes that standards to ethical norms to government mandates,
future interactions will work. It will act as the face of a companies need to transform themselves into truly in an ecosystem-driven digital economy, one thing is
company’s digital brand and a key differentiator—and digital businesses. clear: a wide scope of rules still needs to be defined.
become a core competency demanding of C-level
investment and strategy.
Trend 2 Trend 4
ECOSYSTEM POWER PLAYS DESIGN FOR HUMANS

Beyond Platforms Inspiring New Behaviors
Companies are increasingly integrating their core What if technology adapted to you? The new frontier
business functionalities with third parties and their of digital experiences is technology designed
platforms. But rather than treat them like partnerships specifically for individual human behavior. This shift
of old, forward-thinking leaders leverage these is transforming traditional personalized relationships
relationships to build their role in new digital into something much more valuable: partnerships.
ecosystems—instrumental to unlocking their next Business leaders recognize that as technology
waves of strategic growth. As they do, they’re shrinks the gap between effective human and
designing future value chains that will transform their machine cooperation, accounting for unique human
businesses, products, and even the market itself. behavior expands not only the quality of experience,
but also the effectiveness of technology solutions.

#TECHVISION2019
TREND 1
TREND 1
DARQ
POWER
UNDERSTANDING
Understanding the DNA of DARQ
THE DNA OF DARQ

Trend 1 DARQ POWER #TECHVISION2019
Imagine movies in the future. Watching a fixed story on a screen will be a relic of technology now. Leaders in quantum hardware
Audiences will live inside of the past. In its place: create-your-own TV
packages or multi-player, interactive movies at
are connecting their quantum computers to the
cloud, allowing companies and individuals to
stories, fully immersed in home. No more traveling to a theater to watch a experiment with the possibilities of this
fictional worlds through virtual movie; instead, people will “travel” into the movie
itself as participants.
revolutionary new approach to solving
exponentially complex problems.
reality (VR). Human-like
artificial intelligence characters This may seem farfetched or at least far off, but
companies are already building these kinds of
The world is moving into a post-digital era.
Companies are setting their sights beyond their
will respond, anticipate, and interactions in the entertainment industry and organization’s digital transformation, moving
react to each audience beyond. Supermassive Games released a VR
experience for “The Inpatient,” letting players
toward shaping how governments, business
partners, employees and individuals interact with
member’s choices, and participate in the game in true first person.1 the world through technology. Future-minded
payments and access will be Google is rolling out Duplex, a natural language
voice assistant so human-like it’s hard to recognize
leaders know that they will need not only every
digital tool in their current arsenal to succeed,
facilitated seamlessly by as AI, to help people accomplish daily tasks.2 they’ll also need new ones. The next set of
distributed ledger technology. Choon, a blockchain-based music streaming
platform, is attempting to democratize and
technologies every company will need to master?
Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT), Artificial
streamline artist royalties.3 Intelligence (AI), Extended Reality (XR) and
Quantum Computing.
And while the full maturity and widespread
adoption of quantum computing may still be years
away, companies are beginning to explore this

The next set of technologies every company will need to master:
Distributed Ledger Artificial Extended Quantum

Technology (DLT) Intelligence (AI) Reality (XR) Computing
In other words, “DARQ” matters. Distributed ledgers will expand networks by eliminating understand their partners and consumers at
the need for trusted third parties. And quantum unprecedented depth, and together, SMAC helped
New technologies are catalysts for change, offering technology will usher in novel ways to approach and companies create major differentiators. Now,
extraordinary new business capabilities when applied solve the hardest computational problems. investing in digital is a core expectation of being in
appropriately. Individually, each of these four business, and ambitious companies are looking at
technologies represent opportunities for businesses When sets of technologies like these converge over a DARQ technologies for the next source of
to differentiate their products and services. short period of time, they can spark a step change, differentiation and disruption. As these technologies
Collectively, they will open unimagined new pathways letting businesses reimagine entire industries. DARQ reach maturity and converge, they will let businesses
into the future. AI already plays a critical role in will be the next set to do this, but not the first. expand upon their digital capabilities to build
optimizing processes and influencing strategic intelligent and highly customized, in-the-moment
decision-making. Extended reality, an immersive During the digital revolution, social, mobile, analytics, experiences that help shape their customers’,
technology, creates entirely new ways for people to and cloud (SMAC) combined to enable one such step business partners’ and employees’ very lives.
experience and engage with the world around them. change. These technologies let businesses

SMAC technologies and

some of the capabilities
they enable
Success in the future starts now. As

they mature, DARQ technologies will MOBILE Access to information
offer businesses huge opportunity. But anywhere
there is risk in waiting to make a move.

Leaders will be Many ignored SMAC for too long and Expand businesses’
presence in consumers’
the ones best later struggled to keep up with digital- daily lives
first businesses. To avoid this mistake
prepared to
SOCIAL
with DARQ, companies must begin S Access to services
anywhere
exploring new capabilities as they
capitalize on arise, experimenting with
Build communities
and networks online
SMAC
the value of DARQ combinatorial effects, and using their
C Businesses have the
digital foundations to launch ANALYTICS
technologies
Spread products through capabilities they need
referral codes
meaningful and effective pilots. to understand
M
consumers and
as they Leaders will be the ones best prepared
to capitalize on the value of DARQ
partners at a deeper
level than
Increased
efficiency,
progressively
Validate products ever before. reduced costs
through reviews
technologies as they progressively
reach maturity. reach maturity. At this stage, every
advantage counts. A Optimized products
and services
CLOUD Data-driven decision

making
On-demand computing
resources
Increased flexibility for businesses
Mass access to other

SMAC technologies

EXPLORING
THE DARQ
Across the DARQ technologies, investments and adoption are
rising steadily. VR and AR saw a 12 percent increase in
investment between 2016 and 2017, reaching $3 billion that
year; in the first three months of 2018, companies invested
$750 million in AR/VR startups.4 Distributed ledger
investments are exploding, with blockchain and
cryptocurrency-focused startups alone collecting almost $3.9
billion in investments in the first three quarters of 2018—nearly
three times the total for all of 2017.5

Adopted across multiple business units

Eighty-nine percent of businesses are already experimenting with one or
18%
15% 13% more DARQ technologies, expecting them to be key differentiators. Each
technology is at a different point on the adoption curve, but the first wave
Adopted in one business unit
13% of companies using DARQ technologies to drive differentiation is already
23% 22% here.
24%
The Symphony Post-Acute Network incorporated AI and machine learning
Piloting
to improve care for its 80,000 patients, using a cloud-based AI engine to
27%
drive predictions and recommendations based on its existing patient
27% data.6 The resulting insights led to a drop in readmission rates from 21
25% 23% 22%
24%
percent to less than 19—a huge reduction in a key success metric in
Evaluating or planning to pilot healthcare, at a cost savings of more than $13,000 per patient. Similar AI-
driven results can be found across industries, with 80 percent of
24% companies reporting that AI is in production in their organization in some
23%
22% form.7
27% 27%
Not planning or evaluating for adoption
11% Others are already creating new value with distributed ledger technology.
7% 9%
Don’t know A consortium including AB InBev, APL, and Kuehne + Nagel developed a
2% 3% 3%
blockchain solution to save hundreds of millions of dollars for the freight
Artificial Distributed Augmented and logistics industry.8 The approach reduces the need for data entry
Intelligence Ledgers/ Reality/Virtual
Blockchain Reality
related to transport documentation by up to 80 percent while
streamlining required cargo checks and customs compliance.
Please indicate your organization’s stage of adoption for each of the following emerging technologies today.
And while quantum computing is the furthest from full maturity and
impractical as a current investment for most companies, advances in
quantum research are bringing costs down significantly. The number of
qubits (the quantum equivalent of a bit in a traditional computer) in
leading chips is accelerating: it took 19 years to get from a chip with two
qubits to a chip with 17, which IBM achieved in 2017; later that year, IBM
bested its own record with 50 qubits, and by 2018, Google had unveiled a
chip with 72.9,10 In concert with these advances, Microsoft, Rigetti
Computing, 1QBit, and other leaders in quantum research are increasingly

DARQ technologies and

some of the capabilities
they enable ARTIFICIAL Automate business
making their quantum systems available for INTELLIGENCE functions
experimentation via APIs and software development
kits (SDKs, or QDKs).11 These offerings give companies
a way to develop and test quantum solutions for Scan unprecedented
amounts of data
specific enterprise use cases today.
Volkswagen has used quantum computing to test

traffic flow optimization, as well as to simulate the
DISTRIBUTED LEDGER
TECHNOLOGY D Make the benefits of
analytics more
chemical structure of batteries, hoping to accelerate
Transact without middlemen widely available
battery development.12,13 The company teamed with or trusted third parties
Nvidia to add AI capabilities to future models.14
DARQ
Volkswagen is also testing distributed ledgers with an
eye to protecting cars from hackers, facilitating
Large-scale collaboration Q Businesses have the
and transaction capabilities to build
automatic payments at gas stations, creating tamper- among strangers immersive and REALITY (VIRTUAL,
proof odometers, and more.15 And the carmaker intelligent worlds. A AUGMENTED,
ASSISTED, ETC)
provides step-by-step augmented reality instructions
Self-executing
to help service employees repair vehicles.16 smart contracts
Companies like Volkswagen with early-stage tests and R New, immersive

environments
pilots are gaining expertise, forming key partnerships,
and building up DARQ capabilities. As the On-demand and
QUANTUM hands free
technologies mature, this experience will provide the information
COMPUTING
tools to weave together solutions creatively and
strategically—to solve new kinds of problems or attack
existing problems in new ways. Solve problems
intractable with today’s
computers Discover new drugs
and materials
Transform global
cybersecurity

GAINING
COMBINATORIAL
EFFECTS
As businesses explore new capabilities, some of All four DARQ technologies are, or will be,
the DARQ technologies will be more immediately powerful on their own. But as they
advance, they will push each other forward
relevant than others. When asked to rank the further. Already, early pairings reveal
technologies, forty-one percent of business and game-changing combinatorial effects.
IT leaders report that AI will have the greatest The blend of AI and XR, for instance, is
impact on their organizations over the next three helping to solve one of the biggest
barriers to widespread impact for
years, while 19 percent say their greatest impact immersive experiences: VR sickness.
during the same timeframe will come from Businesses have identified numerous
potential applications of XR—like virtual
distributed ledgers. But to use the technologies training, “hands-on” education, or even
to their greatest potential—now and when all four realistic online shopping—but have been
stymied by the symptoms of motion
have matured—businesses need to think about sickness that many VR users experience.17
the value in combining them. To address this, LG Display is partnering
with Sogang University in South Korea,
where researchers are using a deep

learning AI algorithm to lower latency and motion blur. In the future, XR and quantum computing capabilities
The solution shortens the time lag between when a could be added to platforms like Adents NovaTrack,
person moves and when the display image updates to further transforming industries. With hands-free
reflect that movement.18 augmented reality instructions, warehouse employees
could reduce shipping mistakes significantly, while
Many leaders are also exploring quantum computing in quantum computers could optimize complex vehicle
conjunction with AI. Google AI has a quantum research routing, helping dispatchers coordinate multiple
effort aimed at developing quantum processors and vehicles with warehouse locations and rapidly add new
algorithms to accelerate machine learning computing destinations.
tasks.19,20 Similarly, IBM released QISKit AQUA Artificial
Intelligence, a set of tools and algorithms allowing To take advantage of the transformational new
developers to access and run AI experiments on IBM Q capabilities that DARQ technologies will offer,
quantum computers.21 businesses must explore the possibilities now all along
the spectrum. From the growing pervasiveness of AI in
Even before these DARQ technologies have reached enterprise today to the long-range potential of quantum
full maturity, businesses can see the value to come— computing in the future, businesses should continue
and these examples offer just a glimpse of what leaders experimenting with and applying these technologies to
have planned. Microsoft and Adents, a supply tracking transform their businesses.
solutions provider, are already integrating distributed
ledgers and AI. The companies teamed up to develop a The one certainty is that all four of these technologies
blockchain and AI-based product tracking platform, will offer powerful new capabilities to enterprise—and
called Adents NovaTrack. The blockchain-as-a-service will amplify the impact of the others. Leaders in the
approach offers greater traceability, transparency, and DARQ-driven future will be prepared to combine and
security throughout supply chains, guarding against exploit those competencies as the technologies reach
counterfeit items. Microsoft’s machine learning and enterprise-level maturity.
business intelligence services then help transform the
collected data into actionable business insights. 22 .

