Accenture technology-vision-2013

Accenture Technology Vision 2013
Every Business Is a Digital Business

Contents Accenture Technology Vision 2013

Contents

Foreword 3

Introduction 4

Relationships at Scale 6

Design for Analytics 18

Data Velocity 32

Seamless Collaboration 42

Software-Defined Networking 52

Active Defense 63

Beyond the Cloud 77

Conclusion 87

Research Methodology 90

End Notes 91

Contacts 97

2

Foreword Accenture Technology Vision 2013

Foreword

Technology is intertwined in nearly merely technology. We describe consumers, to further differentiate
every aspect of business today, the important technology trends themselves in the marketplace, and to
with information technology fast affecting organizations in both the expand their global footprint.
becoming a primary driver of market public and private sectors, and we
differentiation, business growth, and suggest that these changes signal a We hope that you find the Accenture
profitability. That is why we believe broader transformation in the role Technology Vision insightful as you
that understanding the technology of technology and in the business consider strategies for making your
trends that are changing the world models that will be required organizations even more relevant in a
as we know it extends well beyond for success. digital world. We wish you all the best
the realm of IT executives—to COOs, in your journey.
CMOs, and CEOs. As leaders, it is our We further propose that the time
collective responsibility to grasp the is now for leaders to act, in terms
importance of technology and to use of understanding the power of
it to deliver tangible business results new technologies and having the
for our stakeholders. foresight to adopt them. Around the
world, we see organizations using
The theme of this year’s Accenture the technologies described in the
Pierre Nanterme Marty Cole
Technology Vision is Every Business Accenture Technology Vision to adapt
Chairman & CEO Group Chief Executive - Technology
Is a Digital Business, and we see to a rapidly changing environment,
Accenture Accenture
it as a forecast for business, not to transform their relationships with

3

Introduction Accenture Technology Vision 2013

Every Business Is a Digital Business
Technology is changing the game

Enterprises have spent the last our enterprise, but it’s gone further we innovate and expand We no longer have to look far for
25 years working to peel away than that. IT has become a driving our business. examples. Here is Nike using wireless
the nonessential pieces of their force, in many situations the driving sensors and Web technology to create
businesses; focus on the core, force, for how we effectively grow There is a higher order of thinking—a a performance-tracking system that
outsource the rest. But in this our companies. Every industry is digital mindset—that will, we believe, allows it to create new services to
push to simplify, many companies now software driven; as such, every separate tomorrow’s most able monitor, and to improve and create
have relegated IT to “keeping the company must adopt IT as one of organizations from their lesser rivals. new training routines for athletes.
lights on.” Without information its core competencies. By this we Accenture observes that increasing There is Ford, using sensor data to
and technology, a business is blind mean that software is absolutely numbers of farsighted organizations monitor both how a car operates and
in today’s digital world. You must integral to how we currently run are recognizing IT as a strategic asset the driver’s behavior, and seeking to
change the way you think about IT our businesses as well as how we with which they can renew vital apply analytics to improve the
to map a clear path forward. reimagine our businesses as the aspects of their operations—optimizing experience for the next generation. i
world continues to change—how we at least and innovating at best. As
Every business is now a redesign and produce things, how we such, they are investing in the digital These companies, and many more
digital business. create and manage new commercial tools, the capabilities, and the skills like them, clearly see digital as
transactions, how we begin to to more easily identify useful data, a strategic imperative—a tool of
The world has already changed collaborate at unprecedented levels evaluate it, excerpt it, analyze it, derive competitive intent. They aren’t
around us, and IT is driving much of internally and with customers and insights from it, share it, manage it, waiting for new technologies to be
the transformation. IT is a minimum suppliers. In the new world, our comment on it, report on it, and, developed or to mature before they
standard for how we effectively run digital efforts will be the key to how most importantly, act on it. act. Nor should you.

4

Introduction Accenture Technology Vision 2013

The obligation for action is all over the horizon at the emerging hotel business. But ideally, a digital the best in its sector unless it
the more pressing because the developments in technology that mindset will enable enterprises to excels at understanding and
technologies to transform your should be added to the list of launch preemptive strikes of using technology.
business are here and now. They are technologies the enterprise should their own.
already good enough. Mobile, cloud, be prepared to take advantage of, Your stakeholders may not yet be
social, virtualization, big data—many from data visualization solutions It is incumbent upon the executive probing into how your top team
of the items continuously listed as and software-defined networks to leadership team to be stewards views IT. But it won’t be long before
“hot trends”—are quickly becoming moving-target-defense security of this new mindset. They must they do.
part of the current generation of systems. Just as importantly, though, recognize that it’s no longer possible
technology; they are well past the this year’s report communicates why to separate “the technology”
point where they should be areas every organization has to adopt a from “the business”; the two are
of exploration and experimentation digital mindset. At the very least, it too tightly intertwined. IT helps
and are quickly becoming the tools is necessary in order to anticipate redesign the company’s products
with which companies can craft fast, and respond to ongoing technology- and supports its processes; it drives
cost-effective solutions to some driven disruptions. Amazon.com its supply chains; it becomes part
of their toughest problems—and has disrupted retail sectors far of the products themselves and
greatest opportunities. beyond books and changed the creates new ones; it allows access
whole discussion about who “owns” to new consumers; it provides
As it has always done—as is its IT. Similarly, Airbnb is sparking a the frameworks to create net new
charter—our Technology Vision looks transformation in the traditional services. An organization cannot be

5

Accenture Technology Vision 2013

Relationships at Scale
Moving beyond transactions
to digital relationships

Trend 1. Relationships at Scale Accenture Technology Vision 2013

Relationships at Scale

Businesses need to rethink their digital strategies to move beyond e-commerce and marketing. Although
mobile technology, social networks, and context-based services have increased the number of digital
connections with consumers, most companies are still just creating more detailed views of consumers,
consumer attributes, and transactions. Individually, these connections may represent new types of user
experiences, even new sets of sales channels—but that’s not the real opportunity. Taken in aggregate,
digital represents a key new approach to consumer engagement and loyalty: companies can manage
relationships with consumers at scale.
It is time for businesses to return and with the introduction of IT.
their attention to their relationships Handcraftsmanship was replaced by
with consumers. Business success mass production. Advice delivered
has always been built on relationships over the counter was replaced by
and on the relevance of products global call centers. A human face
and services to buyers’ needs. Just making a sale was often replaced by
a few generations ago, consumers a Web page.
were often friends—and certainly
neighbors—of the local grocer, That might imply that a growing
pharmacist, and everyone else who distance between companies and
provided the things consumers consumers is inevitable—and over the
needed. But that model changed last few decades, many consumers
with large-scale industrialization might agree that they have been

7


treated with greater indifference and Specifically, enterprises are
far less personal attention. customizing the experience for

Yet now, the opposite is true:
every interaction they have with
consumers regardless of the channel.
“ Consumers are more than cookie file or
transactions, more than a
faceless digital
technology is finally at a point This mass personalization includes
where buyers can be treated like not only the interactions that
a transaction history or a demographic
individuals again. Consumers companies have with consumers but profile; they’re real people with real
differences.
”
are more than faceless digital the interactions that consumers have
transactions, more than a cookie with each other. The potential payoff
file or a transaction history or is two-pronged: a relationship with
a demographic profile; they’re the consumer your competitors don’t
real people with real differences. have and a differentiated brand. from those insights; by maintaining shoppers are in the store, offers
Companies now have rich channels integrated communications across can be personalized in such a way
through which to communicate with both physical and virtual channels, to provide not just a digital offer
consumers in a much more personal enterprises can use insight from but an offer that is relevant to
way. Farsighted organizations are Learning more than digital channels to improve service what shoppers are looking at in the
seeing a golden opportunity to use ever before in in-store situations as well. physical store at that moment.
mobile communications channels, For instance, Catalina, a global
social media, and context-based Businesses now have new ways to marketing company, is using These digital interactions allow
services to create truly personal learn about consumers based on consumers’ in-store location, companies to capture, measure,
relationships with consumers—but increasingly digital interactions, determined by the product QR codes analyze, and exploit social
digital relationships this time—and to whether through e-mail, social they scan, along with consumers’ interactions in new ways. By
leverage those relationships to drive media, Web pages, online chat, profiles to generate offers as simply being digital in nature, the
revenue growth. mobile apps, or tweets. And it’s not they shop for groceries.i With the interactions allow enterprises to
just online interactions that benefit understanding of exactly where actually measure the results of

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their sales and marketing efforts, past transactions to inform current Consumers aren’t just they’re travel guides. And, thanks to
scaling them when they succeed and conversations, using context to move buyers any longer mobility, they can do it where they
scotching them when they fail. from transactions to interactions, want, when they want.
and ultimately using their consumer Key to making this transition is
Using analytics can also establish insight to infuse the interactions understanding that consumers aren’t The Cleveland Indians, a Major
deeper consumer insights, with greater engagement and just buyers anymore—they’ve evolved League Baseball team, is actively
allowing companies to create more intimacy. into connected consumers. They’re working to use its relationships
compelling user experiences. This connected to social networks. They’re with its most avid fans to create a
concept of mass personalization connected to like-minded consumers. group of evangelists to promote the
ii
enables businesses to customize They’re connected to brands. That team. The Indians’ Social Media Club
every interaction. Essentially, means they also have the potential incents fans to create a buzz about
they can begin to establish a to be your advertisers. That’s a the team through a myriad of social
relationship with consumers, using powerful constituency to tap into. channels, from Facebook to Tumblr.
More than just pointing fans to social
Thanks to social media, consumers forums, they are actively incenting
have more opportunities than ever them to participate, offering ticket
before to express likes, dislikes, and discounts and, for active posters,

“ Using analytics canallowing companies
consumer insights,
also establish deeper recommendations. They aren’t simply
purchasing a product or service—
chances to be invited to a special
Social Suite in the ballpark and to
they are doing a lot more. On Yelp, share their comments about the
to create more compelling user they’re detractors or cheerleaders. game.
experiences.
”
On delivery.com and Menuism,
they’re reviewers and advertisers. On This paradigm brings immediacy to
Spotify, they’re DJs offering music social conversation—consumers have
recommendations. On TripAdvisor, the ability to bring friends together

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to share experiences and to report on to be highly personalized. They expect Even watching TV is changing. them. More important, they have
those experiences. These technologies to be given the ability to get pertinent, Accenture research shows that the opportunity to use these new
have permanently altered the ways in contextual information that relates more than 40 percent of consumers attitudes and technologies to create
which consumers share information, to their lives, their friends, their needs, are showing increasing “second relationships, which will result in
collaborate, interact, entertain and their pursuits. And because the screen” habits, using a smartphone customer acquisition and, for current
themselves, inform themselves, and experience is personalized it’s also or tablet while watching TV such customers, repeat sales.
maintain awareness of events around more powerful. Ninety-two percent that they are accessing multiple
them. Enterprises need to recognize of consumers globally say they streams of information at the same
the change and begin to harness it. trust earned media, such as word- time.iv This could mean tweeting on
of-mouth endorsements or a smartphone while watching a TV Moving the mindset
All of this contributes to a new recommendations from friends drama or viewing players’ statistics from transactions to
standard among consumers: they and family, above all other forms while watching sports. For the 2011– relationships
expect the mobile and social experience of advertising.iii 2012 season, the National Hockey
League deployed an online game to The goal is to use insight to
be played while watching the Stanley change communication with
Cup finals; fans won points by consumers from transactions to
correctly predicting outcomes on the interactions to an unprecedented
ice, like the result of a face-off. level of relationship and loyalty—
the equivalent of frequent-flier
Based on these new behaviors, programs on steroids. The problem
businesses face several related is that, until now, most enterprises
opportunities: Because many of these have viewed online channels
networks are public, companies have primarily as a way to reduce costs,
an unprecedented opportunity to not improve relationships. It’s time
track what people are saying about to shift that mindset.

