As an executive helping companies use technology to reach their goals, I am fortunate to have a view of trends across industries and geographies. Focused on enterprises in the U.S. South for 16 years, I’ve seen much progress. The region has moved from being technology fast followers to a growing technology powerhouse with leading innovation advancements.
As Accenture’s 2021 Tech Vision reminds us, every business is now a technology business. It covers the most significant trends for business leaders across the globe. Here are two in particular playing out in the South.
Trend: stack strategically
Put simply, a technology “stack” is a company’s underlying technology architecture—how it puts together a variety of technologies to operate and produce results. Accenture research shows that 77% of executives believe that technology architecture is becoming critical to the overall success of their organization. But choosing technologies wisely is no longer relegated to the IT side of the house. Executives need to be well versed in technologies like cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), edge computing, user experience and more.
The future of every industry is a battle between competing companies’ technology stacks. And Covid-19 has exacerbated the gap between organizations who are ahead digitally and those who are not.
For example, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, some state governments were desperately trying to find workers with COBOL programming expertise to keep their decades-old unemployment systems operational. COBOL was cutting edge when it was designed in 1959, but no longer. Many businesses have inadvertently built systems that are future-resistant, not future-adaptive.
Contrast the state government experience with that of the U.K. Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Prior to the pandemic, it had begun a cloud transformation that included microservices and an API library. Because of that transformation, when demand started surging during the pandemic, developers could rapidly string together new citizen services. In record time employees were able to create automated systems for uploading medical records and issuing free school meal vouchers.
Strategic technology decisions pay dividends, addressing short-term cost objectives and business imperatives like leveraging data to drive operations improvements. In a recent innovation workshop with a global food processing company, Accenture explored options to deliver real-time analytics to optimize predictive maintenance and equipment at plants. The business value could only be achieved by scaling solutions across multiple platforms and data sources including edge devices, cloud computing, and machine learning — underscoring how important it is to embed corporate strategy into each layer of an organization’s tech architecture.
Here are suggestions I’d make to help guide you along this path:
- Evaluate current digital investments against competitors.’ Be honest about the gaps.
- Accelerate investments in core technologies like cloud, data analytics and mobility.
- Identify new avenues for digitally driven products, services and customer experiences. Determine the technology capabilities that will get you there.
Trend: I, technologist
Technology democratization adds a grassroots layer that has been missing from enterprise innovation.
The IT department was once responsible for technology capabilities. Now, more of your workforce must be able to use digital technology competently. Globally, 88% of executives believe that technology democratization is becoming critical in their ability to ignite innovation across their organization, according to Accenture research. Quick training programs will not cut it. Thinking like a technologist requires long-term investment in the development of people across all functions.
Democratized technology lets people optimize their work or fix pain points on their own. Without having to request major IT projects, people can create custom dashboards for a group’s finances, or build an app to approve and automatically fulfill purchase orders.
I have a few suggestions for empowering associates of all levels to leverage technology:
- Begin to use democratized tools to bridge the gap between the skill set your current workforce possesses and the one needed to fully realize the promise of your digital investments.
- Invest in technology literacy programs to help all employees better understand the technologies available to them.
As the South continues to grow as a business and technology powerhouse, think about how you can do the same for your company. Using digital technology, along with human ingenuity, to their fullest advantage is what will separate the victors from the rest. That’s always been true, but never more so than today.
There can be no leadership without technology leadership. Learn more.