REALIZING NEW VALUE FROM

EXISTING INVESTMENTS
As DARQ technologies reach maturity, they will amplify the reach life and storage, the company has improved those features
and capabilities of the business, creating new value from existing and, therefore, the Gear VR experience with each new model.25
SMAC investments.
While quantum computers will be necessary to power next-
Consider how distributed ledgers will work with social platforms. generation technologies, they remain too fragile and
Social media created huge and powerful ecosystems and networks expensive for every company to have one. But several leaders
of people, but serious pain points like fake news and inadequate in quantum computing have already released software
data privacy protections have emerged. Now, distributed ledgers platforms that enable connections to their quantum
can give people more agency, helping them verify information and computers via the cloud. Rigetti gives businesses access to
control their data.23 Skycoin BBS, for instance, is a distributed social 8-qubit and 19-qubit quantum machines as part of its hybrid
platform with no central server or central authority, so people can Quantum Cloud Services platform.26 Alibaba’s cloud service
retain their privacy.24 Taking the lead on integrating distributed subsidiary, Aliyun, and the Chinese Academy of Sciences
ledger capabilities into social platforms has given businesses a new launched a joint 11-qubit quantum computing service, which
way to gain value and distinguish themselves from competitors. they encouraged researchers to use to run algorithms and
conduct early quantum experiments.27
Early progress with XR is also closely tied to a major digital
technology—mobile. For XR to shape and augment the world at any Strong digital foundations in SMAC will let businesses explore
given time, businesses must navigate network connectivity, DARQ technologies in their early stages—a must if companies
application development, and processing power. Those with want to stay ahead of competitors. Later, when DARQ
successful mobile practices or products will be better prepared for technologies reach full maturity, they will amplify the value of
this wave. Already, many VR headsets rely on mobile phones: the earlier technology investments, extending the business into
Samsung Gear VR is powered by Android Galaxy phones, and the future.
though early complaints about mobile VR centered around battery

DRIVING
Even before DARQ technologies have reached full
maturity, it’s clear that they are poised to become
THE
the foundation for next-generation products and
services. Already AI and XR offer major competitive
advantage in multiple areas, and distributed ledgers
and quantum computing are expected to drive new
POST-
innovations in the coming years. When all four
technologies are viable at scale, their impact will
grow significantly—once again giving companies
DIGITAL
the opportunity to transform their business models
and full industries from the ground up.
FUTURE
Leaders looking for a head start on the future must consider the revolutionary
successes of SMAC technologies and strive to replicate their impact. Studying
how the most successful companies used new capabilities to transform their
industries in the past will provide guidance as businesses explore new
competencies through DARQ, and a strong digital foundation will help them pilot
those capabilities while DARQ technologies are still in early stages.
DARQ will enable the post-digital era of business and technology, and those
looking to lead in that era must start now. For some, this means launching pilots.
For others, it means looking into startups and building relationships or making
acquisitions. The companies that recognize the opportunity—and begin to
explore possibilities and investments with strategic focus—will be leaders in a
brand-new competitive landscape.
DECISION POINTS
1 Is your digital
foundation ready for
DARQ?
• Early stage DARQ pilots will heavily rely on SMAC
practices. Prioritize the completion of ongoing
digital transformation efforts.
the digital revolution, and what pitfalls were difficult
or impossible to recover from. This will help you
build roadmaps for the growth of DARQ
technologies, and ultimately determine the optimal
• Consider where businesses in your industry time to involve your business in each one.
stumbled with SMAC adoption at the beginning of
2 Determine how your

organization will
access the DARQ
• Decide whether you will buy or build your own AI
tools, taking AI training and security requirements
into account.
• Begin identifying the best use cases for distributed
ledger technology in your industry. Will you use it
internally or to pivot quickly between many business
partnerships?
technologies that are • Explore different XR use cases in the enterprise.
Depending on how you expect to use XR throughout • Establish relationships with leading quantum cloud
relevant for your your business, decide whether you should begin vendors and explore new quantum computing
business, keeping in building an in-house team to design XR experiences,
or establish vendor contracts.
capabilities as they are made available.
mind their different

levels of maturity.

DECISION POINTS
3 How are you adding
DARQ skills to your
current workforce?
• Approach hiring, training, and employee retention
with DARQ in mind. As the technologies become
more pervasive, expertise will be increasingly in-
demand. As recruiting DARQ talent becomes more
competitive, consider training programs to reskill
your current employees and incentivize them to stay.
4 How can you use

DARQ to shape the
future of your
• DARQ technologies have the potential to transform
whole industries from the ground up. Start a future-
looking program dedicated to scenario planning.
Task the team with exploring different possible
• Steer your industry toward your company’s
preferred future with strategic combinations of
DARQ technologies. Evaluate each combination,
taking into account what can be implemented today
industry? futures for your organization, driven by the industry-
level impact of DARQ.
and what capabilities they will enable as they
mature. Use this information as you build your
overall DARQ strategy.

#TECHVISION2019
TREND 2
GET TO
KNOW ME
Unlock unique consumers and unique opportunities
Trend 2 GET TO KNOW ME #TECHVISION2019
Globally, 1.7 billion adults are But lending platform SlicePay has found a way to serve previously untapped market of customers.
“unbanked,” with no bank unbanked students in India. SlicePay runs “credit”
checks by examining applicants’ use of technology. These technology identities are part of an
account or access to formal How often they post photos of themselves on vacation emerging enterprise feedback loop, one that first
finance.1 They frequently end or check into restaurants on social media may seem
like unorthodox measures of financial viability, but they
began to show its potential with the
personalization efforts of the digital era. Through
up in a financial catch-22: offer useful insight into spending patterns.2 Combined digital technologies, companies gained new, direct
without any financial history, with other tech-derived metrics, SlicePay uses these
insights to build applicant profiles that replace
touchpoints with customers. They used the
resulting “snapshots” of insight into customer
they can’t qualify for a loan. traditional financial histories. needs and goals to deliver personalized products
Without any loans, they have no Another company, Capital Float, operates similarly. If
and services, which, in turn, gave companies even
more insight into their customers.
financial history. someone applies for a loan for a technology-related
endeavor, like buying a car to become a driver for a Now, that technology-driven feedback loop is
rideshare app or signing up as an ecommerce seller, about to kick into overdrive. As the world moves
one of the data points Capital Float will check is the into the post-digital era, companies are beginning
software update status of their mobile phone. It helps to build new products and services that shift the
the company evaluate the applicant’s technology one-off, transactional exchanges between
savvy, to determine how likely they are to be businesses and consumers to an ongoing,
successful in technology-related work. customized relationship. They are moving beyond
personalized products to individualized
SlicePay, Capital Float, and others have spotted the experiences, creating a one-to-one relationship
emergence and growing importance of technology with each customer where technology plays the
identities. The sets of technologies people choose to starring and ever-present role.
use are now so integrated into their lives that they
have become a part of consumers’ identities, and
leaders are using those identities to create a new
generation of offerings. In SlicePay’s case, its new
technology “credit check” lets the company serve a

83%
Technology identities are of business and IT executives
driven by digital agree that digital
demographics, which demographics give their
reflect consumers’ organizations a new way to
choices across a variety of identify market opportunities
devices and services. for unmet customer needs.
The transactional interactions of the digital era furniture directly in their physical environment.3 experience, just as it is in daily life. And with every
offered snapshots of customers at a single point in Instead of having the customer get home and build a step in those experiences, consumers are leaving
time. Now, experiences are beginning to deliver a piece, only to then realize it was not quite what they behind footprints of their technology identity. It’s
living, more holistic, and ongoing view of customers’ had hoped, the app revolutionizes the shopping creating a living foundation of knowledge for
digital activities, technology capabilities, and experience. People can now make purchasing business, as customers use technology to interact
preferences—in addition to their personal needs and decisions by using their very own home as the with them—and other companies they do business
goals. It’s the enterprise feedback loop of the post- backdrop of the catalog—and, thanks to Ikea’s with—across multiple points in time.
digital era: the more experiences companies deliver, purchase of labor platform TaskRabbit, customers
the richer the technology identities that are created. can also seamlessly recruit help to assemble the new The key opportunity for enterprise? Become each
The richer the technology identity, the more powerful piece in place.4 individual customer’s ongoing, trusted partner.
the experience a company can create. Companies will achieve this by understanding the
Other companies have followed suit, replacing dry, technology people use and how they use it, creating
The shift toward technology-driven experiences has often frustrating transactions with new technology- the insights needed to integrate seamlessly into the
already begun in earnest. Ikea built an augmented driven efforts that bring experience to the forefront of person’s life.
reality app that allows customers to browse the the relationship. Look closely at those interactions:
company’s catalog and place 3D renderings of technology is an inextricable component of the

B2B organizations have already started to adopt this technology has come to dominate the way people
thinking. Companies like Datanyze and the HG Data engage with the world.
app on Salesforce AppExchange will mine websites
to identify what technology stack a target company is Success for companies, then, is about seamlessly
using, or if they have recently changed providers.5,6 integrating into each individual’s technology
Vendors can then leverage that information to choices—drawing insights not only from which
generate leads and refine sales pitches that both technologies a person has adopted, but also how
meet the target company’s specific needs and fit they’re used. Look at the difference in the ways
within its existing sets of technology products and people use voice technology: among US adults, 70
services. percent use voice services to play music, 31 percent
use them for smart home commands, and just 17
For B2C companies, the logic is the same. If percent use them for food delivery or takeout.10
consumer-facing businesses are betting big on
experiences fundamentally driven by technology, Technology identities not only reflect overall
they will need to better understand how that consumer identities, they also define new aspects of
experience fits into the technology that already exists people’s lives in an era where everything is digital.
in a customer’s daily life. Companies that disregard technology identities will
inevitably create offerings out of sync with what their
The technology that consumers have integrated into customers are able or willing to use. But those that
their lives may not be as clearly defined as an successfully grasp technology identities will achieve a
enterprise technology stack, but it is just as critical. living, individualized view of each consumer—one
People entrust digital services to pay bills, shop, that’s needed to deliver rich, continuous, experience-
catch up with friends, get the news, control the lights based relationships in the post-digital age.
in their homes, work, and entertain themselves; even
social movements like #MeToo are inherently born
through technology. More than half of the global
population are internet users, and in the US,
consumers across generations already spend more
than three hours per day on their mobile devices.7,8,9
Even when it is operating silently in the background,

using technology to grow

the market
of one
The innovative technologies and strategies that
companies use to interact and engage with their
customers are in constant flux. Walmart redesigned the
technology backend of its website to distinguish
between items people buy for themselves and those they
buy as gifts, with an eye toward driving better-targeted
recommendations.11 Alibaba’s “FashionAI” incorporates
machine learning into a physical store experience, giving
individual customers real-time suggestions and tips as
they try on different styles based on the items they’ve
already chosen.12

41%
of executives strongly agree that understanding
consumers’ behaviors around technology will
be critical for their organization to increase
customer loyalty.
At first blush, these feel like very different strategies valuable that it has done away with the traditional life new ambiguity and complexity, along with key
for customer profiling and improving customer insurance model. Now, the company offers interactive challenges that companies must address. Among
experiences—but each is actually a stepping stone to life insurance policies that incorporate clients’ fitness them: recognizing that there are times when
the same ultimate goal: the market of one. and health data through wearable devices. John consumers want more technology in their lives, but
Hancock’s “Vitality” program policyholders qualify for also times when they do not want it in their lives at all.
Savvy businesses are taking their first steps with discounts when they hit certain exercise targets and To successfully establish and maintain ongoing,
technology identities to personalize their existing can get personalized premiums and rewards for their intensely individualized relationships with consumers,
product and service offerings. It’s a smart move; activity.13,14 The results speak for themselves: the companies must understand that dynamic. In
there is still value to be gained from personalization- average customer with a traditional insurance plan essence, businesses must earn and retain consumers’
driven customer loyalty. But this is just the beginning engages with their life insurance company one to two trust by weighing their needs against the company’s
of what is becoming possible today. Leaders can times per year. The new Vitality policyholders engage opportunities—and that will require a non-stop
push even further to craft new individualized, with John Hancock more than 500 times per year.15 balancing act.
experiential business models entirely around the
technology identities of their customers. Technology is letting businesses maintain ongoing,
experience-driven relationships with individual
North American life insurance company John consumers in ways that were impossible before. But
Hancock has found technology identities to be so with these technology-enabled possibilities comes

UNDERSTAND CHOICE
TO BUILD TRUST
With every future offering poised to be individualized for
the market of one, companies must master the granular
understanding that technology identities make possible.
It’s the difference between creating a tailored, seamless
experience that neatly integrates into a specific
customer’s life, or losing a consumer’s trust and a
potentially lifelong relationship by creating an
experience that is out of sync with their needs and
expectations.
Mastering the use of technology identities begins with understanding their key value: they
rely on the power of consumer choice. No one chooses their age, ethnicity, or other
characteristics commonly used to categorize people into demographic buckets. But having
a Facebook account or a smart home device is a choice. Which brand of smartphone a
person carries, or if they carry one at all, is a choice. Whether or not to turn on location
tracking, use a wearable fitness device, or let an insurance company monitor driving
activity in exchange for a discount—all of these are choices, driven by convenience,
accessibility or the trust a person has in a particular company. Choices around technology

create many consumer variables that businesses must in the first place. Individual lines will range from “all fever might wonder if their new connected
both understand and address. personalization is creepy to me” through to thermometer is being too “chatty” about their
“personalization is incredibly useful and I don’t find it household’s health.
The most obvious example relates to the question of creepy at all,” plus everything in between—and the
individualization and privacy. As companies move line will vary for each different offering. Fortunately for businesses, the very technologies that
toward serving the market of one, they must toe the make individualized experiences possible can also
line between “useful” and “creepy”—and bear in mind Businesses must also remember that they are not the help companies determine consumers’ preferences
that the line will vary for each person. only company that individuals have technology-driven for how tailored those experiences should be.
relationships with—and those other relationships may
Going beyond the red line for an individual customer affect the lines they draw for your company. Businesses are already collecting the information they
could mean all is lost. Case in point: one in five need to build this level of understanding, whether it is
consumers report that they would switch to another Thanks to ecosystem connections, companies can for marketing purposes, figuring out how best to
brand if a personalization experience was too creepy, access information about a person’s technological communicate with a particular customer, or for
and one in five also said they would talk about the footprint even if that person has never interacted with providing support. Now, they must combine the data
creepy personalization with others.16 Yet at the same them. Kinsa’s connected thermometers let customers and use it in new ways to calculate the “creepiness
time, nearly half of consumers say they have track their fevers via a smartphone app; Clorox paid quotient” in advance. Coupled with transparency
purchased a product they weren’t planning on buying to license the information, using it to direct ads to US about the insights being drawn from their
after receiving a personalized recommendation from ZIP codes where people had more fevers (and interactions, companies can use this understanding
a company.17 potentially more need for disinfecting wipes).18 No to build and maintain trust with customers as
personally identifying information was ever shared. offerings get more and more individualized.
The key takeaway: tailoring offerings to the individual Still, customers who end up seeing ads for
also means figuring out just how much tailoring to do disinfecting wipes not long after their child had a