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Consumers are already having It’s time for enterprises to reimagine
conversations about enterprises their consumer engagement
among themselves. Fueled by every strategy. Too many are still stuck in
new consumer service and every
new user experience, consumer
the days of ads and focus groups.
When they want to communicate
“ It’s time for enterprises to reimagine
their consumer engagement strategy.
behaviors have changed far faster
than businesses. Facebook, eBay,
to consumers, they broadcast a
message through their marketing
”
Yelp, Foursquare, and many other channels, and when they need to
companies in effect continue to hear back, they bring together a
train huge segments of consumers representative group from which
to communicate among themselves, they can extrapolate insights. That new consumer-engagement unified consumer strategy across
outside the purview of businesses, strategy will require aggregated all channels. Siloed approaches
coming back to a business site only Today, the channels are increasing insight across applications so that erode the value of integrated
to conduct final transactions. (think YouTube, Twitter, customer each channel feeds information customer interactions. Burberry,
service chat) and consumer into a holistic view of consumers. for example, jointly developed an
Companies may not be able to, and insight can come from a much That means more collaboration application with SAP that places
frankly shouldn’t, take complete wider sample of consumer and across sales and marketing and all the consumer information
control of the conversations their information sources: the Web, across digital and physical sales Burberry has from its separate
consumers are having in these new mobile technology, social- channels, and even the ability to customer channels in the hand of
electronic storefronts and plazas. media sites, and others. But it’s track and acquire information its sales associates.v In the store,
But they do need to figure out how important to remember in this beyond the business’s own they can use an iPad to access a
to become participants, react with scenario that technology is only channels. Businesses should break shopper’s profile that pulls together
relevant offers, and respond a tool. Reimagining a consumer down the internal barriers that contact details, transactional
to concerns. engagement strategy is not based segment consumer interactions history, lifetime spending statistics,
solely on technology. by channel in order to create a recommendations based on

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purchases, and social-media as varied as demographics or
comments regarding the brand. proximity to a buying decision;
one customer may prefer a digital “ Savvy companies understand thatto create
channels represent opportunities
different
interaction whereas another may
prefer to speak to a live customer- different experiences that truly leverage each
An omnichannel service agent. Unfortunately, channel. Having a portfolio of channels creates
relationship strategy businesses can’t automatically
the opportunity to give a consumer the right
replace some channels in favor
interaction at the right time.
Jettison the idea of a single
subgroup within the enterprise that
is responsible for the entire “digital”
of others; they must allow the
consumer to choose from among a
portfolio of channels, depending on
”
channel. Instead, the enterprise must the consumer’s needs at any given That said, every challenge reveals an represent opportunities to create
figure out how all the groups will time. opportunity. These new channels— different experiences that truly
work in concert. Each group should whether through mobile apps leverage each channel. Having a
work together toward an overarching, For example, Virgin America is on smartphones, through social- portfolio of channels creates the
omnichannel relationship strategy, offering customer service through networking capabilities such as opportunity to give a consumer the
one that promotes collaboration and Twitter and Facebook. Customer Pinterest, or through corporate right interaction at the right time.
sharing among channels to manage support monitors tweets and websites—allow new ways of
relationships with consumers in an Facebook posts to the airline for communicating with the consumer Consider the way a retailer interacts
ongoing fashion. indications that someone needs help, that help increase the quality and with a customer: a discount delivered
allowing consumers to make simple utility of interactions. It’s not a in an e-mail is often considered
Enterprises must find out how requests, like reserving a wheelchair question of replacing channels or “spam,” while that same discount
and where consumers are most for a flight, without waiting on hold even weaving them all together into delivered as a consumer scans a
comfortable interacting with them. for a call center rep.vi a single interface. Savvy companies product QR code is just good service.
That may depend on circumstances understand that different channels Understanding how, when, and

12


and ticking down by 1 percent every don’t. Better insight into customer
second until the consumer entered preferences allows businesses to
the Meat Pack store. When a discount iterate product development faster,
was redeemed, the person’s Facebook to scale up production or kill a
status automatically changed to feature or a service before too much
inform the world. is invested. They can build future
business cases on a more substantial
Similarly, businesses will have to disrupt and substantiated information base.
the mindset that says “relationships”
equate to “marketing.” This means Higher customer satisfaction
that IT must forge close links with equates to repeat customers
where businesses should contact capabilities beyond social media (such other groups that touch consumers and higher revenue through
consumers can create a brand as analytics and mobile technology) and reach out to business units, such increased volumes and lowered
connection that rivals the face-to- in order to reboot efforts to engage as product development, that manage cost of customer acquisition. But
face relationship associated with the consumers in ways perhaps imagined interactions with other communities. companies also gain from a better
small-town general store. but not implemented. For example, understanding of consumers. The
Guatemalan shoe store Meat Pack deeper the relationship with the
At the same time, businesses should looked to mobile interactions to customer, the more reliable the
recognize that social and mobile are pinch customers from competitors
Insight leads to metrics the customer provides.
not just a set of new channels for through a mobile app called Hijack.
vii
increased consumer Again, it’s the difference between
pushing information to consumers. When potential customers entered a satisfaction the vagueness of a focus group and
It’s about changing the channel’s rival’s store, they were detected using the specificity of actual consumer
function from push—ads, for example— the app and offered a promotion at With deeper interaction, businesses behavior—the importance of tracking
to services and value. Businesses Meat Pack. A discount countdown can more quickly understand what what consumers do, not what
must coalesce on a variety of new was displayed, starting at 99 percent consumers like—and what they they say.

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Your 100-day plan With consumers changing their about the consumer from the
attitudes about sharing and communications channels he uses to
In 100 days, refresh the mindset of your consumer chan- accessing information and becoming better understand his behavior and
nels to move beyond transactions to, in addition, drive willing to be more transparent, needs. Consumers newly accustomed
consumer interactions and relationships. forward-thinking enterprises are to accessing account information
realizing that they can benefit in corporate databases to transact
• Catalog your consumer interactions, tools, and channels. from an unprecedented granular and interact have ratcheted up their
view of consumers—not just what expectations about how businesses
• Educate your internal teams on the tools and channels they bought, but when, and where, will communicate and respond. But
currently available. and what they were doing before companies now have the ability to
and while they made the purchase make the consumer feel special, to
• Determine the questions to be answered to create a decision. Businesses can do this by increase engagement, and to develop
holistic view of your customer. taking advantage of internal data intimacy, as never before.
sources (that is, instrumentation and
• Identify metrics for tracking the success of your social quantification of decision making
and communication channels in terms of a consumer captured by their own software)
relationship. and external data sources (such as
social-media sites and information
• Begin “social listening” to build momentum toward your gathered by resellers and partners).
larger strategy.
The goal, to use a term that may
• Propagate current tools and channels across business sound contradictory, is mass
units where applicable. personalization—using technology
to provide resort service at a motel
cost. That is, using what you know

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A new level of richer the data collected becomes. This time next year
customer intimacy Companies can boost the quality
of data in much the same way In 365 days, reimagine your consumer strategy across
Companies that embark on this that night-vision goggles amplify the enterprise as a consumer-relationship strategy and
voyage of mass personalization can available vision: to shine a light on create the cross-organizational ties to drive it.
expect a variety of new benefits. data and behaviors, already present,
• Create a cross-functional team responsible for reviewing,
Because shoppers can move— but previously undetected.
updating, and improving your consumer-relationship
quickly and entirely digitally—from
strategy.
awareness to recommendation A new level of intimacy with
to purchase after interacting on consumers is now possible. But • Standardize your methodology around how consumer
blogs, Twitter, Yelp, and other social effectively scaling meaningful interactions are shared throughout the organization.
sources, it’s actually possible to relationships represents a real
• Redesign your organization’s communication-channel
compress the sales cycle. Offering change in the way companies
strategy in light of the holistic consumer-relationship
on-the-spot promotions through need to approach their consumer
strategy.
digital channels also potentially strategies. This shift is being
increases impulse purchases. enabled by technology; however, • Establish an environment to test and then deploy
Providers that are better at implementing it will require a new, technologies that will support your consumer-
controlling that experience will unified approach across IT and the relationship strategy.
benefit by lowering the costs of business. Now is the time to take
• Review your metrics and data to improve your consumer
sales and marketing and generating the next step. The customers are out
interactions and update your consumer-relationship
greater sales volumes. there; it’s time for the enterprise to strategy.
get to know them.
Personalization also creates a
virtuous loop. The more you
personalize the experience, the

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Sidebar: Gauging the Value of Trust

During its bankruptcy proceedings in potentially be used and, crucially, data—and we spelled out practical sensitive about the use of their data,
2011, Borders, the bookstore chain, won to give them a choice in the steps that would help companies even though more and more data is
judicial approval to sell its intellectual matter shows how companies and move toward operating models sought from them and more is
property, including a customer consumers may interact in the future based on trust. Even before the given by them, both willingly
database, to Barnes & Noble. The on issues of privacy. It’s also a prime age of social media and big data, and unwittingly.
issue at stake: shoppers’ data privacy.i example of the mobility of data our recommendations were clear:
these days—and a good indicator of companies must seek ways to use In general, individuals are more
Anticipating privacy concerns, the importance of establishing, let knowledge about their customers likely to think in terms of what’s in
Borders’ lawyers persuaded the court alone maintaining, accountability for to provide better services to them,it for them if they give out personal
to appoint an independent third such data. doing so in ways that increase trust,
data. “When you put information
party to consider the privacy impact not suspicion. about yourself out there, that’s a
on the 48 million Borders customers A decade ago, Accenture asked transaction,” Margaret Stewart,
whose personal information would whether enterprises could Ten years on, plenty has changed: Facebook’s director of product
be transferred with the sale of the differentiate themselves based on the entities collecting information design, told Fast Company recently.
intellectual property. In the end, the consumer trust. We flagged five
ii
are savvier than ever about data, and “But you need to feel that you’re
customers were given the chance to dimensions of trust—safekeeping of they have more channels through getting something back in return.
opt out of the transfer. personal information, control over which to gather it (think “big data”) When we start to provide things
the data, personal access to one’s and more powerful tools with which that feel valuable to people, it will
The bookseller’s readiness to tell data, accountability, and the benefits to extract insights from it. For make that transaction make sense.” iii
customers how their data could of letting corporations use one’s their part, individuals are far more

16


Accenture’s recommendations for that can build a reputation for Of course, a critical aspect of trust
businesses are even more relevant providing valuable services while building is the assurance that all
today, and the stakes have gotten using consumers’ personal data in of the business partners in an
higher—with consumers’ greater trustworthy ways will have a big organization’s value chain abide by
sensitivity being just one of the advantage over competitors. Its the same high principles. If a person
factors in play. Accenture believes brand will be more valuable, it will using a supposedly trust-based
that a vital component is still have more opportunities to attract solution is suddenly deluged with
missing from the privacy debate: and retain lifetime customers, and unwanted phone calls and e-mail
a proactive business perspective it can become a preferred partner from related companies, you can
focused not just on compliance in a larger value chain of goods bet that’s a customer lost forever.
with laws that protect privacy but and services.
also on the notion that companies
can generate business value by Implicit in this idea is the belief
earning consumer trust. that trust has an economic value
and, as such, can be used to win
To date, few businesses convincingly competitive advantage. In that
demonstrate that they grasp respect, thinking of trust as an
the notion that they need to go economic asset is not different from
beyond just collecting information how a bank views and manages its
about consumers. The company customers’ accounts.