WHERE’S THE LINE?
#TECHVISION2019
Persona 1 Persona 2 Persona 3
“I am concerned about my privacy “Personalization is helpful, but I “Personalization always adds value
and prefer very little personalization” still weigh it against my privacy” to my digital experiences”
x Personalized playlists help me expand my musical

horizons x Personalized playlists help me expand my
musical horizons
Personalized playlists help me expand my musical
horizons
x My navigation app works with my calendar and the

location services on my phone to suggest
x My navigation app works with my calendar and
the location services on my phone to suggest
My navigation app works with my calendar and the
location services on my phone to suggest
x
departure times departure times departure times
My fitness-tracking app only knows my location My fitness-tracking app only knows my My fitness-tracking app only knows my location
x
when the app is open location when the app is open when the app is open
I’m letting this online retailer know this item is a gift I’m letting this online retailer know this I’m letting this online retailer know this
item is a gift item is a gift
I like it when sites help me understand why I like it when sites help me understand why I like it when sites help me understand why
I see certain ads I see certain ads I see certain ads
I actively manage the kinds of notifications I actively manage the kinds of notifications I actively manage the kinds of notifications
I receive I receive I receive

UNDERSTANDING THE LIMITS

Technology choices have created a wide spectrum of attitudes companies said they didn’t expect to be fully compliant when the
around technology, and the European Union’s General Data law went into effect in May 2018.19
Protection Regulation (GDPR) along with the chaos that surrounded
its passage showed just how little attention companies have paid to The honeymoon of unlimited technological access is over.
these differing attitudes in the past. The regulation stunned Businesses need to understand how much technology people want
business leaders and set off a mass scramble to try to understand to use, how much access they want to allow into their lives, and how
the scope of its potential effects for individual companies. Even much individualization they want companies to create without
after a two-year delay in enforcement, more than 60 percent of stepping over the line.

UNDERSTANDING THE
CHOICES AVAILABLE
The struggle between privacy and individualization is In the short term, this means that companies may Whether companies opt to compete within multiple
the most pressing piece of the growing consumer need to maintain more digital channels to support ecosystems, or forge and focus on their own, is an
technological identity, but it is far from the only one. the many combinations of ecosystems found in their increasingly critical question for future strategies.
As businesses look to deliver rich, technology-driven customers’ technology identities. Domino’s Pizza, a
individualized experiences, they must understand digital leader, demonstrates this by supporting Beyond ecosystems, the direct availability of specific
the complexities around the technology each orders through the traditional avenues like a technologies is the other side of the access
consumer has access to in the first place. webpage and smartphone apps, but also expanding equation. Just look at the reach of mobile networks.
its capabilities to support ordering through Amazon Despite being nearly 10 years into the 4G rollout (and
From toll tags to baby monitors to smart meters, Alexa, Google Assistant, Slack, Twitter, Ford’s SYNC with the 5G standard completed in 2018) consumers
various technologies from different companies connected car platform, and many more.20 in just five countries have access to an 4G
pervade people’s everyday lives. Increasingly, those connection more than 90 percent of the time.22 If a
experiences are delivered through other companies’ In the long run, the expanding choices of technology consumer in an area without 4G coverage isn’t using
devices and ecosystems: app-based interactions are ecosystems and services will affect product strategy. a smartphone, it may not be a strict “choice.”
distributed via Android or iOS; voice-driven services Like Domino’s, some companies will go after every Companies will have to deal with a spectrum of
are accessed through a preferred digital assistant; ecosystem; Philip’s Hue, iRobot’s Roombas, and access levels as they attempt to reach a global
smart appliance purchases depend on compatibility Belkin’s Wemo devices all work in concert with a market with technology-driven experiences.
with a consumer’s existing smart home management range of digital assistants, maximizing their reach.
system. Individual customers will be involved in Others may follow Samsung’s Family Hub refrigerator Connectivity might seem too “nuts and bolts” for
many different ecosystems, and to deliver strategy instead: eschewing the horizontal approach, business strategy, but it can have a serious impact.
experiences that fit seamlessly into their lives, Samsung introduced its own smart assistant, Bixby, Take Netflix. Initially serving the US market, the
companies must navigate all of those relationships. as an inextricable part of the refrigerator itself.21 service was built on the pretext of ubiquitous high-

speed streaming. However, when the company blockchain platform to create transparent accounting
decided to take the product global, it quickly realized across mobile carriers, the three companies were able
that some of its most avid customers did not have the to develop a proof of concept that allows payments
same bandwidth access. Customers in India often using SMS or RCS—two text messaging standards that
experienced lag and buffering, so Netflix introduced a operate reliably on 3G networks. The solution extends
download feature, initially only available in markets connected banking experiences to customers without
where connectivity was not a given. With this high-speed wireless availability.
approach, customers could store videos on their
devices when they had service, and watch them Businesses need to understand consumers’ full
uninterrupted at a later time.23 Similarly, since Indian technology context if they want to deliver rich,
customers were primarily mobile users, Netflix seamless experiences in the post-digital age—including
invested heavily in mobile video encoding to the issues of access that affect consumer choice. This
guarantee the same experience to all customers—no might mean making sure products work in multiple
matter their technology context. areas, all with different levels of technology access. Or
it might mean serving more people in the same area by
Similarly, SoftBank, Synchronoss Technologies, and supporting many different digital ecosystems. Either
TBCASoft realized that existing banking apps way, it starts with a clear and constantly updating
demanded high-speed wireless access, which meant picture of the technologies that consumers are willing
the companies weren’t giving all banking customers to and can incorporate into their lives.
the consistent access to mobile payments that they
wanted.24 To solve this, they built a solution based on
technologies both new and old. By building a

EARNING TRUST
ONE CONSUMER
AT A TIME
When companies began their digital Now, with technology ubiquitous in consumers’ lives and
transformations, technology was the companies shifting from individual transactions to
experience-driven relationships, the opportunity is much
means through which they greater. Businesses can use technology identities to build
developed and connected with new individualized, seamlessly integrated experiences for the
market of one.
customer bases. Those connections
gave them snapshots of consumer But this opportunity creates great responsibility.
Integrating experiences into customers’ lives requires an
needs, preferences, and goals—and ongoing, intimate level of understanding; such insights
helped drive the first efforts toward rely on a strong foundation of trust, which companies
must maintain through every consumer interaction. Those
personalization in the digital era. that take on this challenge today will achieve the new level
of continuous insight and understanding needed to lead in
the post-digital world.

DECISION POINTS
1 How is technology an
inextricable
component of your
• Identify the consumer technology choices that are
most relevant to your business and develop a plan
to both capture and build on these data points to
deliver individualized experiences.
customers’ identities?
2 Is your company
using customer
technology histories
• Ensure that your business is prepared to understand
how technologies are used across a variety of
contexts, not just which technologies are used. This
will help your business create an individualized view
• With every new product you build or service you
explore, pay close attention to everything from
consumers’ basic network connectivity to the
technology ecosystems they choose to participate
to build and evolve of consumers—necessary to build a deep, on-going
relationship with them.
in, and how these variables will affect your
offering’s reach and impact. Increasingly, business
your understanding decisions will be driven by levels of consumer
of individual access to technology.
customers?

DECISION POINTS
3 How is your business

determining the
limits of
• Build a plan to combine your existing customer
knowledge (from marketing, support, and other
teams) with data gleaned from technology
identities, to determine the relevant “creepiness
personalization? quotients” for your customers.

#TECHVISION2019
TREND 3
HUMAN+
WORKER
Change the workplace or hinder the workforce
Trend 3 HUMAN+ WORKER #TECHVISION2019
Businesses have not been going through their Oil and gas drillers at Conoco use a data visualization tool based on a gaming
digital transformations alone. Today’s workers engine to troubleshoot malfunctions nearly a mile underground in real time.1 In
Siemens’s “Click2Make” automated factory project, an artificial intelligence (AI)
are equipped and empowered by technology, reasoning tool uses the known capabilities of both human and robot workers to
incorporating it to perform existing roles in assign tasks, enabling people to work seamlessly with machines.2 In China,
e-commerce giant JD offers three-month-long drone classes to train employees
new ways and to adapt for new roles that did for jobs as delivery drone pilots, a job that simply did not exist before the digital
not exist in the pre-digital era. With every revolution.3
company making major investments in Across industries and organizations, workers are incorporating technology to
technology, a renewed focus on the workforce build on their own inherent skills and experience. The workforce is becoming
“human+”: each individual is empowered by their skillsets and knowledge plus a
will decide the winners from the losers in the new, constantly growing set of capabilities made possible through technology.
post-digital age: across industries, it’s the But as the line between employees and the technology they use blurs, a new
workforce that will bring the promise of those divide is emerging. The workforce is evolving at a rapid pace, incorporating new
investments to life. technology-driven abilities and skills to deliver value for the company—while the
enterprise itself is still optimized for the workforce of the past, leaving a
disconnect that reaches throughout the organization. Companies have
inadvertently created a new digital divide between themselves and the
workforce that has helped them to grow.
Leaders are endeavoring to close the gap, adapting the technology strategies
that successfully created this next-generation workforce to incorporate their new
enterprise needs.
At Swisscom, employees were struggling to collaborate across siloed teams and

distributed knowledge. With the breadth and depth of experience at
Switzerland’s leading telecom provider, someone within its 21,000-person

workforce would certainly have the answer a

colleague needed to solve a problem—but finding
the right person to ask was a frequent challenge.
Now, Swisscom’s workers can pose questions via

“Ask the Brain,” an AI-powered solution from
Starmind that identifies the relevant experts and
automatically shares the inquiry.4 More than half of
questions are answered in less than two hours, and
the knowledge of each employee is easily accessible
to everyone else. People save the time they would
have spent searching out the right expert, and
instead spend that time putting the answers to use.
By incorporating its workers’ needs into its

technology strategy, Swisscom has taken a step
SKILLS TECHNOLOGY
toward unleashing the full potential of a next-
generation workforce—one currently constrained by
the very foundations on which it was built. HUMAN+
WORKFORCE
This challenge is not limited to a small subset of
workers, nor is it restricted to knowledge workers
alone. In every industry, technology is changing the
way work is done. Workers in Amazon warehouses
shifted into roles as robotics operators and
technology overseers.5 At Baker Hughes, field
technicians wear augmented reality headsets to
access both digital overlays of information and live
expertise from off-site engineers in order to fix
malfunctioning turbines.6

As companies continue to innovate and push into Technology innovation combined with increasing The bottom line for companies? Adapt the
new areas of the market, they will necessarily create employee velocity has created an ever-expanding technology strategies that successfully created this
new jobs and new roles immersed in technology. Not number of potential paths for workers to explore. But next-generation worker to empower them even
only is every job today becoming a human+ role, but that also means an increasing number of career paths further. Through AI, extended reality (XR) and
every new role that is created in the future will be for businesses to identify, manage, and support—and sentiment analysis, companies can propel their
human+ from the start. so far, companies have not kept up. Talent-finding workforce forward, blazing a trail for the company’s
strategies are out of sync with the capabilities of continued growth.
In concert with this human+ shift, people are moving human+ workers, and investments in learning and
more rapidly between companies. The median years reskilling are far short of where they need to be for the The human+ worker will build the pathway to the next
of tenure with a US wage or salary worker’s current high rate of employee transitions to different roles or big wave of innovation. How will your technology
employer dropped from 4.6 in 2012 to 4.2 in 2016.7 companies. Knowledge management and access strategy empower them to get you there?
Among those between the ages of 25 and 34, the strategies haven’t kept pace either: more information
median tenure with one company is now less than is available than ever for both workers and
three years. organizations, but it has become harder to find as
people move fluidly between roles.

OPTIMIZING THE
WORKFORCE MIX
The speed and constantly changing nature of And, of course, with the rapid pace of technological change, it is a challenge to
human+ career journeys are making it harder for know which skills to target in the first place. Companies’ needed technology
skills are in constant flux, yet most still approach talent-finding as they did in
companies to add specific skills to their workforce the era of stable career paths. But savvy businesses are finding new ways to
through traditional hiring approaches. Top balance their workforce mix, both externally and internally.
candidates are off the job market within 10 days, Outwardly, companies are rethinking the way they hire, using technology to
and a slow hiring process can lead to a new assess candidates based on capabilities and potential—an approach that is
better suited to the adaptability of the human+ worker. Leaders are already
employee whose primary skills are no longer a using this as an advantage, moving away from solely reactive skills-based
good match by the time a role is filled.8 hiring and looking toward an optimized mix of people.