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Trend 1. Relationships at scale Accenture Technology Vision 2013

Design for Analytics
Formulate the questions, and design
for the answers

18

Trend 2. Design for Analytics Accenture Technology Vision 2013

Design for Analytics

Business intelligence. Data analytics. Big data. Companies are no longer suffering from a lack of data;
they’re suffering from a lack of the right data. Business leaders need the right data in order to effectively
define the strategic direction of the enterprise. The current generation of software was designed for
functionality. The next generation must be designed for analytics as well.

Predicting the future isn’t difficult. unstructured data from previously
Predicting the future with some unplumbed sources (such as social
degree of accuracy is. Businesses are media, call center transcripts, and
under the impression that the more e-mail). They are working under
data they have, the easier it will be the assumption that “more data” is
to predict the future and thus secure equivalent to “better data.” They are
competitive advantage. only partially correct.

Collecting more data points makes The problem is no longer the
it easier to discern trends, patterns, absence of enough data. In fact,
opportunities, and competitive enterprises are now being flooded
advantage. That’s one of the reasons with new data, big-data tools
companies are focusing so heavily mine countless new unstructured-
on big data and the ability to utilize data sources, social media now

19


provide unprecedented information for the application to do its job. If capture more of it where they can. help the company achieve its most
about consumers, and sensors and an e-commerce application needs But generally they have not done this basic goals. With every data gap,
embedded devices expand the ability to know what device a consumer with any specific question in mind. enterprises miss an opportunity to
to gather data into areas where is connecting from in order to make better decisions or improve
computing power has never been authenticate the consumer, it So, when this data is repurposed how they run their business. To move
before. The problem now becomes captures that information; if the as an input to make strategic forward, to answer the question, you
the absence of the right data. application doesn’t need to know, decisions—such as entering a new have to adopt a data-first strategy
and knowing doesn’t support the market or pricing a new service— and plug the data gaps.
The IT world we live in today revolves user experience, it doesn’t. Most glaring information gaps often
around software applications. companies have also taken the next arise. The goal isn’t to amass data. Plugging these data gaps—that is,
Businesses have developed data step—for example, they recognize It’s about enabling the business getting the right data—requires
models to support application that consumer information is to answer a question, to create a fundamental shift in design
functionality, which is necessary valuable for future insight, so they insight, and to use that insight to philosophy for how new applications

“ The now being flooded with new data,of enoughtools mine countless new
are
problem is no longer the absence
big-data
data. In fact, enterprises

unstructured-data sources, social media now provide unprecedented
information about consumers, and sensors and embedded devices expand
the ability to gather data into areas where computing power has never been
before. The problem now becomes the absence of the right data.
”
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are built and existing applications To get the right data, you have to The result is the first stage of a data
are configured, instrumented, and design applications to explicitly supply chain, where applications
updated. Applications still must capture the specific data needed, serve not only their users but
meet users’ functionality needs, update user interfaces to get also the business as it looks to
but applications now must also be new pieces of data, and add applications’ data for answers to the
designed to specifically produce data data collection as a new set of questions most important to
that answers more of an enterprise’s requirements within the software the business.
questions. Technology is no longer procurement process. These
the barrier. The barrier is strategic capabilities become a piece of the
business foresight to formulate upfront processes for how you lay
the questions. out road maps for your systems, not
something that is added on after
the fact.

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The minimum What transpired before it happened?
mindset: data as a What transpired afterward? It could

strategic asset be a purchasing scenario that reveals
the associated items that customers
Businesses have the right idea: buy. But it could also be a failed
data is a strategic asset. Data (good online purchase. Did someone get a
data) makes you smarter. A recent coupon from Starbucks but go next
study of 179 companies, led by an door to Dunkin’ Donuts anyway?
economist at the MIT Sloan School
of Management, suggests that The desire to get these answers
companies that adopted “data- is why companies are investing
driven decision-making” have so heavily in big data, business Quantifying the tick. They must step out of the box
productivity levels 5 to 6 percent intelligence, and reporting tools. world around us and formulate the right questions
higher than can be explained by The fact that they are still investing that will help the business make
other factors, including investment means that they haven’t yet found When enterprises don’t have access strategic decisions. The data that’s
in technology.i the solution, even though so much to the right data, they need to start necessary will become evident. The
technology is available. looking differently at how they challenge, then, will be figuring out
Savvy companies are working to go about getting data. Companies not only how to collect it, but, in
discern more about transactions Companies need to start looking can’t rely solely on the limited many cases, how to create it.
and events than ever before. for the solution to the problem a universe of data that they already
They’re looking for context and different way. have. The focus now needs to Many software vendors are already
ways to make the insights they shift to quantifying the enterprise: starting to make it easier for
gain actionable. They’re trying to capturing the actions, interactions, enterprises to tackle this challenge.
understand not only what happened and attributes of the employees and Third parties are increasingly creating
but why. And, when did it happen? processes that make an enterprise Application Program Interfaces to

22


and their ultimate score but also The companies that have already
their keystrokes, how long it took defined their top-level strategic

“ Whenthey need todon’t have access to the right
data,
enterprises
start looking differently at
them to answer individual questions,
and if they stopped in the middle of
questions are striking first.
Many companies in logistics,
an assignment or question. “We're transportation, and energy, for
how they go about getting data. Companies physically collecting thousands of instance, have already clearly defined
can’t rely solely on the limited universe of data data points per student per day,” said their need to track the movement of
that they already have. founder and CEO Jose Ferreira.iii goods and the usage of power.
” Companies are also looking to the UPS has developed a system of
blossoming of sensor technology in-vehicle sensors and handheld
allow data to be more easily extracted help improve its recommendations to fill data gaps as they arise. This computers to track information not
from software products, including engine, Netflix tracks how customers technology represents a way to only about its shipments but also
packaged software applications. interact with on-demand film create and collect information from about its trucks’ movements. This
This further puts the onus on downloads. It looks at metrics physical environments and devices is what helped it determine that
companies to figure out what data such as when customers pause the that today represent blind spots in a making left turns slowed deliveries
they should be gathering from movie and what scenes they watch company’s data portfolio. Research and increased fuel costs as a result
their systems to answer the over again.ii In another example, to company Strategy Analytics predicts of idling; it used the information
company’s broader questions. continuously improve the quality that cellular machine-to-machine to create routes that minimized
and effectiveness of its online class (M2M) connections necessary to left turns, saving the company 9
v
Companies are also increasingly materials, Knewton incorporates the transport the data from distributed million gallons of gas annually. In
adding instrumentation to their ability to track specific data about sensors to the data center will grow addition, knowing when trucks are
custom applications, designing them how students use its software. It from 277 million in 2012 to 2.5 going to reach their destinations
to collect and report transactions, tracks not only how long it takes billion by 2020.iv helps UPS’s employees ensure that
activities, or logs. For instance, to students to complete an assignment there are sufficient resources to load

23


and unload them. Knowing where the wireless information network the quantification of the consumer. and transmit information, primarily
shipments are in transit (and sharing enhances well efficiency and reduces Facebook has ingrained a propensity in the personal-fitness space. The
that information on a website) aids operating costs because workers no for people to share their likes and Nike+ FuelBand collects data about
customer service. longer have to physically visit each dislikes. Businesses have known calories burned, for example, and
well to collect operating data and for years that customers prefer FitBit collects data regarding users’
In the energy industry, Shell joint reconfigure the system. This also recommendations from known sleep patterns. Personal fitness
venture Petroleum Development contributes to personnel safety. sources. The ability to cultivate and and social media also overlap on
Oman (PDO) has deployed a wireless harvest customer information for websites where people track their
system in its oil field. It is currentlyQuantifying the sales, marketing, and advertising diets. A lot of consumer data exists
wiring 5,000 wells, which technicians consumer represents a rich opportunity to grab today, but companies need to
remotely monitor and manage, to some of the data that they need in determine the right data for them
provide real-time communication To date, of course, the ripest area order to resolve questions about and then start processes to acquire
vi
and control. According to PDO, for the collection of data has been their consumers that have long been that data.
left unanswered.
Websites already have multiple

“ The ability tofor sales, marketing, and
information
cultivate and harvest customer The aggregation of social and mobile
capabilities through applications
capabilities for tracking activity, but
sometimes what is needed can be
such as Waze (a crowd-sourced gleaned by simply asking customers
advertising represents a rich opportunity navigation app) and Yelp (online and prospects for input. However,
to grab some of the data that [businesses] consumer reviews) has heightened it’s important to note that often it’s
need in order to resolve questions about the ability for consumers to quantify better to track actual activity than
themselves. But there’s also been to poll—there’s typically a delta
their consumers that have long been left an associated increase in personal between what people say they want
unanswered.
” electronic and medical devices,
beyond smartphones, that collect
and what people actually want.

24


Businesses also have a newfound What do these examples portend? into new products (think insights) Once you’ve designed for analytics,
ability to utilize pieces of data that Opportunities for consumer data as you look at different pieces of how do you actually conduct
they may already possess but that feeds are everywhere. You just need data in aggregate. Just as important, the analytics? Analytics have
previously hasn’t been easily usable: to form the right questions for your companies should be able to feed always been a challenge, but
unstructured data represented by business and start strategically information back to their suppliers partially because businesses have
free text in e-mail, tweets, and other quantifying the world around you. in order to help them incrementally often conducted the process in
media; audio files from call center improve the latter’s data collection— an exploratory fashion—they’ve
conversations; and video from sites just as an auto manufacturer must collected available data and then
where customers interact Creating a data report component failures back to analyzed it, rather than assiduously
with products. supply chain suppliers in order to improve quality. determining what data will aid their
business strategy and then ensuring
Finally, consider the availability of It’s time to start treating your data Once you identify the data supply that the right data is collected to
information that’s been collected less as a warehouse and more as a chain, how do you harness it? analyze. They can derive increased
by others for integration into your supply chain. Having identified your
analysis. This could come from a sources of data, you must corral
variety of sources—service providers, it for analysis, in the same way
social networks, search engines, even that the various components of an
vendor software already running automobile from multiple suppliers
in your data centers. For instance, come together on an assembly line.
Intellicorp has developed a software Recognize that the data won’t be
product that can analyze changes static; it will be manipulated as
within SAP ERP applications; it sells it goes through the supply chain,
the product to SAP customers for added to other pieces of data,
data-management and data-life- updated as more recent data comes
cycle uses. along, and sometimes transformed

25


value by collecting data with the working, but they do see that they’re Foresight: specific questions they are trying
real end purpose in mind. The result: relying more on electric power, establishing a to answer; many will not be able
better data, which equals which delivers higher levels of to, and fewer still will have those
better insight. customer satisfaction.
feedback loop questions documented and feeding
for insight into teams to answer them. Though
Ford Motor Company research In a short time, savvy businesses obvious on the surface, this task
logically deduced that the customers can create a virtuous feedback loop What will the feedback loop look should not be underestimated. It is
of its hybrid vehicles preferred using that allows them to collect, analyze, like when software is designed for not trivial. And it is not something
electric power as much as possible. and respond in an increasingly analytics? It starts with setting goals for which most companies have a
However, the system was originally agile manner, and then revisit their and creating questions that need formal process. They need to
designed to deploy electric power questions on a periodic basis in to be answered. Ask the leaders of create one.
based on other parameters, such as order to continuously assess new organizations within your enterprise
amount of battery power remaining. data in the context of changing if they can clearly articulate the key
But Ford developed an algorithm business conditions and strategies.
using data from the cars’ built-in This will require the integrated
GPS systems to track when drivers involvement of IT with the business,
were close to home or frequently because IT may need to tweak data
visited locations close to home.
Knowing that the vehicles were
vii
collection mechanisms, including
user interfaces, on mobile apps and
“ What softwarefeedback loopfor analytics?
when
will the
is designed
look like
more likely to be within the range enterprise applications in order to
of a battery charge, the engineers acquire additional data points. It starts with setting goals and creating
questions that need to be answered.
”
were able to adjust the powertrain
controls to rely more on electricity
than on gasoline in those scenarios.
Customers don’t see the algorithm

26


harvesting obvious to the user yet driven or at least to work with them

“ You will need to your software data
unobtrusive. As part of an update to to provide the required data. Procter
to distribute the its online marketplace, eBay posts & Gamble and Walmart actively
requirements development photographs of merchandise to share supply chain information with
users, Pinterest style, based on data each other to help reduce inventories
team, of course, but also begin working with derived from previous purchases, while increasing sales by focusing on
your partners and software vendors so that previous searches, and stated rapidly changing customer demands.
ix

they can begin to collect data as well.
”
interests. A better user interface,
yes, but this design also gives eBay Businesses must also think about
the ability to get deeper insight into how they can maximize the
its users not only by simply asking availability of data sources. Look
With a process in place, you then Then you are ready to close the them for their preferences but also at currently packaged software
need to align the questions with loop. To whom will the information by looking at how they interact with applications or SaaS applications
viii
data requirements and disseminate be distributed so that it can be the pictures shown to them. for how they can be reconfigured or
those requirements accordingly. acted upon? Designing the process how APIs can be utilized to supply
You will need to distribute the data so that information flows into the Developers must use design data. In existing applications, think
requirements to your software organization is equally important. methodologies that allow rapid about how the interface can be
development team, of course, but testing, updating, and reconfiguring. updated for better data gathering—
also work with your partners and The cultural shift to an insight- In that way, businesses can for instance, adding new entry
software vendors so that they can driven business will also require determine which methods work points to accommodate inputs
begin to collect data as well. Finally, different thinking about personnel best in acquiring the strongest data. about seasonal needs or short-term
think about other sources of data and partners. Corporate developers Businesses will also have to rethink promotions. In new applications,
you want to incorporate for analysis. will need to focus on incorporating their relationships with partner designing for data capture should
methods of data harvesting into user organizations in order to persuade carry as much weight as the initial
interface designs, making the data them to become equally insight- application requirements.

27


Changing a looking for ways to collect better Your 100-day plan
corporate culture data, more data, fresher data.
It’s not just the software that In 100 days, define the key strategic questions for the
Designing for analytics is about should be refreshed to collect data business and the data needed to answer them.
more than simply adding a few and conduct analytics—it’s the
data requirements to a software employees, too.
development cycle or an RFP; it is • Update or build your data catalog, identifying what data
the next step in transforming the By deploying these capabilities, you have.
enterprise culture to become insight- businesses will move themselves
driven. It’s about blurring the lines closer to the goal of being • Determine your in-flight analytics projects and what
between business functions (as the completely insight-driven, of questions these projects are trying to answer.
consumers of business data) and IT being the kind of company that
(as the purveyors of data) to make systematically uses data at all levels • Prioritize the existing strategic questions your
both more effective. of the organization to become organization is working on.
smarter and more successful. It’s
Pushing these ideas, many time to take the next step. It’s time • Begin to catalog new data sources (internal and external)
enterprises will go so far as to to evolve applications and products needed to fill in critical missing data elements.
create a prominent new role in beyond just user functionality
the organization, a chief data and make them actively feed your • Tap the new data sources where they fill identified data
officer, a data champion whose analytics. Give the business not just gaps.
responsibilities encompass the data, but the right data.
collection, prioritization, distribution, • Define the required skills and experience needed to create
and analysis of data. But, with or data champions across the organization.
without a data champion, each
employee must be tasked with

28


This time next year
In 365 days, establish your data supply chain across the
enterprise, quantifying the world around you to address
strategic gaps.

• Create data champions across the organization, for
example, a chief data officer.

• Work across the organization to determine and prioritize
your future strategic questions.

• Look at your data catalog and determine the long-term
gaps.

• Fill these gaps in the data catalog—purchase data,
develop new APIs, and ask your partners.

• Embed new data requirements into software road maps
and procurement plans.

• Begin designing software to capture new data within
custom development and software update cycles.

• Develop a data creation strategy to attain data through
the setup of new data sources: M2M, new software, and
data creation from partners.

• Put the data cycle in motion, revisiting data needs as new
strategic questions arise.

29


Sidebar: Why the Business Now Needs to Care About APIs

In earlier times, applications (and APIs—the “glue” that connects The beauty of APIs is that they data and services to meet
their data) didn’t really travel far in apps with business processes and uncouple the “front end” service— business goals.
the enterprise. Applications were with each other—have typically the business access—from the IT
specific to jobs, and the data they been a fairly low-level concern for mechanisms that support it. As user The benefit of discrete API
produced remained locked inside, programmers and architects. But with groups and use cases change, access management is that it keeps
rarely fulfilling its true potential for the business’s increasing reliance on and management-policy updates complexity under control. Specifically,
the enterprise. Data on consumer data and services—both public and don’t affect IT implementation, and the API management solutions
segments used by the marketing private—and the growing reuse of vice versa: APIs can provide self- now offered by providers such as
group would rarely have been sought those building blocks, APIs are rapidly serve access for developers—internal, Apigee, Layer 7 Technologies, and
by engineering or manufacturing, say, becoming a strategic concern. For partner, and independent third party— Mashery make it possible to organize,
or even offered to external parties. example, the car-sharing service giving others the power to create expose, and monetize APIs. The
RelayRides relies on an API created new and innovative use cases. And organization benefit is very real:
Things are different today. It’s by General Motors and OnStar to IT updates can happen at any time formal management of APIs deals
becoming increasingly important for access some of the remote control without users knowing it, or needing with the sprawl, redundancies, and
the underlying data and business and telematics elements of the to know. Managed well, APIs can inefficiencies that will proliferate as
functions to be made available service.i Organizations must now help enterprises handle complexity as increasingly quantified enterprises
for general use—able to be quickly consciously manage the proliferation the need to access data and services begin to share many more data
reworked in ways that help shorten of increasingly important APIs. grows. In an increasingly quantified sources and services, both internally
cycle times, cut costs, or accelerate digital world, API management and externally.
revenue elsewhere in the business. provides a mechanism to leverage

30


API management tools help expose who is using your APIs and which growing global workforce, it would is based on the same core “building
a common platform of functionality. APIs are most valuable, as well as be increasingly critical for business block” concepts as SOA, but it has
They minimize rework. And they traceability of IT capability against users to have access to enterprise and evolved to take advantage of the
accelerate development, which is a business use, ensuring business application data in real time in order agility and simplicity of cloud and
key first step when embarking on process alignment and verification to scale up those applications. Web-based approaches.
cloud, mobile, or social roadmaps. against business cases.
Just one snapshot: construction and The IT team opted to build an API So the next question is, Who needs to
engineering company Bechtel has an A case in point: Accenture is carefully layer that would make available the be responsible for API management?
API strategy that provides relevant managing APIs as a key step to enable various data and business functions Currently, the only people who know
information to its global teams from cloud and mobile strategies across for general use and standardize or care about APIs are found on the
the data generated and stored as it our global workforce of more than access across users. The APIs could development teams. But there’s a
executes its projects, thereby enabling 250,000 people. With as-a-service then be used to help implement new need for a centralized function that
the teams to be more agile and better and mobile-device models playing services and to provide new user brings some order and discipline
equipped to make informed decisions.ii larger roles in Accenture’s delivery experiences on mobile devices such as to today’s random and informal
of functionality for activities such as tablets and smartphones. interactions between business users
Finally, API management makes time entry, hotel reservations, and and IT staff. Does the buck stop on
it possible to measure the value business travel, Accenture’s internal If API management sounds a lot like the CIO’s desk? Or is this part of the
of APIs. Imagine a scenario that IT team realized that integration service-oriented architecture (SOA)— purview of a newly minted chief
involves explicit governance of APIs; with disparate systems was going an influential technology concept a data officer? In either case, the API
you have visibility and control into to become challenging. And with a decade ago—that’s because it is. It management role must be defined.