Unilever has revamped its entry-level hiring process that developers write, but also on variables like In such programs, transparency is key. Accenture
with this in mind. Interested candidates begin with a passion, teamwork, and the effort they put into staying employees receive information about how their
screening process that includes a series of short current with their skills. specialization was derived, how the algorithms work
games, designed to assess a person’s potential fit and how to immediately update their specialization if
based on traits like memory, acceptance of risk, and In the war for talent, leaders are recognizing that the they disagree. Areas of specialization, learning
whether the person is more likely to read contextual or most important thing about employees is not where opportunities and advancement are also part of
emotional cues.9 An AI-based tool reviews the results, they come from, but how far they can go. ongoing, real-time conversations that people have with
eschewing traditional résumé-based evaluation in career counselors, helping them to remain relevant.
favor of optimizing for potential. There’s no “wrong” Internally, companies can adapt their technology
result; the trait profiles help Unilever better match strategies to seek out the untapped talent in their Used responsibly, workforce data can unlock people’s
candidates to open roles. internal human+ workers as well. Businesses have long potential and drive greater value for individuals and the
sought to hire and promote from within, both to business.12
Following an initial effort in North America, Unilever maintain institutional knowledge and to avoid the time
saw its applications-to-jobs numbers double within the and expense of an external search. But the methods By adapting their technology strategies, companies
first 90 days, and the average time to hire a candidate used for internal sourcing pre-date the technology can identify strong internal candidates for open roles,
drop from four months to four weeks. It also saw innovations that have made today’s workforce so and later, match employees with the training needed
higher acceptance rates for offers and a major mobile and capable in the first place. to prepare for a role switch. Most importantly, leaders
increase in diversity among new joiners. After one can begin to offer employees a consistent experience
year, the number of universities represented among Instead, organizations are turning to new solutions that from the time they join the company all the way
entry-level Unilever hires increased from 840 to 2,600. can draw upon a wealth of workforce data streams, not through their career—knowing individual workers’
The company later expanded the hiring approach and just self-reported skills and experience. As part of its skillsets and goals, while helping them to better
program to 68 countries. talent transformation, Accenture debuted its connect with internal opportunities and resources.
“specialization at scale” program: with 469,000
Tech-driven solutions also allow for increasingly employees, the company needed a robust and agile
powerful passive recruitment. Cloudflare and Medium way to ensure that the right team, with the right skills, To learn more about using workforce data responsibly
have adopted this approach with Aevy, which offers an is ready at the right time to spark innovation. Rather to elevate trust and unlock value, see Accenture’s
AI tool that crawls the web to identify good candidates than having employees self-report on skills, artificial report “Decoding Organizational DNA: Trust, Data and
for developer positions, analyzing people’s work and intelligence infers an employee’s skills and Unlocking Value in the Digital Workplace.”
interactions on GitHub, Stack Overflow, and other specializations. In pilot programs, employees www.accenture.com/workforcedata
respected code repositories and developer forums.10 confirmed that this new analytics engine identified
Aevy bases its recommendations not only on the code their specializations correctly 93 percent of the time.11

APPLYING TECHNOLOGY
TO COMPENSATION AND
SALARY NEGOTIATION
As organizations evolve their strategies for recruitment and hiring, they must also review their approach to compensation.
Even as work becomes more democratized and career journeys more fluid, challenges like gender pay gaps persist.
Numerous studies demonstrate that these pay gaps begin before a candidate even interviews for a job, with gender bias in
job postings. AI-driven tools can help identify and correct biases related to gender, race, disabilities or age, beginning to
even the playing field.
The mobility of human+ workers requires a new approach to salary negotiation throughout career journeys as well. Before
the digital revolution, workers might only change jobs a few times in a career and were less likely to cross between industries
or areas of expertise. That stability and familiarity with a specific area would give them a reasonable idea of fair
compensation for their current skills and potential.
Now, with workers constantly evolving their skills and moving rapidly between roles, ensuring that compensation is fair and
consistently negotiated is essential. Companies can offer tech-driven pay equity awareness, comparing proposed wages
against industry averages, so that both applicants and hiring managers have visibility into any potential discrepancies.

TRAINING AND
ENGAGEMENT
In an era of high employee velocity and constantly shifting skills needs, training and
continuous learning are more important than ever. Seventy-eight percent of business and IT
executives agree that increasing employee velocity has increased the need for reskilling in
their organization. To lead in the human+ era, companies must invest in their workforces
through learning and reskilling strategies that prepare employees for changing roles.

The good news? Human+ workers are willing and able culture of continuous learning and skills transformation. now using VR during the development stages of new
to learn and adopt new tools quickly. The bad: typical Employees were challenged to devote 40 working vehicles, such that workers can design new cars from
organizational training approaches limit resources to hours to self-learning during the year, splitting their anywhere.17 Companies can use these technologies to
employees who have been approved for certain time between the company’s digital learning portal— provide connected face-to-face time for their
learning opportunities to fill a specific enterprise need. which features courses from providers like LinkedIn and increasingly distributed workforces, improving human
Even with workers overwhelmingly reporting that they Coursera—and other opportunities including classroom touchpoints.
require new job skills to remain relevant, just 30 courses and on-the-job training. At the end of the year,
percent of non-freelancers report participating in skills- the company found that employees had not only met Another option to pinpoint areas where employee
related training in the past six months.13 Compare that the challenge but far exceeded it, nearly doubling the engagement is needed is to use machine learning
with more than 40 percent of millennials who rank time spent on online courses alone. They’ve renewed solutions that provide a more frequent and granular
learning and development second only to salary as the the challenge for 2019.16 read on employee satisfaction. Traditional methods for
most important benefit in deciding where to work, and measuring engagement are based on roles that
companies are headed for trouble.14 By incorporating training and learning needs into their progress slowly over time; a once-a-year survey can’t
technology strategies, leading businesses are matching capture the real-time insights required to power a
Rather than limiting their powerful human+ workers to human+ capabilities and potential with both current and digitally mature workforce.
only the skills they need today, leaders are investing in future enterprise skills needs. What’s more, this
learning platforms and strategies that better prepare approach drives engagement, ensuring that people FICO, a credit scoring service, found that annual
workers—and the company—for tomorrow. PayPal have continuous access to opportunities for learning surveys and the added delays of waiting for results left
partnered with Udemy to offer on-demand, self- and growth. Companies should pay special attention to the company with obsolete employee engagement
directed video learning to its employees.15 Not only immersive learning, where extended reality (XR) data. The business switched to smaller, ongoing “pulse
does the partnership offer immediate learning technologies are creating myriad new opportunities, surveys” to gauge satisfaction—automated and
opportunities, it also provides PayPal with better insight and artificial intelligence enables new levels of analyzed with AI to provide fluid insights.18 Using this
into the skills its workers want to target and how best to personalization. approach, FICO saw an 11 percent increase in worker
meet those needs. As employees browse through and engagement and a reduction in unwanted attrition for
engage with Udemy’s curated videos, PayPal gets in- This XR approach can also bridge the gap between the five consecutive quarters.
depth, backend analytics about which topics get the company and the human+ worker in terms of day-to-
most interest and which materials are most successful. day management and engagement strategies.
Augmented and virtual reality have made remote work
Going into 2018, Telenor Group wanted to foster a possible in positions like design and analysis; BMW is

Companies can also adapt a technology strategy 43 percent of business and IT executives report more than 60 percent of their
used for customer engagement to fit workforce
workforce will move into new roles within three years requiring substantial
needs: passive and real-time measures of
engagement via sentiment analysis. Applying reskilling within their organizations due to the impact of technology�
machine learning to email or chat content makes it
possible for the business to more quickly act on More than 80% 100
employee pain points or frustrations, without having 4% 4%
to wait for the next survey or active measure of 5% 17%
90 13%
engagement.19,20 (Companies must use care to be 61%-80%
15%
transparent, however, about information collected in 41%-60% 43%
this way, given the level of in-depth monitoring
70 28% 26%
required to generate useful insights.)
20%-40%
60 31%
By gathering workforce engagement data at a speed
that matches the rate of employee velocity, 50
Less than 20%
companies can better manage attrition and identify
40 30%
opportunities to engage their workforce. Once again, 34%
some of the innovative technologies that have helped
30
to evolve the nature of work itself can also be used to
power it. 20 44%
16%
10 21%
11%
0
Past 3 Today Next 3
Years Years
Percentage of workforce that global business and IT executives report

have moved or will move into new roles requiring substantial reskilling
within their organizations due to the impact of technology.

ENABLING
FLUID
KNOWLEDGE
FLOW As human+ workers continue to move more rapidly
throughout and across organizations, companies must
address the reality of increasingly distributed knowledge.
Both the workforce and the organization as a whole rely on
quick access to information to be agile and efficient. But
current knowledge management strategies rely on workers
themselves to act as stable sources of institutional and
industry knowledge—and the high velocity of the human+
worker defies that approach.

It is time for technology strategies that bring The company’s knowledge graph approach allows the
knowledge management into the human+ era. With the AI system to reason about expected performance or
right approach, companies can redefine the phrase understand how and why components fail. The system
“institutional knowledge,” making it a true responsibility not only captures current knowledge but gives workers
of the organization itself. a powerful way to examine larger insights. The
company itself is becoming a learning organization
A major oil and gas company was losing critical through its technology.
industry knowledge as its corrosion engineers reached
retirement. Even in the case of planned departures, In conjunction with expert-finding solutions like
with time available to capture the necessary Swisscom’s “Ask the Brain,” companies can incorporate
knowledge, the company struggled to record and these new approaches to organizational knowledge to
disseminate the workers’ insights. In response, the get back in sync with the capabilities of their human+
organization adopted a knowledge platform with workers. Enabling employees to query quickly both
natural language processing capabilities, indexing their colleagues and the company’s technologies not
unstructured data sources like refinery incident reports only empowers the human+ worker, it adds yet another
to collect knowledge and insights from workers.21 The piece to the plus.
platform aggregates the information into a single
location, making it available to all of the company’s
corrosion engineers.
Another leading oil and gas company has gone a step

further, incorporating knowledge graphs to gather
dynamic information about oil well design and
operation. Developed by Accenture Labs, the system
automatically scans data and extracts information on
components, the supply chain, compliance questions,
and the company’s workers. The knowledge graph
models a human expert’s knowledge, which the system
automatically updates through a combination of AI and
natural language processing.

EQUALIZING
THE INVESTMENT
Becoming human+ has expanded the New investments in training and reskilling will better
prepare workers for changing roles. Innovations in AI and
capabilities of the workforce beyond what
XR, coupled with integrated learning platforms, will
companies could have imagined just a few empower workers to participate in self-directed learning,
while also giving businesses better insight into the needs
decades ago. It is one of the biggest wins from
and goals of their workforce. Along with new approaches
the era of digital transformation: organizations to talent-finding and knowledge management, these
changes will let companies capture the full potential of
can draw on a workforce with a constantly
their human+ workers.
evolving set of capabilities, comprised of
Through the innovative technologies they’ve used to drive
employees who can more readily adapt to new
new products and services, companies will find new
roles and needs. But supporting and engaging heights of success: empowering the human+ worker will
drive the organization into the post-digital era.
that workforce requires companies to commit
to a level of workforce investment that’s on par
with the one in technology.

DECISION POINTS
1 What areas of your
business have the
biggest digital divide
• Identify business practices that are still optimized
for pre-digital workers. These could include your
knowledge management strategies, employee
learning opportunities, or talent-finding and hiring
• Select one or more areas for pilot programs that
explore how AI, sentiment analysis, and extended
reality can help close these gaps. For those already
completing pilot programs, select a key focus area
between the practices. Make a priority list based on areas where
the divide is creating the largest pain points and
in which to industrialize successful efforts.
company and your missed opportunities. These may include attrition,

human+ workforce? difficulty meeting talent goals, or low employee
engagement.
2
With in-demand • Review your current approach to talent forecasting. • Identify areas of the business where AI tools can
technology skills Identify areas of the business where talent gaps
have persisted or grown. For the areas with the
assist in finding talent. These tools can offer value
for both internal and external talent-finding; you may
constantly changing, largest talent gaps, rethink hiring methods. Select wish to begin by prioritizing one of these for initial
is your approach to one or more areas for pilot programs that focus on
employees who will grow with the company, even as
experiments and pilots.
talent-finding and roles change. Rather than “reactive” and skills-based

acquisition ready for hiring, look for ways to assess candidates by their
capabilities and potential.
the post-digital era?

DECISION POINTS
3 How are you • Does your company keep track of the roles open access to on-demand training and (where
applicable) opportunities for XR-driven experiential
industrializing employees are working toward in their career?
learning.
workers’ transitions • Critically examine your company culture as it
between roles, and relates to training. Does it encourage self-directed
learning? Do company processes and policies back
• Regularly evaluate your training practices by
surveying employee opinion: do employees feel
enabling them with this up? (For example, are workers allotted time for that they have the resources and support needed
the skills they need training/learning, or are they expected to pursue
learning on their own time?)
to learn new skills? Look for ways to use machine
learning solutions to gauge employee sentiment on
to succeed? an ongoing basis. Create an open dialogue to
• Create a training plan that supports frequent ensure transparency about what is collected and
transitions between roles. This should include both how it’s being used.
4
Can your knowledge • Consider how much your company’s store of • Explore platforms that use natural language
management institutional and industry knowledge relies on
individual workers. If high employee velocity could
processing to collect and store information from
workers, and knowledge graph solutions that can
strategy withstand mean losing valuable information, it’s time to gather information in a way that models a human
high employee revamp your company’s approach to knowledge
management.
expert’s knowledge and share it back.
turnover?