31


Data Velocity
Matching the speed of decision to the
speed of action

32

Trend 3. Data Velocity Accenture Technology Vision 2013

Data Velocity

Business leaders have been bombarded with statistics about the soaring volumes of data that they can
mine for precious insights. They have been deluged with articles describing the incredible variety of
“external” data hidden in everything from tweets and blogs to sensor outputs and GPS data from mobile
phones. But the next perspective on data that deserves attention is data velocity—the pace at which data
can be gathered, sorted, and analyzed in order to produce insights that managers can act on quickly. As
expectations of near-instant responses become the norm, business leaders will rely heavily on higher data
velocities to gain a competitive edge.
It’s become an article of faith data from platforms like Twitter,
among business leaders that Facebook, and Pinterest to second-
their data contains a treasury of guess consumer behavior, increasing
powerful insights that can help their sales conversion rates by 10 to 15
organizations make money. They’re percent in the process.i
also getting used to the idea that
“data” can mean what’s gleaned But there’s another aspect that
from Facebook postings or remotely business leaders have yet to fully
located machines just as much as grasp: data velocity. That concept
what’s in corporate data centers. by itself is not new; together with
Just ask Walmart, which deployed “variety” and “volume,” it has been
a new search engine last fall part of the “three Vs” construct for
on Walmart.com that relies on talking about data—a construct

33


developed in 2001, long before “big explained that he’s not seeking new
data” became such an overused term.ii
And at the most fundamental level, “ Today, it’s of the organization’s actions to
the speed
increasingly important to match types of data; what he wants is to
get everything from point-of-sale
there is nothing novel about the data to statistics on inventories and
the speed of its opportunities.
idea of faster flows of data helping
organizations get more done in
less time.
” shipments more frequently and far
faster, in more granular form
than ever.iv

But the notion of velocity has been to generate actionable insights, the decision makers do business.iii The In all of these discussions about
largely eclipsed by the many recent organization will start losing out to old model, he said, would mean data velocity, note that we’re not
advances in technologies that have more responsive competitors. More that analysts would get back with talking about striving for some
unlocked significant increases both worrisome, if the business hasn’t answers in two weeks. “You need real-time nirvana. What’s crucial
in available volume (zettabyte upon begun using data-driven insight to to be able to answer that question is an improving rate of response,
petabyte) and in variety (spanning detect and evaluate opportunities immediately,” he told the magazine. regardless of the rising volumes of
unstructured data such as pins in the first place, it runs even data to be accessed and analyzed
on Pinterest as well as structured greater risks of falling behind. P&G is investing in virtual, “instant and irrespective of their proliferating
records of supply logistics and Consumer goods giant Procter & on” war rooms where professionals sources. Going forward, it will no
customers’ purchase histories). Gamble is acutely aware of what’s meet in person or over video around longer be about the size of your
at stake: CIO Filippo Passerini told continuous streams of fresh and data—it will be about matching the
Today, it’s increasingly important InformationWeek that if P&G can relevant data, inviting the right velocity of your data to how fast
to match the speed of the eliminate the “what” discussions and experts as soon as a problem your business processes need to
organization’s actions to the speed some of the “why”, and decision- surfaces. P&G’s objective is to give act on it.
of its opportunities. If too much makers can jump right to how these decision-making forums
time elapses between acquisition of to solve a problem, that radically access to data as soon as possible
data and the ability to use the data increases the pace at which the after it has been collected. Passerini

34


When fast still isn’t and openness on our desktops, TVs, stay up to date with insights about Concurrently, the user base for
fast enough and even our car dashboards. Not to customers, products, work orders, data is exploding. Business users
mention that the next generation and more. are becoming more technical at
Irritated that the Web page on of consumers is growing up with the same time that analytics skills
your smartphone is downloading expectations of instant responses as Instant, mobile access to data is only and techniques are becoming more
so slowly? Remember a time before a way of life. one way that expectations about accessible to technical users, further
smartphones? That’s just one tiny data velocity are changing. We’re increasing the demands on available
reflection of the time-starved age Enterprises have realized that starting to ask new things of our data. Within living memory, data
we live in, and a clear indication of smartphones and tablets are perfect enterprise systems, too, thanks to was the province of the guys in
how much expectations have risen. vehicles for making informed the continuing consumerization of white coats in the air-conditioned
decisions anywhere and anytime, IT. Long accustomed to being able to mainframe room. Today, everybody
Increasing expectations are a based on targeted, personalized track our Amazon.com orders via the who wants to be a data pro can be a
primary factor pushing businesses— information. Hence the fact that SAP online services of FedEx or the U.S. data pro.
all of us, actually—to ask for and act and others offer business intelligence Postal Service, we now wonder why
on data more quickly. Mobility as software that provides the mobile we can’t as easily do the same with Yes, for years now almost every
a new channel for information has workforce with the capability to our company’s inbound supply chain. business function has had its “power
catapulted those expectations far users” of technology, but today,
forward; it’s addictive to have easy leading companies expect their
fingertip access to large amounts “regular” business users not only
of data. The more data we have, the to consume data but also to seek,
more we want—and app developers acquire, evaluate, analyze, and share
are happy to oblige us. The Web is it. Those organizations consider
literally in hand, wherever we go and serious data savvy and analytical skills
whenever we want it, goading us to be requirements for many more of
to expect the same responsiveness their employees than ever before.

35


Narrowing windows and engaging. But we’re not talking
of opportunity just about short page-load times.
The key is in how to leverage insight
Another powerful factor pushing to make that experience awesome.
the need for more data more quickly You have to be able to connect with
is that the windows of opportunity the shopper—tying the experience
are smaller in almost all business together based on past interactions,
endeavors. The windows have been purchase history, questions she
closing for some time. In the 1980s, e-mailed to your customer-support
Harvard Business Review explored team, social links, and any other data
the topic, notably with its landmark or any insight you can muster. The
article on time-based competition. v same holds true when you want to maintenance and repair world. At the The story is similar for dynamic
And decades ago, then General bid in real-time ad auctions to try extreme, a grounded airplane costs supply chains. Responding to
Electric chief Jack Welch was to lure shoppers back to your site airlines as much as $250,000 per day; changes in the supply chain with a
famously preaching about speed from elsewhere on the Web. In the an oil rig that isn’t drilling can cost combination of historical data and
and responsiveness. milliseconds available, you need the $1 million per day. The sooner an brand-new intelligence allows you
ability to process the data tidbits equipment malfunction or imminent to create a more responsive, resilient
Speed of response is increasingly at hand so that you can compose a shutdown can be detected, and the supply chain. If your company was
important at the functional and message that is personal, intriguing, more detailed the data about the unable to properly see a recent drop
transactional levels. Take Web and compelling enough to prompt equipment’s condition, the quicker it in production yields from an aging
interactions, for instance. Let’s say a shopper to click your ad, bringing can be repaired and made productive manufacturing plant, you may have
you run a retail company: when a you the traffic you seek. again—and, if captured, the more data difficulty meeting customers’ orders
shopper lands on your product page, there will be to help predict future on time. You did not match your
you’ve got a few split seconds to Fast data responses and rapid breakdowns and more effectively plan speed of insight with speed
give her information that is relevant analysis are also crucial in the future maintenance regimens. of action.

36


In the utilities sector, investments New technologies new technology advances aimed Performance Appliance—offer huge
in smart grids are putting more- that put data on at tackling data variety and speed increases over conventional
frequent data updates in the hands volume: platforms, services, and storage. To squeeze out even faster
of those matching electricity supply
skates architectures. Converging data performance, more attention is
to demand to keep the grid stable. As far back as 2008, Accenture’s architectures are reshaping our going to in-memory techniques that
But the clearest example of the Technology Vision spoke to the whole view of data in the enterprise, sharply minimize input and output
“need for speed” in data utilization growing variety of data relevant and industrialized data services by moving all kinds of data sets into
comes from capital markets, to the enterprise—video, audio, help us get that data out into the main memory rather than onto (and
where quotes are submitted and blogs, social data—much of it user- enterprise, where it can generate off of) any form of disk drive.
withdrawn in millionths of a second. generated. We also addressed the new value.
When trading systems can handle technologies that were emerging to In-memory technology is already
transactions in trillionths of a process this unstructured data. For What’s happening now is a surge moving into the corporate data
second, they will. the past two years, we’ve showcased of new technologies that help to center. According to Gartner, the
accelerate the whole data cycle from adoption of in-memory computing
insight to action, increasing the is expected to increase threefold
enterprise’s ability to deal with by 2015 as a result of decreases in
data velocity.
“ What’s happeninghelp to accelerate newwhole
memory costs.vi The use of in-memory
now is a surge of technology marks an inflection point
technologies that the To start with, a slew of providers for enterprise applications. With in-
have pushed high-speed data memory computing and insert-only
data cycle from insight to action, increasing the storage much further. Appliances databases using row- and column-
enterprise’s ability to deal with data velocity.
” relying on solid-state disk
(SSD) to speed data input and
output—examples include Oracle’s
oriented storage, transactional and
analytical processing can be unified.
In-memory data warehousing finally
Exadata and Teradata’s Extreme offers the promise of real-time

37


computing; business leaders can on hardware provided and delivered store, allowing sales associates to data visualization solutions to help
now ask ad hoc questions of the by SAP’s leading hardware partners. identify opportunities to better serve users understand complex data. One
production transaction database and Data can be replicated from SAP them and match products to their player—Tableau Software—traces
get the answers back in seconds. in real time and is captured in individual tastes.viii its roots to technology used to help
memory as business happens, create some of the most successful
SAP’s HANA appliance is arguably where flexible views expose analytic early computer-generated animation
making the most visible waves. Since information rapidly. External data New exploration movies, such as Toy Story. Another
its launch in June 2011, HANA has can be added to analytic models to methods that will let virtuous cycle comes into play here:
been the fastest-growing product expand analysis across the entire
humans process data the faster the data can be processed
in SAP’s history.vii In brief, HANA is a organization. Luxury retailer Burberry and analyzed, the more terabytes
flexible, multipurpose, data-source- expects HANA to provide real- faster can be poured into the system.
agnostic in-memory appliance that time access to customer histories Of course, professional users have
combines SAP software components when customers walk into the to be able to interpret what the At the same time, newer low-cost
software is telling them. So several analytical packages decrease the
providers are refining visualization time needed for problem-driven
technologies that speed up exploration. These tools—mostly
employees’ processing of data, open source—greatly facilitate
shortening the time it takes to the iterative querying of data,
evaluate what’s being communicated accelerating users’ ability to narrow
and to make a decision, thereby in on the right questions so as to
creating faster “time to insight” find the best nuggets of insight.
and freeing users to deal with more Tools such as Apache Mahout,
decisions. Nearly all of the leading R, and D3.js make it easier for IT
analytics vendors—including SAS, professionals who are not analytics
SAP, and Oracle—have corresponding specialists to explore and iterate—

38


essentially realizing more quickly substantial increases in demand as

“ In practice, speedtechnology weand even with
that they didn’t ask the right more electric vehicles appear on
question and promptly circling the streets. Based on the insight costs money,
back to do so. These are really “do that, for a given municipality, new advances in don’t expect
it yourself” analytical packages, registrations of new electric vehicles
that fact to change overnight. So it is crucial
different from traditional business directly increase the strain on the
intelligence reporting software, electric grid—an insight that comes for IT groups to still rely on non-real-time data
where possible.
that make it easy for nonspecialists
to write their own algorithms.
One solutions provider—Predixion
once—then the electric utility can
automatically prioritize portions of
the grid in certain neighborhoods
”
Software—allows developers to for equipment upgrades each month
create analytical models and based on input from that month’s SQLstream handles real-time SQL sets without having to resort to
“package” them for deployment to registrations of electric cars. queries against streaming data, notoriously inaccurate random
others, enabling those other users to leveraging and accelerating existing sampling of the data.
leverage the models without being There are also new moves to take queries against data warehouses
analytics experts themselves. technologies that are designed and other SQL-based repositories.
to handle large volumes of Similarly, Cloudera’s Impala and the
At certain points, it will be possible unstructured data—largely batch open-source project Storm are both Hybrid models
to automate decisions. Once the technologies—and adapt them to developing modifications of Hadoop for boosting data
insight has been discovered during work in real time, or as close as to move beyond batch processing velocity
exploratory analysis—the earlier possible to real time. The goal is to to near-real-time MapReduce-style
part of the data cycle—then the attain a level of dynamic query- queries. The beauty of transforming In practice, speed costs money,
actual decision making can often be building and execution to match the tools built for batch work into and even with new advances in
mechanized. Consider the example relative rate at which the underlying real-time analytics suites is that technology we don’t expect that
of an electric utility that is seeing data is changing. For instance, it enables users to run huge data fact to change overnight. So it is

39


Your 100-day plan crucial for IT groups to still rely on trick will be to apply “hybrid insight”
non-real-time data where possible, as often as possible. This calls not
In 100 days, create a data velocity strategy to match the blending fast and slow to solve only for changes in architecture
speed of your insights to the window of opportunity problems cost-effectively. Of course, but for changes in skills as well. It
available to act on them. skilled developers already do this; requires that software-engineering
for some, it harks back to their leaders seek out and reward
• Survey business units to determine where they have training in engineering. Enterprise developers who demonstrate a
critical decision-making bottlenecks. systems are no different. You might, definite “speed mindset.”
for example, precompute much of
• Determine which decisions are data-processing your customer analytics. The batch Those who show an aptitude for
dependent. analysis from your weekly churn blending real-time insight with
report may tell you that you’re batch insight—and knowing when
• Prioritize opportunities based on the cost-benefit in danger of losing a longtime to use each—will be extremely
tradeoffs for accelerating the decision. Speed customer, but discovering that valuable. For example, take the case
costs money. that customer, already identified of a healthcare-insurance provider
as at-risk, is currently browsing that has to meet a tight deadline
• Create tactical deployments based on the prioritized lower-cost service options on your on a government mandate to
opportunities with current tools and methods. Web site could give you the hook to predict subscriber attrition. The IT
find a way to keep from losing your group can run the work in batches
• Data champions should update the data catalog to customer altogether. to meet the compliance deadline,
incorporate data-processing criteria. but over the long term, the group
As the challenges of accelerating can use the insights from that
data become more sophisticated— work to understand and predict
involving soaring volumes of “attrition propensity” in every other
unstructured data, for example—the interaction with insured patients and

40


use that insight to tailor messages to have strong risk management, a lot This time next year
and content that will seek to engage of cash, the willingness to invest even
the patient and combat the when the future is unclear, and In 365 days, begin to transform key processes,
ix
attrition risk. great people.” accelerating the insights where the increased velocity
leads to tangible business outcomes.
In short, we can realistically expect To be sure, the rise of volatility
• Use your data catalog to create a strategic view of the
that many organizations will do and market turbulence puts more
data that creates bottlenecks.
what they can to push for faster emphasis on the need to get risk
data processing by using non-real- management right. But there is more • Determine if current infrastructure already supports a
time approaches, weaving in more to it than that. Accenture has found turnkey solution that alleviates these bottlenecks. (e.g.,
and more real-time modes as time that several high performers view use of HANA for SAP).
and funding allow. ongoing uncertainty as nonstop
• Test and deploy required technologies and sources of
opportunity. More and more of these
data that improve your data-processing bottlenecks.
A high-velocity companies see competitive advantage
opportunity in “time to insight,” and as a result, • Update the IT road map and architecture to reflect
they are investing not only in the additional technologies and data sources.
In a recent letter to shareholders, GE tools that can help them accelerate
• Deploy the next set of prioritized opportunities that will
chairman and CEO Jeffrey Immelt their data cycles but also in the skills
leverage the new architecture.
nicely summed up his team’s and capabilities that reflect a “need
perspective on the need for agility for speed.” For them, increasing data • Measure business outcomes and review the catalog for
and responsiveness: “When the velocity isn’t just an abstraction or an additional opportunities.
environment is continuously unstable, obscure objective for IT professionals;
it is no longer volatile. Rather, we it is a business necessity that gives
have entered a new economic era.... them a chance to open up a big lead
Nothing is certain except for the need on their competitors.

41


Seamless Collaboration
Right channel, right worker, right job

42

Trend 4. Seamless Collaboration Accenture Technology Vision 2013

It is time for the enterprise to reimagine the way its employees work. The rise in social networking has
breathed new life into collaboration. Users’ new social behavior and growing expectation that every app
will be “social” are pushing companies to create new user experiences. However, to increase productivity,
enterprises must move beyond standalone social and collaboration channels; they must begin to directly
embed those channels into their core business processes. The new approach: build social, collaborative
applications throughout the enterprise.

Enterprises are always pushing to collaboration within the enterprise.
enhance the way their employees But many are looking at it the
communicate with each other. wrong way. Consumers widely use
The reasoning is simple: better Twitter, but that does not mean that
communication leads to faster and deploying Twitter to employees will
higher-quality work, which, in turn, solve the communication challenges
leads to increased productivity. They a company faces. Facebook is highly
see social technology changing the social and incorporates e-mail
way users interact and collaborate and the sharing of photos and
with each other, and they naturally documents, but that doesn’t make it
want to harness that proclivity appropriate for the corporate world.
toward communication and

43


Why doesn’t it translate? Simply put, sites. But in the consumer setting,
motivations and behavior differ in enterprises are motivated to adopt
each sphere. In their personal lives, the technologies that consumers
people are internally motivated to use to make their lives easier. They
want to follow the details of their now need to do the same for their
friends’ and family’s activities; employees: use these technologies
people are social, and the drive to make employees’ jobs easier.
to stay in touch and connected Enterprises that want the benefits
is strong. At work, people have a of a highly collaborative, social
different motivation: to get their workforce must integrate such
job done as quickly and effectively technology into the systems that
as possible. However, using social employees use every day—and do their job and improve their integrate the social technologies
tools as designed today, to follow clearly demonstrate to those productivity themselves. Companies into its business processes and the
coworkers en masse, often becomes employees how it will make them need to go beyond what social software that supports them. This
more of a time sink than a better at their job. sites are doing, what they might means companies can’t wait for
time saver. be offering consumers on websites, software vendors to build a bolt-on
Unfortunately, enterprise and look to new ways to solve solution to address strategic needs.
That doesn’t mean social collaboration today is still a set of the collaboration challenge. They To realize these gains, it will be the
technologies won’t work for siloed communication channels, need to use collaboration and enterprise’s job to actively identify
enterprises. In fact, companies from e-mail to videoconference to social channels in such a way that the core processes where improving
have been extremely successful social-activity streams (basically they have the potential to create productivity will drive the most value
at streamlining interactions with a timeline of activity, similar to specific, measurable productivity and then to weave in the tools. For
consumers—for example, by what you see on a Facebook page). gains. The real productivity gains example, in a recent survey of more
integrating instant messaging into Users are expected to figure out from these technologies will than 220 CRM decision makers,
e-commerce and technical support how to use those channels to stem from a company’s ability to Nucleus Research found that adding

44


social capabilities to CRM drives Why now? kind of effortless communication are demanding more from
an average increase in sales staff within the applications that support employees; workers are expected
productivity of 11.8 percent.i Tackling collaboration now is both their jobs. They are becoming to be constantly informed while
easier and more important more comfortable with sharing producing faster results and better
Integrating collaboration channels than ever. information, in essence becoming decisions. All the while, the deluge of
into business processes has the more transparent about what they information being thrown at them is
potential to both streamline the way It’s easier because employees are do, why, and its importance. By increasing. Keeping up is a challenge
employees work and make business already inclined to collaborate; it is aligning users’ newfound tendencies as it’s estimated that in most
processes more efficient. Social the natural way that people work. for transparency and social organizations the volume of data is
tools and strategies will provide And with the introduction of social interaction with business goals, expanding by 35 to 50 percent
the mechanisms and metaphors to technology into their personal lives, businesses have an opportunity every year.ii
integrate them effectively. they are looking for that same to deploy collaboration in a way
that their users will actually adopt. In the face of these competing
Social tools, such as Yammer and demands, employees must consume
Chatter, are rapidly maturing. Both increasing amounts of information

“ Every worker is increasingly an information
offer APIs that let companies more and context. They also expect and
easily integrate them into their demand more transparency, not only
worker. Businesses are demanding more applications. In the open-source from their colleagues but also from
world, the OpenSocial API lets the business processes and functions
from employees; workers are expected to developers incorporate collaboration surrounding them. They expect a
be constantly informed while producing in a similar way. “frictionless” capability so that they
faster results and better decisions.
”
can do their jobs faster.
At the same time, it’s important
because every worker is increasingly But while the number of different
an information worker. Businesses roles that need to leverage

45


information has increased, the need with colleagues. Each new channel distributed supply chain. It facilitates Relationship Management platform,
for employees to share their data has allowed organic growth of dialogue and education, enabling now allow companies to connect
has also exploded. The result: the collaborative interaction between colleagues and business partners to collaboration tools into their ERP
information technologies that have users. While each of the channels is easily share knowledge and learning. and CRM packages. In addition,
been implemented have forced users flexible enough on its own, the ad This simple concept needs to be writ Salesforce.com has integrated its
to figure out for themselves how to hoc nature limits the ability of any large across the enterprise. Chatter collaboration tool into
share and distribute information. channel to grow into a tool that its PaaS and SaaS applications.
serves all facets of collaboration. Some packaged-software developers Collaboration platform Jive allows
are already adding these new companies to layer collaboration
Embedding social- Nor has there been a lack of effort at capabilities to their applications. SAP, on top of specific tasks, such
collaboration. Companies have spent with its Jam tool (including elements as software development. The
driven collaboration millions on tools, but the outcomes of its StreamWork collaboration ultimate result: embedded channels
into the business and benefits have hit their limit. platform), and Oracle, with its Social combining search, knowledge
process
To move forward from this impasse,
The problem within enterprises has enterprises must move beyond
never been a lack of communication. tools and integrate social-driven
If anything, there’s been a plethora collaboration into the business
of methods at varying degrees of process. For example, adding
maturity, each providing a needed the ability to comment, instant
element to employees’ efforts to message, or follow a product
share information. From e-mail through its activity stream within
to videoconferencing to instant an order fulfillment application
messaging to Twitter, employees can promotes a free-flowing exchange
always find a way to communicate of ideas otherwise absent within a

46


management, workflow, and reimaging how a law firm is built. Even more importantly, businesses contacts. Integrated functionality
collaboration, which deliver the It has created its own cloud-based can benefit from more effective delivers more of what a user is trying
prized ability to help users more platform that embeds the social and business processes—conducted more to accomplish with any given task.
easily and effectively do their jobs. collaboration efforts needed between quickly, with stronger outcomes and
lawyers and their clients, into the more transparency. By leveraging
By tying the integrated collaboration processes. Matter diaries, budgets, the insight of appropriate subject- Adoption: bigger is
experience to business processes,
disparate channels evolve from
and task applications are shared
seamlessly with those that have
matter experts (who can now
answer questions once rather than
better
separate applications into a single access, allowing lawyers and clients repeatedly), employees can increase The more people who use a
user experience, one not only to work on their cases collaboratively cycle and response times, while collaboration tool, the more benefit
easier to use but also better at from any location. The collaboration making better decisions. Enterprises everyone derives. However, just
retaining exchanged information. technology isn’t layered onto the can now rely on better insight and making a tool available doesn’t
For example, startup Clearspire is process; it has become the process.iii expertise—as well as consistency in mean it will get adopted. If an
areas such as sales and marketing. enterprise focuses on creating a
tool solely designed to increase
From the standpoint of individual overall company productivity,
users, such integrated systems that tool won’t necessarily make

“ By tying thetointegratedprocesses,
experience business
collaboration deliver a richer experience.
Employees’ frustration at not being
the employee’s life any easier.
(Remember the initial resistance
able to find the right information, or to CRM tools among salespeople?)
disparate channels evolve from separate having to use multiple applications When enterprises focus on the
applications into a single user experience.
” or methods to do so, will decrease.
At the same time, the accuracy
of the information they get will
process without accommodating
the employee, adoption will lag.
If the usefulness isn’t obvious,
increase thanks to better context and businesses will never see any ROI.