#TECHVISION2019
TREND 4
SECURE US TO
SECURE ME
Enterprises are not victims, they’re vectors
Trend 4 SECURE US TO SECURE ME #TECHVISION2019
In October 2018, JPMorgan Chase, Mastercard, This cooperative effort is just one example of how companies are evolving to
Fidelity, and other global payment firms become more resilient against the new reality of cyberthreats. Today’s
ecosystem-dependent business world amplifies exponentially the impact of
participated in the first joint cybersecurity cyberattacks: incidents that cripple one enterprise can grow rapidly and
exercise meant to test operational preparedness expand to threaten a company’s ecosystem, industry, and beyond.
Interconnectedness increases companies’ exposure to risks, and leading
during simultaneous attacks of payment businesses are recognizing that while they already collaborate to deliver best-
systems.1 Through the process, the companies in-class products, services, and experiences, it is high time security joins that
effort as well.
found they have very different approaches on
how to respond to threats, when to engage law The level of risk has been rising for some time. Enterprises have been building
vast interconnected ecosystems, but only 29 percent of business and IT
enforcement, and even hold varying definitions executives report that they know that their ecosystem partners are working
of what constitutes a breach. Critically, though, diligently, like they are, to be compliant and resilient with regard to security.
Here, “weakest link” takes on a new importance: liability. Now these linkages
the exercise allowed the firms to uncover ways are being exploited by attackers—both criminal and state actors alike—to
they could better coordinate responses and catastrophic effect.
dramatically improved their ability to respond to In connected ecosystems, such attacks can reach unprecedented scale. The
threats. WannaCry cryptoworm did not stop at ransoming the data of individual
businesses, but exploited an operating system vulnerability to spread across
the globe, infecting 300,000 computers spanning 150 countries in a matter of
days.2,3,4 The Mirai malware was used to hijack more than 100,000 Internet of
Things (IoT) devices and launch an attack on a domain registration services
provider in 2016; since then, even though its original developers were caught,
new variants have emerged.5 One such variant, Satori, spread to 100,000
home routers in 12 hours.6

Threat actors also exploit ecosystems that were traders created “shopping lists” of companies whose amend their approach, incorporating security into
designed to amplify the reach of information, such as press releases the hackers would target and gave the the collaborative strategies they have used to create
social networks. And it has been done to great success: hackers a cut of the ill-gotten profits from trading off powerful and innovative products and services. They
researchers from MIT found that attackers have been the stolen information.8 must include growing ecosystem dependencies as
able to spread fake news faster than real news, with the part of their own security posture and make security
top one percent of fake news stories reaching 1,500 And as more of the physical world is controlled by a cardinal component of how they build
people six times faster than real stories.7 digital devices, the risk and potentially dangerous partnerships. Both are a must for security in a post-
impact grows. Researchers at Ben Gurion University digital world.
But scale is not the only way digital ecosystems are demonstrated that attackers could drain a city’s
amplifying cyberattacks. With the business world water tower without a direct attack on its critical Doing so means shifting away from the “my company
dependent on ecosystem connections, even the infrastructure—by instead exploiting vulnerable IoT first” mindset and recognizing that today’s emerging
smallest disruption to one service can cascade to irrigation systems, forcing them to overdraw from threats demand a cooperative effort. Enterprises will
have a massive business impact on other partners. city reserves.9 need to expand the horizons of their risk assessment
And while risk management activities are largely and threat modeling to account for a much wider
focused on a company’s internal operations, These examples reflect the harsh new reality of threat landscape. They must spread and share
attackers are looking at the whole house of cards. business: as companies find rich opportunity in responsibility for security, starting in their own
working with whole ecosystems, they are organization—and begin building security
For example, for more than five years, a group of simultaneously extending, and absorbing, the risk partnerships that reflect the ecosystems in which
hackers stole insider information about publicly and vulnerabilities of those partners as well. Threat they participate. Security in an ecosystem-driven
traded companies—not by attacking the companies actors see ecosystems as an ever-widening attack world is no longer about protecting the
themselves, but by targeting the newswire agencies surface, while most businesses still look at organization—it is about protecting everyone.
that get early access to press releases from the cybersecurity as strictly an individual effort. To
world’s largest businesses. Unscrupulous stock respond to this dichotomy, organizations need to

REFRAMING RISK
AROUND THE ECOSYSTEM
If enterprises hope to collaborate on security across their ecosystem, the first
step is reframing their understanding of threats and the subsequent risk those
threats pose. In a recent Accenture survey, 71 percent of IT and business
executives felt that cyberattacks were a “black box” and did not know how they
would affect the organization.10 If leaders cannot assess the impact of an attack
on their own organization, how will they understand the risk posed to their
ecosystem partners—or the risks they are accepting through those partnerships?

Addressing this knowledge gap is paramount. Leaders whether that is an attacker or a partner. Doing so evaluations are only done annually; and few have any
must develop an organizational competency for improves both threat intelligence and understanding of mechanism for integrating new partners’ controls and
evaluating the cyberthreats they and their ecosystem risk exposure—and strengthens their resilience. It alerting into the company’s enterprise management.
face. The most resilient companies will be those that enables companies to identify critical dependencies
best understand, prioritize, and remediate not only the that demand immediate hardening, or vulnerabilities To address these problems, companies are building
threats they face, but also those challenging their that represent potential damage to a partner. new organizational mechanisms to ensure security is a
ecosystem, while recognizing the business impacts dedicated part of any corporate strategy. GE has CISOs
those vulnerabilities pose to partners. Enterprises can learn lessons from the newly assigned to specific regions and business units, to help
established New York City Cyber Command, a inform decision-making at a more granular level.14 And
One way enterprise leaders can better understand the government agency tasked with defending the city’s AT&T established its Security Advisory Council, a board
risk they and their ecosystems face is by expanding information infrastructure. The group worked with of cross-functional business and security leaders who
their approach to threat modeling. Many companies researchers from Wake Forest University and the meet regularly to discuss the most pressing issues
practice threat modeling today, mapping out potential University of Maryland to establish a threat modeling facing the organization.15
threat actors, vulnerabilities, and vectors of attack, procedure for the unit. Within 30 days, the participants
then linking those to the business risk each possibility developed 147 unique mitigation strategies, more than In ecosystem-driven business, enterprises must
presents. Yet few, if any, are modeling through the lens 60 percent of which were new to the agency. Within understand the challenges faced by every participating
of their entire ecosystem. four months, the agency implemented these strategies company. Reframing risk to account for ecosystem
to prevent more than 500 unique intrusion attempts, relationships and proactively making security a part of
Consider how Strava, a fitness app, had to suspend thwart privileged account hijackings, and close web business discussions will help companies begin to view
services after it was discovered that the app’s server vulnerabilities.12 their own business the way attackers do, leading to
anonymized activity map was inadvertently uncovering better preparation overall. But reconsidering what
classified US military sites as soldiers tracked their Threat modeling will help companies expose and constitutes risks for the ecosystem is just the
workouts.11 The data did not present significant risk to understand immediate enterprise and ecosystem risk. beginning. Security and IT operations teams can spend
Strava or any privacy risk to individuals, as it was But businesses do not stand still—and neither does days fighting the wrong fires if they do not understand
aggregated and not personally identifying. But it was risk. Ecosystem partners are changing constantly, the business impact.
this very aggregation, coupled with free access to the bringing with them new business ambitions, priorities,
information, that generated substantial risk for a subset and operational maturity—yet assessing security risks is
of the company’s customer base—and, in fact, for a a step that is frequently bypassed when these business
large group of non-Strava users as well. relationships change or grow. Only 38 percent of
businesses report including the chief information
Threat modeling across an entire ecosystem lets security officer (CISO) when considering new business
organizations put themselves in someone else’s shoes, opportunities.13 Even among those that do, most

DISTRIBUTING
RESPONSIBILITY:
SECURITY FROM
THE INSIDE OUT
It is no secret that security professionals are overworked. Today,
most security teams only look at five percent of the alert flags
they receive.16,17 This isn’t just a threat to the organization, but to
the ecosystem as well. Businesses are already facing more
vulnerabilities than they know what to do with; additional
ecosystem challenges will only further burden security
practitioners, inevitably leading to mistakes and oversights.

To combat this ever-growing challenge, businesses will analysis, and testing are continuous processes. But
need to spread responsibility for and ownership of DevOps without the right security tooling can result in
security throughout their organization, giving security bad code much faster. And while 27 percent of
teams the agility to address the biggest challenges. By companies today test or analyze for security
being more strategic with how they position security requirements throughout the entire development
internally, companies can make it a business enabler process, 59 percent of organizations still believe
rather than a catch-all. security inhibits DevOps agility.22
Take Xero, an accounting software company. Xero Embracing DevSecOps should be a priority for any
handles sensitive data from banks around the world, company operating in an ecosystem-driven enterprise.
including Wells Fargo, HSBC, Barclays, and more.18 To The technology products and applications businesses
provide better security for itself and its clients, the build to enable partnerships can introduce a significant
company’s security teams operate as service amount of risk. Addressing security early in the
providers.19 The groups maintain incident response development lifecycle is 30 times cheaper than doing
teams that are always on call, ready to spring into so in production and integrating security teams into
action to address the most serious issues.20 When not DevOps teams allows for continuous improvements to
faced with immediate threats, the team helps develop security—transparently.23 The approach gives
cybersecurity guidelines for individual departments, developers the early feedback they need to be better
allowing them to innovate unencumbered, but with stewards of good code.
appropriate safeguards in place.21
Ensuring that security is integrated into each part of

the business is especially critical with emerging
technology. As IT groups began eschewing the
traditional waterfall approach, they turned to DevOps,
the agile approach to code development where design,

THE EXPANDING
SECURITY TOOLBOX
A shortage of security skills has been a long-present challenge for businesses. But new tools are helping developers automate
processes and allow testing to happen seamlessly. IBM built the Application Security Open Source Analyzer, a tool that allows
developers to scan code automatically and identify open source packages containing vulnerabilities, while also providing
remediation instructions.24
Similarly, after Amazon Web Services recognized that misconfigurations of Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) buckets were
the culprit behind a large number of data breaches, it released two new tools: Zelkova and Tiros.25,26 These tools analyze security
configurations, providing automated feedback to administrators on the risk of different set-ups for cloud-based applications.27

BUILDING A MORE
RESILIENT FUTURE
In concert with their technology efforts, To manage their risk in this ever-changing environment, companies will have to
companies must also evolve their approach to create governance models and policies specifically with these challenges in
mind. One-off measures that are negotiated each time a new partner is
governance as ecosystem-driven business introduced are inadequate; comprehensive models and policies must ensure that
expands. Ecosystems are inherently in flux; the partners and third parties joining the company’s ecosystems adhere to the
same standard of security—or higher—that they set for themselves.
companies never know who they will be partnering
with tomorrow—or whose vulnerabilities will be To begin creating ecosystem-level standards and governance, enterprises should
look not just to their partners, but also their broader industry to collaborate. Other
putting them at risk. companies, even competitors, are likely to be facing the same challenges, and
have opportunities to build solutions that make it safer for every company to
conduct business. Take the Vendor Security Alliance, a non-profit organization
that will assess, qualify, and audit technology vendors based on a standardized
set of security principles.28 The founding partners of this organization were major
technology companies like Uber, Square, Palantir, and others that all recognized
they are drawing from the same well of vendors. Rather than each company
needing to audit individually or blindly trust their vendors, the non-profit created

87%
of business and IT executives believe that to be
truly resilient, organizations must rethink their
approach to security in a way that defends not just
themselves, but their ecosystems.
a rigid, consistent set of standards along with an Siemens is helping move its entire ecosystem and Beyond industry, enterprises must work more closely
auditing body to ensure a better foundation of industry players toward this reality with a Charter of with governments as well. Governments have valuable
security for the entire ecosystem. Trust initiative that the company established in 2018.30 cross-sector insight and enterprises are becoming the
Partners signing the charter agree to make new front lines where both criminal and state-level
It’s a creative solution to a pressing challenge all commitments to a number of cybersecurity tenets. attacks occur. Consider attacks like those faced by
businesses face as they work with an increasing These include baking security into the design of Sony Pictures, or more recently the NotPetya attacks
number of partners. Across industries, just 39 percent products and technologies, collaboratively innovating that impacted Maersk and FedEx—all of which
of companies believe that the data exchanged with on cybersecurity measures, providing transparency involved malware attributed to state-level actors.32,33
strategic partners or third parties are protected on incidents to all participants, and more. Ecosystem Threats that seem criminal may be state-level in
adequately by their cybersecurity strategy.29 partners and competitors alike have already signed nature, underscoring the importance of businesses
Companies must assess third parties not only on the the agreement, including enterprises such as AES, and governments addressing cybersecurity
merits of their business contributions, but also on Airbus, Deutsche Telekom, and Daimler.31 collaboratively.
their compliance with security policies and laws in an
increasingly complex regulatory environment.