47


In the short term, job-centric sometimes inaccurate, estimates of
enablement will tie communication productivity boosts that enterprises
and collaboration to specific must render today.
activities in order to increase their
velocity and efficiency and make Collaboration channels that are
employees’ jobs easier. Done right, more process-specific will also lead
this will both entice and delight to more easily measurable benefits,
employees, spurring adoption and which in turn can be analyzed and
productivity gains for the most vital optimized. Such channels also create
tasks within a company. an opportunity to make data-driven
decisions about user productivity,
We recommend the following derive specific productivity gains In the long term, rising adoption informing both individual and
adoption model. Stop thinking within specific tasks. In one example feeds enterprise productivity. workforce performance assessments.
about yesterday’s siloed from a Salesforce.com customer, Leadership can have better insight
collaboration channels that relied the vice president of IT at Enterasys into teams, groups, processes, and For example, it may be hard to
on ad hoc usage and general logged into Chatter and noticed ultimately the entire enterprise’s measure the value of giving
productivity gains. Start with a that a salesperson was targeting a activities. The potential is a virtuous technical-support agents the
targeted, user-centric model that lower-level prospect at a company circle in which individual activities ability to chat through text or
supports specific work activities; where the VP of IT employee knew become more efficient, thus video directly with higher-tier
think about how you would develop the CIO. The VP connected the two, triggering overall gains across the support staff. But by tying the
iv
such an application if you were and the salesperson closed the deal. enterprise. By moving from ad hoc to collaboration tools directly to the
rolling it out to customers rather business-centric usage, enterprises trouble-ticket process, you can more
than employees—that is, make it as This requires looking at two goals: can better instrument and measure easily measure its effectiveness.
enticing and easy to use as possible. one short-term, the other how collaboration helps people do Comparing rates of ticket closures
Drive more job-specific usage and long-term. their jobs, as opposed to the general, with and without the use of chat

48


sessions, companies can see whether this new paradigm, employees will partner with the business, taking a Enterprises will also need to begin
there’s an improvement that ties be collaborating with objects too. business-centric view and actively looking at ways to automate sharing.
directly back to cost savings. Once understanding the business Employees are willing to be more
the process is instrumented and First, collaboration becomes a processes. The technologies must transparent, but taking the time
quantified, an enterprise can use the partnership between the business work for the process, rather than to share information at each step
data to reconsider how it can further and IT. Currently, it sits squarely the other way around. There may of a process can quickly become a
optimize the dissemination of under the purview of the CIO, who still be separate channels for burden, especially when information
such calls. supports the channels. While IT search, knowledge management, must be distributed among
will still own the channels, how and workflow, but IT should work large groups.
employees collaborate will be the to either minimize fragmented
Instilling a purview of the business, use within the enterprise or figure But sharing is not limited to
collaborative culture driven by the needs of the out how to deploy them as part people; social metaphors can also
business processes. of a highly flexible collaboration be applied to objects. For example,
Embedding collaboration requires a platform. the new GEnx jet engine—currently
cultural shift within the enterprise As part of this cultural shift, IT’s
to change the way it looks at role will change. It must provide
both its workers and its business
processes. It involves new ways
a flexible platform that will allow
the business to integrate the
“ Because the line of business, one-size-
within each
requirements will differ
of thinking about issues within collaboration channels it needs
and beyond technology, including into the applications it uses. fits-all collaboration tools will no longer
new roles and responsibilities, for suffice. IT must partner with the business,
IT, for business leaders, and for Because the requirements will taking a business-centric view and actively
employees across the enterprise. It differ within each line of business,
understanding the business processes.
will also redefine who—and now,
what—people collaborate with. In
one-size-fits-all collaboration
tools will no longer suffice. IT must ”
49


Your 100-day plan a component of Boeing’s new and find the right answers to their
787 Dreamliner—has the ability to questions directly within the context
In 100 days, redefine your collaboration strategy; prior- provide newsfeeds to which service of their work, they’ll quickly become
itize based on business process enablement. teams can subscribe. Allowing the smarter, more responsive, and more
engine itself to automatically share productive. It will be clear who’s
its status allows service teams to participating and contributing, just
• Catalog the tools that are currently being used more easily maintain it, reducing as it is on social-media sites today,
(supported and unsupported) to collaborate across the cost and increasing its lifespan. “The and it will be easy for employees to
organization. idea of connecting a machine to a reach out for information.
social network is really exciting,”
• Determine a set of quantifiable business metrics says GE’s CMO, Beth Comstock. But that’s just the start of what’s
to measure the success of your collaboration services “Social will help us deliver a better possible. As part of the broader
architecture. engine than ever before.” v movement to consolidate siloed IT
capabilities into business processes,
• Identify and prioritize business processes where increased we expect to see deeper and more
productivity through collaboration will drive the most widespread convergence of search
value. What collaboration and knowledge-management
will look like soon activities that complement
• Deploy collaboration to the highest-priority processes to collaboration: effectively funneling
create demand for additional deployments. The new face of collaboration will and filtering large amounts of
show up first as social interactions information to employees. The
• Review and implement preliminary incentives for are integrated into business underlying challenge is to create
behaviors, evaluations, and personal metrics to processes. When employees are able a user experience that will help
encourage collaboration. to chat, share information, identify employees get the information
specialists, get recommendations, they need when they need it. The

50


collaboration platform will capture processes actually work—and they’ll This time next year
insights, allowing employees to be able to make them even more
search an enterprise’s collective efficient going forward. In 365 days, implement your new strategy to weave the
knowledge from within the platform. collaboration platform into the highest-priority business
processes.
Accenture believes that enterprises
• Update your strategy with best practices established in
that take advantage of converged
“early adopter” industries.
collaboration have an opportunity to
see significant productivity gains. By • Use lessons learned from current implementations and
enabling employees to work smarter, industry best practices to build your collaboration
they are more aware of important services architecture.
context for their decisions and
• Establish a cross-functional team to design and evaluate
actions. Workers will be more likely to
user experiences of the collaboration services
identify problems sooner, reliably find
architecture.
the fixes they need, and share the
solutions with the right people. • Leverage IT and the business to embed collaboration
services into a prioritized list of business processes.
Further, we expect to see a network
• Measure the business impact of your initial deployments
effect in which increasingly
to drive demand among other business units.
collaborative employees create
increasingly productive organizations.
As enterprises quantify their
collaboration efforts, they will reveal
a more complete picture of how
their employees and their business

51


Software-Defined Networking
Virtualization’s last mile

52

Trend 5. Software-Defined Networking Accenture Technology Vision 2013

Software-Defined Networking

With virtualization investments already paying off in servers and starting to pay off in storage, businesses
must turn their attention to virtualizing the network in order to extend the life of their infrastructure and
reap the full value of their virtualization investments. Like other virtualization technologies, software-
defined networking (SDN) has the ability to radically change the flexibility with which businesses and IT
operate. You may think of networking as a low-level technology, but this aspect of it has the ability to
transform enterprises. With SDN, businesses can finally realize the vision of a dynamic enterprise.

Businesses have invested a lot there’s been no easy way to make it
in all phases of virtualization. dynamic—until now.
Those investments were certainly
worthwhile, but they have focused When enterprises unlock agility in
primarily on reducing costs. The their data center network using
virtualization effort has resulted in what’s known as software-defined
more efficient infrastructures, but networking (SDN), they have the
it has not contributed to helping potential to create a dynamic
the business become more dynamic enterprise. In a dynamic enterprise,
or more agile. The network, the businesses can deploy new projects
foundation of the data center and quickly and determine just as quickly
the enterprise, has remained an whether they are successful or not.
untapped opportunity because Enterprises are halfway toward this

53


goal of agility—they currently use is a key technology for delivering
virtualization to spin up servers and flexibility and agility—a vital
storage without having to procure component in differentiating the
more hardware, and then spin them company. In a world that demands
down again when projects end or fail constant change, SDN enables IT to
to meet expectations. unleash the power of virtualization
and makes it easier to move to
SDN involves decoupling hardware the cloud. Put simply, SDN makes
from software for a higher degree it easier for enterprises to handle
of flexibility. By uncoupling the change, and change is an imperative
hardware, SDN essentially eliminates for a digital business.
the need for applications to more while spending less in the data and streamlines the overall
understand the internal workings center. Server virtualization spurs application deployment process.
of the routers and switches
Virtualization off to consolidation; reduces the associated
that connect multiple networks. a good start costs of hardware, space, power, and On a grander scale, virtualization
Software, not hardware, creates the cooling; and increases the ability to lets businesses take advantage of
connections that stitch together To better understand the potential of run applications anywhere. It helps cloud computing, SaaS, and IaaS
multiple networks. Suddenly, SDN, let’s step back and look at the improve availability and reliability, by opportunities—that is, the ability
companies can reconfigure virtues of virtualization for the data making both disaster recovery and to move processes and services to
the connectivity of systems center. Virtualization has been a boon business continuity more flexible than virtualized cloud environments. For
without changing their physical to businesses and governments; for ever before. Done well, it helps reduce instance, consider the ability of a
characteristics. example, the U.S. government saves the business’s dependence on new retailer to easily add computing
nearly 20 percent of its annual IT hardware (and alleviates associated capacity to its e-commerce system
This is a radical new way of looking budget through virtualization.i procurement and installation delays), starting on Black Friday and
at the network. To the business, SDN These savings enable businesses to do lets IT automate server provisioning, continuing through the holiday

54


“
more agile—is still missing. That between them are still static and
The software-defined network, missing piece is the dynamic network. brittle. SDN frees applications from
combined with existing virtual having to maintain knowledge of the
infrastructure, is a radical step toward changing network. While businesses
have derived much flexibility from
enterprise flexibility. Unleashing the full
” potential of dynamic
virtualization, SDN helps them handle
the increasing complexity of moving
networks parts in a dynamic data center.