Fortunately, there are already efforts underway to build Even without direct partners in mind, there are still and different ecosystems to chase innovative
these relationships. The US Department of Homeland ways to collaborate. Netflix is among those leading the opportunities—and that means a constantly expanding
Security set up the National Risk Management Center, open-source security charge, sharing internally attack surface for threats and vulnerabilities. If
a hub dedicated to creating cross-sector coordination developed security tools with the world since 2014.36 companies are going to join in the pursuit of shared
in risk management strategies and improving crisis The company’s free software releases include tools for business outcomes, they need to coordinate their
response for threats to critical infrastructure. The effort penetration testing, application-specific distributed efforts for resilience as well.
is aimed at ensuring that in the moment of a denial of service (DDoS) simulation, end-user
cyberattack, all parties involved know their role and the vulnerability remediation, and more.37 Rather than keep
necessary actions to effectively respond to the threat.34 these tools to itself, Netflix understood that a safer
Similarly, the European Union established the Cyber internet is a better place to do business.
Rapid Response Force, a set of teams that pull in
experts from across industries and borders to counter As companies pursue and complete their digital
attacks that threaten both public and private sectors.35 journeys, they will find themselves operating in new

A UNITED FRONT
Cyberattacks are changing, and the By widening their perspective, leaders will gain a better
implications for businesses are vast. understanding of their real attack surface, and better
prepare themselves for the ecosystem-driven threats that
It is time to bring the ecosystem into will only grow in the post-digital world. In the process,
the security fold. Limiting a they’ll differentiate themselves as trustworthy defenders,
becoming more attractive partners for other businesses,
company’s security efforts to only its governments, and consumers alike.
own infrastructure is akin to
barricading the door of a home under
construction before all of the walls
have been built.

DECISION POINTS
1 How has your
company’s exposure
to risk changed in
• Look beyond your company’s own infrastructure to
identify areas where ecosystem connections could
expose you to new vulnerabilities. Conversely,
consider areas where your connections to other
• Develop a security strategy to continuously assess
and address these vulnerabilities while ensuring the
appropriate groups inside your organization are
aware of these threats.
light of the push companies have changed those companies’
exposure to risk.
toward ecosystem-
driven business?
2
Is your company • As you look to form new business partnerships,
considering the position security as a cardinal component of those
relationships. Take steps to ensure that ecosystem
security implications partners can meet your company’s standards around
of business-driven security and are actively auditing their own practices.
ecosystem moves?

DECISION POINTS
3 How is your business
reconsidering the
relationship between
• If you are not already integrating security teams
into your DevOps teams, explore ways to support
such integrations and enable continuous
improvements to security.
DevOps and
security?
4
How could your • Seek out industry partners as well as competitors to
business participate find common goals for addressing security
challenges. Perform a security audit of your vendors
in security alliances and provide relevant findings to ecosystem or
and other ecosystem industry partners who are also using those vendors’
services. If applicable, open source the security
ventures around tools your business has developed to get input from
cybersecurity a larger community and make these protections
more broadly available to others.
standards and
governance models?

#TECHVISION2019
TREND 5
MY
MARKETS
Meet consumers’ needs at the speed of now
Trend 5 MYMARKETS #TECHVISION2019
With companies, workforces, consumers,

and industries now inextricably
connected, being digital is no longer
enough for a business to differentiate
itself. But it does give organizations a
foothold for their next big opportunity:
capturing moments.
Paper Boat, a beverage brand operating in India, uses hyper-

customization as a key driver of market growth. Its main product is
buttermilk soft drinks, but unlike other beverage companies that
work hard to drive consistency, the drink tastes different
depending on where it is sold.1 Paper Boat infuses regional flavors
like curry leaves, green chili, or ginger that better reflect local
tastes—even going so far as to use localized mango varietals to
ensure customers in every region are delighted. No opportunity is
too small or too fleeting; the company also completes small runs of
seasonal beverages to celebrate regional holidays. One such drink
—Panakam—is sold for only three days a year.

Technology is at the backbone of how Paper Boat new product or service designed not just for a
executes these granular strategies. The company specific customer, but for their needs at a specific
solicits localized feedback from customers by point in time.
surveying them on WhatsApp, using the aggregated
data to continuously gain new insight with a Mastering momentary markets will be both an art and
proprietary analytics platform. Its factory, fully a science. Delivering for every moment is impractical
equipped with Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, is and unnecessary; the art lies in picking the right
extremely flexible: changing recipes takes at most opportunities to be both effective and welcomed by
85 percent
two to three minutes, is transacted through consumers. The science is in building a company that
computers, and even factors in external variables like can create context-aware, customized products and
weather and air pressure to ensure the finished services on demand.
beverage tastes exactly as intended.
Leading businesses are already preparing for a future
A company like Paper Boat offers a glimpse of how of living in the moment, on both sides of the
of executives agree the integration leaders will capture the opportunity of individual equation.
of customization and real/near time moments. As people’s lives become more and more
personalized through technology, creating a world Take General Motors. The company installed a 3D
delivery is the next big wave of with a multiverse of realities and moments, printer in one of its manufacturing plants, allowing
competitive advantage. companies must reinvent their organizations to

capture those opportunities as they come. That
assembly line workers to print replacements for
broken tools on-site the moment they need them.2
means viewing each moment as if it is an individual This lowered the cost for replacing tools
market—a momentary market. significantly—one commonly-used tool cost $3,000
to buy but just $3 to 3D print—and kept lines moving.
With direct digital access to customers and
increasingly powerful analytics capabilities, For consumers, Zume Pizza rises to moments of
companies can understand their current and opportunity through an app that forwards custom
potential markets better than ever before. And with orders directly to an assembly line of pizza-making
sophisticated backend technology that can reorient robots.3 The machines roll dough, add sauce, and
the business quickly, they can deliver for those cook the pie, letting the company deliver just what
markets faster than ever before. Put those capabilities the customer wants up to 20 minutes faster than
together and every moment is a chance to deliver a competitors.

These pushes toward momentary markets are the it is easier than ever to simply take their business
natural evolution of a digitally maturing world. When elsewhere. But opportunity awaits the businesses
businesses and consumers increasingly turned to that are prepared to capture the moments when
online interactions, on-demand services and they come.
customizable products became cheaper and easier
to execute. Netflix and Spotify brought Companies that weave a technology strategy to
entertainment out of stores and directly into meet and even exceed these growing customer
people’s homes; Google and Facebook introduced expectations will find themselves far ahead of the
targeted and personalized advertising; Salesforce, competition—and ready for a post-digital future.
Amazon, Microsoft, Google, and others offered Their ability to remain continuously relevant—a
customizable software and on-demand storage and living business in the face of constantly changing
compute power. customer, partner, or employee needs—will set
them apart in a way that was not possible before.7
Exposed to this level of convenience, immediacy,
and intimacy, it is no surprise that people now Many have already invested in the tools it will take:
expect this level of service from every company. AI will help predict trends and preferences; digital
Searches for “same-day shipping” have grown 120 twins and agile manufacturing will provide granular
percent since 2015, and there are high expectations context and the capacity to rapidly prototype,
around personalization as well, with 71 percent of experiment, and deliver. Your competition may be
consumers expressing frustration when shopping well on its way to unlocking momentary markets.
experiences are impersonal.4,5 B2B expectations Are you?
have also grown: in a recent study by Salesforce,
business partners overwhelmingly said that
understanding their needs and the way they use
products and services is key to winning their
business.6
Miss the moment, and there is no second chance.

When unsatisfied, 76 percent of customers believe

FINDING
THE MOMENTS
Before companies can deliver for Companies already do demand planning and goods and unsold stock.8 In an effort to curb those
a given moment, they have to forecasting on a large scale. But with momentary
markets, forecasts and predictive models won’t
errors, Walmart is deploying robots in some stores to
traverse aisles and record stock information.9 But
know that the opportunity exists. be limited to long-range planning or major given the amount of data enterprises have access to
That means identifying customer trends; they will be used for everything to
anticipate key opportunities.
today, their anticipation of future needs is not as
good as it can be—and certainly not good enough for
needs before their competitors the markets of tomorrow.
do—and potentially before In the short term, there are still gains to be made
by improving existing forecasting techniques. To anticipate moments of opportunity, companies
customers themselves do. Take grocery stores, where forecasting errors must dramatically improve the granularity of their
range from 40-60 percent and lead to spoiled forecasting, and the first step is turning to AI.

It is not a question of collecting more data; the company created dynamic real-time insight into
companies already have information about supply order availability. Now its sales teams can quote
chains, customer sentiment, stock, transit times, prices instantly with more accurate delivery
and even the weather. The challenge? No team can windows, improving customer conversion and
tackle this deluge of information alone. satisfaction.11,12
The German pharmaceutical company Merck With granular demand forecasting in place to
KGaA deployed sensors on factory machines and anticipate and capture opportune moments,
in warehouses throughout its supply chain, companies can optimize their existing business and
providing a real-time view of operations down to product models. Looking further, the next phase of
the individual stock-keeping unit (SKU).10 Using this projection is getting ahead of larger trends, to see
data, and other data from its ERP software, the where the business needs to be in the future.
company applied machine learning techniques
and generated demand models that outperformed Google already has a “trend spotting” division
its previous models 80 percent of the time. dedicated to exactly this. The internet giant leverages
its search data to identify trends before they emerge
And AI-based forecasting is not limited to future and shares findings with different industries.13 In
demand. Improving the granularity of forecasting another case, to identify the most fashion-forward of
lets businesses capitalize on immediate moments, the crowd, New Balance filmed people as they
too. Infinera, a telecom equipment provider, used walked in the city during New York City’s fashion
to take up to 36 hours to provide accurate quotes week; the company used Google’s TensorFlow
on prices and inventory availability. The delay gave machine learning framework to analyze outfits and
customers the opportunity to find competing find the individuals with the most exceptional style.14
quotes, lose interest, or otherwise move on from Thus far, these types of pilots are still limited in scale,
Infinera’s business. By using an AI platform to but are poised to influence rapidly businesses’
integrate inventory, scheduling, and pricing data, operating models and strategic planning.

ADAPT Identifying moments of opportunity is just the first step. The

other piece of the puzzle is being able to compete for those
TO THE
MOMENT
moments when they come.
To do that, businesses must deliver precisely what people want Now Sam’s Club has adapted the app to drive an interactive
with increasingly specific personalization for the circumstances shopping experience, incorporating a customer’s past
of the moment. Leaders are already going far beyond basic purchase data and machine learning to create smart shopping
customization, individually tailoring products and services to lists.15 Moving forward, the company is looking to combine this
the needs at hand. tailored experience with beacon technology to suggest optimal
routes through the store.
Look at the retail industry where people expect their digital
presence to follow them into the physical store. Sam’s Club, the Other individualization happens even closer to home.
warehouse club owned by Walmart, first introduced a “Scan & Lifebeam’s Vi, described as the first “personal personal trainer,”
Go” app two years ago, letting customers scan items as they delivers customized coaching in real time. Based on an athlete’s
place them in a cart and bypass the traditional checkout line. individual goals and in-the-moment metrics like heart rate and

cadence, Vi can play music at a beat that matches the These are early efforts in an ongoing transformation. knowledge of the location of every ship and cargo
step rate a runner should try to hit, or advise her to With an additional suite of technology—including container at a given moment. By sharing this
take shorter steps to reduce the strain on her knees.16 sensors, IoT gateways, and data platforms—Bosch information with partners, the organization will be
Some companies have even achieved customization Rexroth is building its vision of the “factory of the able to save shipping operators an estimated
of physical products in the consumer’s hands—or their future,” where the entire assembly line will support $80,000 every time they dock. In the long run,
ears. After customers first put on Revols earphones, product-oriented design, customization, and Rotterdam could be among the first ports to serve
they use a paired app to trigger an in-the-ear molding dynamically scalable product runs to react in a completely autonomous ships—a reality it expects
process.17 The earphones transform from an initial gel- moment to shifting customer needs. Agile by 2025.22,23
like state into a permanent, personalized shape for the manufacturing lets companies deliver highly
listener in 60 seconds. personalized products and services before the In the healthcare field, Heidelberg University
moment of opportunity is gone. Hospital in Germany is working with Siemens to
With expectations around personalization growing and introduce digital twins to patient care. In one
new moments of opportunity appearing every day, Underpinning this and other transitions to capture instance, a cardiologist used a digital model of a
companies must build the agility to adapt for individual momentary markets are the insights made possible patient’s heart to test the efficacy of different
moments at scale. That begins with agile through digital twins. These are digital models of placements of a pacemaker’s electrodes.24,25 This is
manufacturing methodology. equipment, machines and a variety of other items that just the beginning of “in-the-moment”
exist—or could exist—in the physical world, built on personalization in healthcare, where experts hope
Bosch Rexroth has already started introducing these real-time sensor data and contextual information like to use technology to create whole “living” models
capabilities in more than 100 factories. The company’s service schedules, operating runtimes, and weather of individual patients. These digital twins could help
automatic production assistants are single-arm robots data.20,21 By adopting digital twins, companies can medical personnel evaluate the potential outcomes
that can manage complex tasks like assembling and retain a granular digital model of their products, of different treatments for individual patients.
welding. The robots are also highly reconfigurable. operations, and more. These twins can be used to
When product demands on its Homburg factory monitor, analyze, and simulate plans or potential As companies expand their use of digital twins
changed, the existing line was modified over a single actions. across the value chain, they will improve their ability
weekend.18 Simultaneously, Bosch Rexroth is working to respond to momentary opportunities at scale.
to enable flexibility and adaptability for its human It is easy to see the value of digital twins in Eventually, the level of insights that these
employees. Workstations called “ActiveAssist” are manufacturing. But they will be key for any enterprise approaches enable will also drive the company’s
equipped with cameras, projectors, and touch screens looking to serve momentary markets, by enabling ability to see those moments coming—bringing the
to display context-relevant information for each greater flexibility and adaptability. The Port of momentary market approach full circle.
employee, providing specific instructions, visual cues, Rotterdam, one of the largest shipping destinations in
and error correction during the assembly process of Europe, is building a comprehensive digital twin for
an individual part.19 the entire harbor. Port operators will have real-time

POWERED BY
NEXT-GENERATION
NETWORKS
Logistics-focused companies have always been at
the forefront of “in-the-moment” challenges. Now,
these companies’ efforts show hints of what is
possible for every enterprise.
Starship Technologies, an Estonian robot manufacturer, is deploying autonomous

delivery robots to cities throughout the world.26 In California, customers can order
food through Starship’s app, then drop a pin on a map to designate where they
want the meal delivered—whether it is their office, home, a park, or wherever they
find themselves.27 Amazon, already famous for upending the traditional logistics of
retail with its two-day, then same-day, then two-hour delivery, also introduced a
solution to the challenges of home delivery by partnering with OnStar, GM, and
Volvo to let customers request delivery to the trunks of their cars.28

These leaders show how the new momentary world will be built: on
the burgeoning IoT market. By 2020, there will be 31 billion connected
devices in the world, and that number will more than double to 75
billion by 2025.29 Each device is a new channel, a new source of data,
and a new way to identify and reach a momentary market.
The catalyst that will boost IoT to its long-awaited full potential is the
5G network. Sixty-two percent of business and IT executives believe
5G will have a significant impact on their industries within the next
three years. The standard was completed in June 2018, with mobile
providers expected to rapidly grow their networks in 2019 and
2020.30,31,32 The speed, reach, and decreased latency of 5G will put
long-standing concerns around connectivity and bandwidth for IoT
devices to rest.
Far beyond the controlled factory, office, or home environments that

IoT devices are largely confined to today, 5G will provide the basis for
a truly intelligent network of cars, robots, drones, and more—all of
which will be able to communicate and react in real time, wherever
people need them.
Research correlates higher levels of data traffic across geographic

locations with a boost in GDP.33 Now, mobile data traffic is expected
to increase nearly eight times by 2024, at which point 5G networks
will carry more data than the combined traffic of 4G, 3G, and 2G
networks today.34 In the face of this explosion of data, companies
must anticipate and capture the value from individual moments of
opportunity. With 5G making pervasive, real-time intelligence a
possibility everywhere, companies will have the technological
capabilities to spot moments of opportunity before they come—and
capture them before they go.

LIVING
(BUSINESS)
With every business embracing the importance of digital
transformation, companies need to look toward their next
opportunity for differentiation—momentary markets.
FOR THE
Internally, this means preparing the organization to be a truly
agile company with the capabilities to identify opportunities
and deliver exactly what customers want. But as businesses
move in this direction, they must also work to understand
where they fit into customers’ lives.
MOMENT
That granularity of understanding will allow companies to
meet people in their moment of need in a post-digital
world—to in fact become a different business to every
single customer. It is all about choosing the right moments.
How will your company choose them?

DECISION POINTS
1 How is your company
moving closer to
delivering on-
• Identify the forecast areas your business
could improve with the help of AI. This
first step will help your business adopt
more granular forecasting techniques
demand that are better suited for on-demand and
momentary markets.
experiences?
2
How is your business • Businesses need the technology tools to
uncovering discrete capture, understand, and respond to
consumer moments as they’re
moments of happening. Begin by evaluating the ways
opportunity? you currently solicit feedback from
individual consumers and determine the
effectiveness of each for driving product
development. Explore ways of bringing
these insights to more groups within
your organization.

#TECHVISION2019
DECISION POINTS
3 How can your
business prepare
today to deliver for
• As your business explores IoT applications,
consider how the data generated by sensors
could help build digital twins of your assets and
facilities. With these models on hand, use them
to monitor, analyze, and simulate device or
• Examine your current product and service
development approaches and identify
areas that may prevent your business from
being able to quickly respond to moments
the momentary facility performance. As your understanding of
of opportunity. Look for areas to
incorporate agile development and
markets of tomorrow? these tools grow, adapt them for consumer-
focused digital twins to inform more
manufacturing approaches.
personalized offerings.

#TECHVISION2019
ABOUT THE
TECHNOLOGY
VISION

#TECHVISION2019
About the Technology Vision
RESEARCH
METHODOLOGY
Every year, the Technology Vision team partners
with Accenture Research to pinpoint the Each year, the research process also includes a global survey of thousands
of business and IT executives from around the world, to understand their
emerging IT developments that will have the perspectives on the impact of technology in business. Survey responses
greatest impact on companies, government help to identify the technology strategies and priority investments of
companies from across industries and geographies.
agencies, and other organizations in the coming
years. These trends have significant impact As a shortlist of themes emerges from the research process, the Technology
Vision team reconvenes its advisory board. The board’s workshop, a series
across industries, and are actionable for of ‘deep-dive’ sessions with Accenture leadership and external subject-
businesses today. matter experts, validates and further refines the themes.
These processes weigh the themes for their relevance to real-world

business challenges. The Technology Vision team seeks ideas that
The research process begins by gathering input from the Technology Vision transcend the well-known drivers of technological change, concentrating
External Advisory Board, a group of more than two dozen experienced instead on the themes that will soon start to appear on the C-level agendas
individuals from the public and private sectors, academia, venture capital, and of most enterprises.
entrepreneurial companies. In addition, the Technology Vision team conducts
interviews with technology luminaries and industry experts, as well as nearly 100
Accenture business leaders from across the organization.

SURVEY DEMOGRAPHICS
#TECHVISION2019
Accenture Research conducted a global survey of 6,672 business and IT executives to capture
insights into the adoption of emerging technologies. The survey, fielded from October through
20 Industries:
December 2018, helped identify the key issues and priorities for technology adoption and
investment. Respondents were C-level executives and directors at companies across 27 countries 1. A erospace 7. Energy 14. Public Service
and 20 industries, with the majority having annual revenues greater than US$6 billion. and Defense 8. Healthcare 15. Retail
2. Automotive 9. Industrial 16. Semiconductors
3. Banking Equipment 17. Software and
4. Consumer Goods 10. Insurance Platforms
and Services 11. Life Sciences 18. Transportation
5. Chemicals 12. Media 19. Travel
6. Communications 13. Metals and Mining 20. Utilities
Revenues (USD):
1. $50 billion or more 4. $6-$9.9 billion
2. $20-$49.9 billion 5. $1-$5.9 billion
3. $10-$19.9 billion 6. $250-$999 million
27 Countries:
(Respondent Location) Roles:
(50% Business Executives/50% IT Executives, Director Level and Above)
1. Argentina 10. Germany 19. Saudi Arabia
2. Australia 11. India 20. Singapore • Chief Information Officer • Chief Strategy Officer
3. Austria 12. Indonesia 21. South Africa • Chief Mobility Officer • Director of Technology
4. Brazil 13. Ireland 22. Spain • Chief Technology Officer • Director, IT
5. Canada 14. Japan 23. Switzerland • Chief Marketing Officer • Director of Business Function
6. Chile 15. Malaysia 24. Thailand • Chief Finance Officer (Non IT-related)
7. China 16. Peru 25. UAE • Chief Operating Officer • Director, Line of Business
8. Columbia 17. Poland 26. UK • Chief Security Officer (Non IT-related)
9. France 18. Portugal 27. United States • Chief Information Security Officer
#TECHVISION2019
References
INTRODUCTION
1. Lieber, C. (2018, July 3). Custom Fit Fast Fashion Is 6. Desjardins, J. (2018, June 8). How Long Does It Take to
About to Become a Reality. Racked. Hit 50 Million Users? Visual Capitalist.
2. Gillette Uses 3D Printing to Unlock Consumer 7. Pan, Y. (2017, October 10). JD’s New Luxury
Personalization. Formlabs website. E-commerce Site “Toplife”, Explained. Jing Daily.
3. Perez, S. (2018, October 28). Walmart’s Test Store for 8. Shieber, J. (2018, February 4). Walmart Brings Its
New Technology, Sam’s Club Now, Opens Next Week Partnership With JD.com Into the Food Business.
in Dallas. TechCrunch. TechCrunch.
4. Redman, R. (2018, October 29). Sam’s Club Readies 9. Glaser, A. (2017, March 31). The Swiss Postal Service Is
New High-Tech Store in Dallas. Supermarket News. Using Autonomous Drones to Fly Lab Samples
5. Gilliland, N. (2017, June 26). How Six Travel and Between Two Hospitals. Recode.
Hospitality Brands Use Personalisation to Enhance the 10. George, S. (2018, October 30). Building an Ecosystem
Customer Experience. Econsultancy. for Responsible Drone Use and Development on
Microsoft Azure. Microsoft Azure website.

#TECHVISION2019
References
TREND 1
1. The Inpatient. (n.d.). 11. Lardinois, F. (2018, September 7). Rigetti Announces Its 21. Aqua Artificial Intelligence — Qiskit Aqua 0.2.0
2. Nieva, R. (2018, May 9). Google Assistant’s One Step Hybrid Quantum Computing Platform — and a $1M Documentation. Qiskit website.
Closer to Passing the Turing Test. CNET. Prize. TechCrunch. 22. Adents and Microsoft Introduce Combined
3. Sharpe, K. (2018, June 26). Blockchain Music Streaming 12. Korbelová, M. Volkswagen Tests Quantum Computing Blockchain, AI, IoT and Serialization Solution for
Service to Increase the Amount Musicians Earn for for Traffic Flow Optimization. (2017, March 21). Euro Unsurpassed Supply Chain Security and Transparency.
Their Work. Cointelegraph. Logistics portal. (2018, June 14). Business Wire.
4. VR/AR Global Investment Report and Outlook 2018. 13. Volkswagen Tests Quantum Computing in Battery 23. Arnold, A. (2018, May 29). How Social Media Can
(2018, March 15). Virtual Reality Venture Capital Research. (2018, June 7). Volkswagen AG website. Benefit from Blockchain Technology. Forbes.
Alliance. 14. Edelstein, S. (2018, January 8). Volkswagen and Nvidia 24. Skycoin BBS: Social Media for You. (2017, November
5. Venture Capital Firms Go Deep and Wide with Partner on AI. Digital Trends. 15). Skycoin website
Blockchain Investments. (2018, October 1). Diar. 15. Blockchain Systems at Volkswagen AG. Volkswagen 25. Feltham, J. (2018, August 11). Samsung’s Galaxy Note 9
6. Korolov, M. (2018, April 18). New AI Tools Make BI AG website. Is the Most Powerful Gear VR-Ready Phone Ever.
Smarter — and More Useful. CIO. 16. Virtual Technologies. Volkswagen AG website. VentureBeat.
7. State of Artificial Intelligence for Enterprises. (2017, 17. Samit, J. (2018, February 6). A Possible Cure for Virtual 26. Lardinois, F. (2018, September 7). Rigetti Announces Its
October 11). Teradata. Reality Motion Sickness. Fortune.Wiggers, K. (2018, Hybrid Quantum Computing Platform — and a $1M
8. Industry Consortium Successfully Tests Blockchain May 28). LG Develops AI to Deal with Nausea in VR. prize. TechCrunch.
Solution Developed by Accenture That Could VentureBeat. 27. Peng, T. (2018, February 23). Alibaba Launches 11-Qubit
Revolutionize Ocean Shipping. (2018, March 14). 18. Wiggers, K. (2018, May 28). LG Develops AI to Deal with Quantum Computing Cloud Service. Medium.
Accenture Newsroom. Nausea in VR. VentureBeat.
9. Giles, M. (2018, March 9). Google Thinks It’s Close to 19. Quantum. Google AI website.
“Quantum Supremacy.” Here’s What That Really Means. 20. Domain Experts, Welcome to Quantum: Introducing
MIT Technology Review. QISKit ACQUA. (2018, June 13). [CT400]. IBM website.
10. Qubit Counter. MIT Technology Review.

#TECHVISION2019
References
TREND 2
1. Demirgüç-Kunt, Asli, et al. (2018, April 19). The Global 11. Perez, S. (2018, April). Walmart to Launch a More 19. Schechner, S., & Drozdiak, N. (2018, May 24). From
Findex 2017 Database, World Bank. Personalized, Redesigned Website in May. Restaurants to Insurers, the Race to Comply With New
2. Variyar, M., & Vignesh, J. (2017, January 6). The New TechCrunch. GDPR Privacy Rules. The Wall Street Journal.
Lending game, Post-Demonetisation. ETtech. 12. Greene, T. (2017, November 13). Alibaba’s FashionAI 20. Domino’s Anyware. (n.d.)
3. Marr, B. (2018, October 19). The Digital Transformation Shows How Machine Learning Might Save the Mall. 21. McGrath, J. (2018, January 7). Samsung Family Hub
To Keep IKEA Relevant: Virtual Reality, Apps And Self- The Next Web. Smart Fridges Use Bixby Voice Assistant, Not Alexa.
Driving Cars. Forbes. 13. Barlyn, S. (2018, September 19). John Hancock Will Digital Trends.
4. Budds, D. (2017, September 29). Why Ikea Is Buying A Only Sell Interactive Life Insurance with Fitness Data 22. The State of LTE. (2018, February). OpenSignal.
Tech Company. Fast Company. Tracking. Insurance Journal. 23. Shinde, J. (2018, October 29). Why Netflix Allows Video
5. Datanyze. Technology Tracking Solutions. Datanyze 14. Barlyn, S. (2018, September 19). Strap on the Fitbit: Download Thanks To India, But Won’t Let You See Their
website. John Hancock to Sell Only Interactive Life Insurance. Full Catalogue. Indiatimes.
6. HG Data Announces the Summer ’18 Release of Its HG Reuters. 24. Peyton, A. (2018, September 12). SoftBank Trials
Data App on Salesforce AppExchange, the World’s 15. Senior, A. (2018, September 19). John Hancock Leaves Blockchain-Based Mobile Payments. Fintech Futures.
Leading Enterprise Apps Marketplace. (2018, June 26). Traditional Life Insurance Model Behind to Incentivize
7. Meeker, Mary. (2018, May 30). Internet Trends 2018. Longer, Healthier Lives. John Hancock News Release.
Kleiner Perkins. 16. Newman, D. (2018, March 20). Digital Privacy: Brands
8. Wurmser, Y. (2018, June 18). Mobile Time Spent 2018 - Figuring Out Where Personalization Gets Creepy.
eMarketer Trends, Forecasts & Statistics. eMarketer. Forbes.
9. Abramovich, G. (2018, February 8). Consumer Demand 17. Pandolph, S. (2017, October 26). Shoppers Expect
For Personalized Content Reaches All-Time High. CMO. More Personalization. Business Insider.
10. Abramovich, G. (2018, September 10). Study Finds 18. Maheshwari, S. (2018, October 23). This Thermometer
Consumers Are Embracing Voice Services. Here’s How. Tells Your Temperature, Then Tells Firms Where to
CMO. Advertise. The New York Times.

#TECHVISION2019
References
TREND 3
1. Visualizing Oil and Gas Drilling. Fjord website. 11. Accenture internal interview. September 27, 2018.
2. Captain, S. (2017, August 7). This AI Factory Boss Tells 12. Decoding Organizational DNA: Trust, Data and
Robots and Humans How to Work Together. Fast Unlocking Value in the Digital Workplace. Accenture,
Company. 2019.
3. Fan, J. (2018, July 16). How E-Commerce Is 13. Meeker, M. (2018, May 30). Internet Trends 2018.
Transforming Rural China. The New Yorker. Kleiner Perkins.
4. Swisscom Case Study. (n.d.). Starmind. 14. Udemy In Depth: 2018 Millennials at Work Report.
5. Wingfield, N. (2017, September 10). As Amazon Pushes 15. Customer Case Study: Paypal. Udemy website.
Forward with Robots, Workers Find New Roles. The 16. Telenor CEO: Impressed with employees’ hunger for
New York Times. learning. (2018, December 20).
6. Vinn, M. (2018, March 26). These AR Goggles Are 17. Mamiit, A. (2016, April 9). Why and How BMW Will Use
Making Faster Fixes in Oil Fields. Bloomberg HTC Vive VR in Vehicle Development Process. Tech
Businessweek. Times.
7. Median Years of Tenure with Current Employer for 18. FICO Case Study. Glint website.
Employed Wage and Salary Workers by Age and Sex, 19. How AI Is Helping HR Gauge Employee Sentiment in
Selected Years, 2006-16. (2016, September 22). Bureau Real Time. (2017, November 28). Dell Technologies
of Labor Statistics. website.
8. Top Candidates Are Gone Within 10 Days … So Assign 20. Amling, S. (2017, October 10). Boost Employee
Each a “Hire-By-Date.” (2016, February 15). ERE website. Engagement with Artificial Intelligence and Machine
9. Feloni, R. (2017, June 28). Consumer-Goods Giant Learning. D!gitalist Magazine.
Unilever Has Been Hiring Employees Using Brain 21. Sharing Knowledge to Mitigate Oil Corrosion Risk.
Games and Artificial Intelligence — and It’s a Huge MANNA website.
Success. Business Insider.
10. Aevy website. (n.d.). https://aevy.com/

#TECHVISION2019
References
TREND 4
1. Onaran, Y. (2018, October 9). Global Payment Firms 11. Whittaker, Z. (2018, January 29). How Strava’s 20. Project Xero: Agile Security in the Cloud. (2017, January
Hold First Cyber War Game. Bloomberg. “Anonymized” Fitness Tracking Data Spilled 13). Cybersecurity Excellence Awards.
2. Fruhlinger, J. (2018, August 30). What Is WannaCry Government Secrets. ZDnet. 21. Macpherson, P. (2018, July 25). The Weakest Link: Why
Ransomware, How Does It Infect, and Who Was 12. Stevens R., Votipka D., Redmiles E.M., Mazurek M.L., Security Is Everyone’s Responsibility. Xero blog.
Responsible? CSO Online. Ahern C., and Sweeney P. The Battle for New York: A 22. Chickowski, E. (2017, March 21). The True State of
3. Clark, Z. (2017, May 12). The Worm That Spreads Case Study of Applied Digital Threat Modeling at the DevSecOps. DARKReading.
WanaCrypt0r. (2017, May 12). Malwarebytes blog. Enterprise Level. (2018, August 15-17). Proceedings of 23. The Economic Impacts of Inadequate Infrastructure
4. Shadow Brokers Threaten to Release Windows 10 the 27th USENIX Conference on Security Symposium for Software Testing. (2002). The National Institute of
Hacking Tools. (2017, May 31). The Express Tribune. (SEC’18). Standards and Technology.
5. What is the Mirai Botnet? Cloudflare website. 13. Build Pervasive Cyber Resilience Now. (2018, June 26). 24. IBM Application Security Open Source Analyzer. (2018,
Accenture. September 19). IBM website.
6. Ashford, W. (2018, January 18). Next-Gen Mirai Botnet
Targets Cryptocurrency Mining Operations. 14. Nadeau, M. (2017, October 2). How To Secure the IIoT: 25. Robinson, T. (2018, February 15). Open AWS S3 Bucket
ComputerWeekly.com. A Q&A with GE’s CISO. CSO Online. Exposes Private Info on Thousands of FedEx
7. Lohr, S. (2018, March 8). It’s True: False News Spreads 15. Network Security - AT&T. (2018, August 20). Customers. SC Media.
Faster and Wider. And Humans Are to Blame. The New 16. Ashford, W. (2018, February 20). Businesses Face 26. Chickowski, E. (2018, January 24). Leaky Buckets: 10
York Times. Unprecedented Volume of Cyber Attacks. Worst Amazon S3 Breaches. Bitdefender.
8. Koshiw, I. (2018, August 22). How a Hacker Network ComputerWeekly.com. 27. Newman, L. H. (2018, July 18). Amazon Web Services
Turned Stolen Press Releases into $100 Million. The 17. Mitchell, J. (2018, January 31). How Machine Learning Tests Out Two Tools to Help Keep the Cloud Secure.
Verge. and Other Tech Trends Will Disrupt Cyber Security In WIRED.
9. Franceschi-Bicchierai, L. (2018, August 8). Hackers 2018. Forbes. 28. Vendor Security Alliance website.
Could Cause Havoc by Pwning Internet-Connected 18. Get Your Bank Transactions into Xero Effortlessly. Xero 29. Build Pervasive Cyber Resilience Now. (2018, June 26).
Irrigation Systems. Motherboard. website. Accenture.
10. Cyber Threatscape Report 2018. (2018, August 7). 19. Paredes, D. (2016, June 29). Agile Security in the Cloud:
Accenture. Lessons From Xero. CIO.

#TECHVISION2019
References
TREND 4 (CONTINUED)
30. Hand, A. (2018, February 19). Cross-Industry 35. New Tool to Address Cyber Threats: the EU’s Rapid
Collaboration at Heart of Cybersecurity Agreement. Response Force. (2018, June 27). European External
Automation World. Action Service - European Commission.
31. Cybersecurity. Siemens website. 36. Chan, J. (2017, August 21). A Brief History of Open
32. Muller, M., and Walters, R. (2017, July 25). State Actors Source from the Netflix Cloud Security Team. Medium.
Are Likely Behind Recent Ransomware Attacks. Daily 37. Behrens, S., and Payne, B. (2017, July 28). Starting the
Signal. Avalanche. Medium.
33. Factbox: Companies Whose Operations Were Hurt by
June Cyber “worm.” (2017, August 2). Reuters.
34. National Risk Management Center. (2009, November
6). Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency
website.

#TECHVISION2019
References
TREND 5
1. Anand, J. (2018, October 15). How Beverages Maker 13. Jacobsen, B. (2018, February 21). How AI Could Dictate 25. Anyadike, N. (2018, October 8). Simulation Tools ‘Digital
Paper Boat Is Using Analytics to Personalise Consumer Future Fashion Trends. Futures Platform. Twins’ Set to Overhaul the Workplace. Electropages.
Tastes. vccircle. 14. Bezamat, B. (2018, August 31). New Balance Deploys AI 26. Robinson, M. (2018, April 30). Starship Self-Driving
2. Wayland, M. (2018, June 20). GM Steps Up 3D Printing to Spot Trendy NYFW Attendees. The Current Daily. Robots Deliver Food in Silicon Valley. Business Insider.
Efforts to Find New Plant Efficiencies. Automotive News. 15. Perez, S. (2018, October 28). Walmart’s Test Store for 27. Burgess, M. (2018, April 30). These Tiny Autonomous
3. Robinson, M. (2018, August 19). Pizza Delivery Startup New Technology, Sam’s Club Now, Opens Next Week Robots are Ready to Deliver Lunch to Your Office.
Zume Pizza Expands Its Robot Workforce. Business in Dallas. TechCrunch. Wired UK.
Insider. 16. Vi - #1 AI Personal Training Headphone. Vi website. 28. Hawkins, A. J. (2018, April 24). Amazon Will Now Deliver
4. Immediate Need for Flawless Mobile Experiences. 17. Custom-Fit Wireless Earphones. Revols website. Packages to the Trunk of Your Car. The Verge.
(2017, August). Think with Google website. https://www.revols.com/ 29. IoT: Number of Connected Devices Worldwide 2012-
5. The 2017 State of Personalization Report. Segment. 18. Success Story Bosch Homburg. Bosch APAS website. 2025. (n.d.).
6. What Are Customer Expectations (and How Have They 19. ActiveAssist Assistance System. Bosch Rexroth AG 30. Mobile Industry Works Together to Deliver Complete
Changed)? (n.d.). Salesforce website. website. 5G System Standard on Time. (2018, June 14).
7. Living Business: Achieving Sustainable Growth 20. Krause, H. M. (2018, May 7). The Digital Twin Is the Key Samsung news release.
through Hyper-Relevance. (2018, June 19). Accenture. to the Factory of the Future - Part II. Bosch Rexroth 31. Locklear, M. (2018, June 15). A Complete 5G Standard
8. How AI Optimizes Demand Forecasting for Grocers. website. Is Finally Here. Engadget.
(2018, May 2). Daisy Intelligence. 21. Digital Twins Define Oil and Gas 4.0 in the Future. 32. McGarry, C. (2018, August 14). The Truth About 5G:
9. Vanian, J. (2018, March 26). How Walmart Uses Robots (2018, August 7). ARC Advisory Group website. What’s Coming (and What’s Not) in 2018. Tom’s Guide.
at 50 Stores to Track Inventory. Fortune. 22. Hillsdon, M. (2018, October 18). Port of the Future: How 33. What Is the Impact of Mobile Telephony on Economic
10. Glass, S. (2018, January 30). AI and the Evolution of Technology is Transforming Shipping. Raconteur. Growth? (2012, November). GSMA.
Demand Forecasting. Medium. 23. Port of Rotterdam: Europe’s Strongest Digital Twin Case 34. Mobile Data Traffic Outlook – Mobility Report June
11. Korolov, M. (2018, May 2). AI in the Supply Chain: Study. (2018, May 22). IoT World Europe 2018 webinar. 2018. (2018, June 8). Ericsson.
Logistics Gets Smart. CIO. 24. Copley, C. (2018, August 31). Medtech Firms Gets
12. Intelligent Supply Chain. (n.d.). Splice Machine website. Personal with Digital Twins. Business Insider.

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The Post-Digital Era is Upon Us

Now enterprises are at a crucial turning point. Digital

2 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

Trend 1: DARQ Power: Survey Demographics � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � 88

Trend 3: Human+ Worker:

Trend 4: Secure US to Secure ME:

3 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

The Post-Digital Companies are taking their first steps in

Era is Upon Us. every moment� It’s a world where

4 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

Companies like these are figuring out how they can

What is enabling—and driving—this reality-shaping

5 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

The digital saturation of reality has granted companies

6 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

7 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

GETTING TO THE NEW “MOMENT”

8 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

9 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

DARQ Power Get to Know Me

10 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

Human+ Worker Secure US to Secure ME

11 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

12 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

COMPLETING THE PICTURE

Accenture’s Technology Vision

Accenture’s Technology Vision comprises a three-year

2017 AI is the Ecosystem Workforce Design for The

13 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

Trend 1 Trend 3 Trend 5

CITIZEN AI DATA VERACITY INTERNET OF THINKING

14 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

ECOSYSTEM POWER PLAYS DESIGN FOR HUMANS

15 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

THE DNA OF DARQ

17 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

The next set of technologies every company will need to master:

Distributed Ledger Artificial Extended Quantum

18 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

SMAC technologies and

Success in the future starts now. As

there is risk in waiting to make a move.

CLOUD Data-driven decision

Increased flexibility for businesses

Mass access to other

19 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

20 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

Adopted across multiple business units

21 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

DARQ technologies and

Volkswagen has used quantum computing to test

Companies like Volkswagen with early-stage tests and R New, immersive

22 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

23 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

24 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

REALIZING NEW VALUE FROM

25 TECHNOLOGY VISION 2019 THE POST-DIGITAL ERA IS UPON US

2 Determine how your

mind their different