Enter SDN. The software-defined What comes of decoupling the
network, combined with existing control of the network from the
shopping season, or the ability of is decoupled from specific storage virtual infrastructure, is a radical step physical network? Remember the
a company to use Amazon EC2 or devices and protocols, it is easier to toward enterprise flexibility. savings that server virtualization
Microsoft Azure to run a pilot project access and manage. And desktop brought? Instead of having to
without actually procuring servers virtualization has made the dream of Until recently, the network has procure and install a server and
internally. Whether used for long- centralized management come true, withstood the onslaught of then deploy the applications on it,
term offloading of processes or short- while still delivering the functionality virtualization (the unrelated concept a technician (or another reasonably
term computing needs, virtualization that users demand. of virtualized local area networks experienced person taking advantage
brings an unprecedented level notwithstanding). Having virtualized of self-service provisioning) spun
of flexibility. Businesses have deployed many all the disparate pieces of the data up a new virtual machine and the
forms of virtualization, and most of center, the remaining task is to application was available. Now,
Storage virtualization, with offerings those deployments have been widely make the connections between multiply that simplicity across an
from VMware, NetApp, and others, is successful. But crucially, enterprises them dynamically configurable. entire network. At eBay, according
knocking down the barriers between are still locked down by the network. The data center’s resources may be to JC Martin, who oversees the data
computing and storage. Once data The one benefit they seek—becoming dynamic, but the communications center infrastructure for eBay’s

55


marketplace businesses, “We’re SDN is the last step in making the accommodates ongoing flexibility. networks simplify the connectivity
allowing our people to create virtual promise of the cloud and network Its benefits are tangible. One of the aspect of these configuration
environments much like they used to interoperability come to fruition. hardest aspects of IT is connecting changes. By eliminating the need to
create complete physical networking the flow of external data across reconfigure the physical network,
environments—except they can do it disparate networks depending on SDN delivers a new zenith of
in minutes.” ii SDN: the zenith of business needs. (How many mergers network interoperability.
interoperability have failed because of the inability to
But SDN encompasses more than just integrate IT systems?) It makes a variety of capabilities
the ability to program and manage Enterprises have already begun more accessible to more enterprises.
data center networking activities. It to pay attention to what SDN can Reconfiguring the network is Consider the scenario of deploying
enables the wholesale abstraction deliver. IDC estimated in December complex, time-consuming, and labor- a SaaS-based CRM system. Using
of the network layer, in order to 2012 that the worldwide SDN market intensive because it requires focusing SaaS, or public cloud technology,
take advantage of any network would grow from $360 million in on dedicated network hardware, makes it easy to get the system up
infrastructure. This encompasses not 2013 to $3.7 billion by 2016. iii such as routers and switches. By and running quickly; to be truly
just the private cloud in the data moving beyond the hardware into useful, though, the system must still
center but also the ability to move SDN provides the foundation for software, in which changes can connect to other internal systems. To
data into hybrid cloud deployments. the dynamic enterprise because it be programmed easily, dynamic link inventory to customers, it must

“ By eliminating newneed to of network interoperability.
SDN delivers a
the
zenith
reconfigure the physical network,

”
56


“ The rigiditythe the network takes its toll, becauseevery link of
you touch
of
network, you have to ensure that
every time

connectivity works properly.
”
connect to your ERP’s inventory the data and services properly, and every time you want to deploy a startups have recognized the value
system. To grasp what customers are then test to make sure that they new service, upgrade an old system, of SDN and are offering options. In
saying about your product, it must work on the upgraded system. Here, improve a workflow, enhance an addition to opening up access to the
connect to social-media applications. too, the rigidity of the network takes operation—essentially, anytime you software capabilities in its existing
All this connectivity involves its toll, because every time you touch want to employ innovation to gain products, Cisco Systems purchased
reconfiguring the network so that the network, you have to ensure an advantage. It’s hard enough SDN startup Cariden at the end of
the data flows appropriately. SDN that every link of connectivity works outmaneuvering the competition 2012 for $141 million and funded
provides the foundation for cloud properly. It doesn’t even have to be without diminishing your capabilities. “spin-in” company Insiemi, created
flexibility—changes associated with a question of application renewal— Software-defined networking by several Cisco engineers, earlier
swapping out one cloud provider for every time you want to fire up a instead unleashes those capabilities. in the year with a $100 million
another are more easily isolated. new cloud application, you have investment. Meanwhile, VMware
to connect it to your data center, entered the market by purchasing
The challenge continues when any whether for backup or data sharing The SDN landscape Nicira for $1.26 billion as part of its
of these applications has to be or simply creating a hybrid cloud. overall virtualization strategy. Nicira’s
upgraded. It isn’t as easy as turning Who will lead you to the agility founders created the open-source
on new hardware and powering Without updating your network, you’re of SDN? Not surprisingly, both OpenFlow network protocol, a key
down the old. You have to migrate throwing up your own roadblock traditional networking providers and part of many SDN efforts.

57


for building cloud services. According Soon, companies may be able to take

“ Network virtualization all the waynetwork
in the software realm,
creates a
down
to eBay executives, the company
also uses the two technologies to let
advantage of this fast ramp-up of
networks even before they invest
workers create virtual networks for in SDN themselves. Cloud services
to virtual switches and routers. This frees running internal applications. eBay’s provider Rackspace, a competitor to
applications from the need to understand the OpenStack cloud is still limited—a Amazon, is starting to use Nicira-
few thousand machines supporting based virtual networking services
internal intricacies of the physical network.
” a couple hundred projects—but it is
designed to provide a template for
with clients that seek to set up
cloud-based networks quickly
v
As frequently happens with infrastructure changes. Which path how the company will roll out the and efficiently.
emergent technology, companies is better? That’s for companies capabilities more broadly in
generate different approaches; in themselves to determine. The result the future.iv Nicira is not alone by any means.
the case of SDN, some tout “network will be similar to other technology Other startups, such as ADARA
programmability,” while others battles in the past: both will offer SDN allows eBay to be innovative Networks, Big Switch Networks,
promote “network virtualization.” value and viability, and they will faster. Not only can eBay’s developers ConteXtream, Embrane, Plexxi, and
What’s the difference? Network coexist depending on circumstances create and test new network-based Vello Systems, are hanging their
virtualization creates a network in (think Java versus Microsoft’s .NET in products and services faster, but eBay hopes on the OpenFlow protocol.
the software realm, all the way down application development). can deploy those services faster. Many established network providers
to virtual switches and routers. This have aligned their capabilities to
frees applications from the need to One early adopter of SDN is eBay, An added benefit: because SDN OpenFlow as well, while still offering
understand the internal intricacies which is currently using a solution allows for better utilization of current proprietary APIs.
of the physical network. Network from Nicira inside the data centers resources, companies can save
programmability involves centralizing serving its online marketplaces. money on new hardware and energy Other early adopters are starting
control of the routers and switches eBay uses Nicira in conjunction with costs (for more on this capability, see to come forward, too. Although
in order to reconfigure them as OpenStack, an open-source platform the section on network optimization). Big Switch Networks lists Fidelity

58


Investments and Goldman Sachs as moves notoriously slowly. That’s why
customers, neither is saying just how the market is seeing fragmentation
extensively it’s using the technology. to date. No single player or
The ability to move money fast approach meets the traditional data
and make transactions faster has center’s needs for SDN. Companies
always enticed the financial services should prepare for an extensive
industry, which can increase revenue consolidation and acquisition cycle
through faster trades. The industry over the next 12 to 18 months.
also depends on high reliability from
its networks. The ability to make
their networks more efficient makes
them strong contenders for SDN’s What enterprises can According to Technology Business Although SDN ushers in the
capabilities. expect from SDN Research’s Scott Dennehy, “Customer foundation for a highly dynamic
adoption of SDN will happen quicker enterprise, it’s important to note
Picking the winners in this market Lest it sound too good to be true, at the SMB level, as these customersthat a high degree of dynamism is
is still anyone’s guess. Established SDN is complex because of all that will be attracted to SDN’s promise anathema to most businesses. They
vendors are facing the typical it touches. It requires tools and of networks that are cheap, easy to don’t want things dynamic—they
vi
challenge of how to embrace a new frameworks that are still developing. deploy and simple to maintain.” want them stable. Change too often
technology without cannibalizing The interim alternative of doing it equates to something breaking.
their existing products. New yourself is time-consuming and As with server virtualization, SMBs Nobody—not the business and
companies relying on open-source expensive. There’s a difference will lead the way not only in the not IT—wants that. This transition
advances face a different challenge: between virtualizing your data search for agility but also from an proves once again that sometimes
how do you provide value while center and virtualizing your entire incredible focus on affordability. the hardest challenge in technology
waiting for that industry standard network. But on the former scale, the Watching which technologies benefit is not changing the systems but
to gel? The standardization process benefits are too tangible to ignore. SMBs never hurts enterprises. changing the people that run them.

59


But for both enterprises and SMBs, Your 100-day plan
this is an opportunity to take the
advantages and cost savings they’ve In 100 days, create an SDN mandate that frames value
derived from server and storage to the business and the impact on IT.
virtualization and apply them to the
data center. Consider the savings
from network hardware investments, • Assign a champion responsible for SDN trends and
management, and upgrades. technologies.

Best of all, agility comes along for • Build an initial understanding of the state of SDN.
the ride. More than ever before, SDN
will deliver the responsiveness that • Establish a “test kitchen” environment and begin to bring
businesses have been demanding SDN technologies in-house for evaluation.
from IT for years—the ability to
respond quickly, be proactive in
integration, and help ratchet up
competitive advantage. With SDN,
companies demanding innovation
from IT and their business units will
now have a foundation to build
upon, one that allows them to try
new projects with less risk, and
respond faster to those that promise
beneficial outcomes.

60


This time next year
In 365 days, create an SDN strategy defining the busi-
ness case and the implementation approach.

• Prioritize the areas where SDN will have the largest
business impact.

• Create a road map for the SDN deployment plan.

• Prepare the aggregate SDN business case that combines
benefits from network agility and cost savings from
network optimization.

• Assess IT organizational skill with respect to SDN and
train or recruit to fill the gaps.

• Develop a network transformation plan to embed SDN
into the corporate architecture.

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Sidebar: Network Optimization

Beyond the flexibility that SDN Google has used OpenFlow data centers to redirect traffic to wholesale hands-on maintenance
provides to the enterprise data technology to boost utilization other, less-utilized data centers of the infrastructure, as well as the
center are its benefits for the on its internal network. Currently, in different time zones. It is also ability to unlock latent value in
network as a whole. It isn’t for the most companies get only 30 to looking at SDN to solve another your network.
faint of heart—no true optimization 40 percent utilization of their current problem: the need to
solutions currently exist, so for networks, but thanks to the filter content based on parental SDN has the ability, beyond building
now companies will need to build programmability of SDN, Google controls. Currently, Verizon must more resilient systems, to help
their own solutions. But consider executives anticipate that soon send all traffic through a network create more automated systems.
the advantages that businesses they will approach 100 percent filtering device whether it needs Setting up a network is still mostly
could derive from highly optimized utilization of the company network.ii to be filtered or not. With SDN, it a manual task, one that involves
deployments of data. These include Like driving up server utilization in would be able to route content that change every time the business
specialized routing for specific the data center, more effective use needed to be filtered for specific requests something new, from
content, such as video for special of the network will unlock huge customers (for example, parents SaaS to upgrades. By introducing
events—stockholders’ meetings, cost savings. Imagine doubling the with underage children) through programmability into the equation,
say, or product announcements. amount of available bandwidth— a different data center, offloading SDN brings more and costs less.
IP Infusion is using SDN-based doubling the pipe—without other networks and creating more Few technologies can offer that.
iii
networking gear from Broadcom doubling your infrastructure. throughput efficiency.
along with OpenFlow technology to
improve the quality of service for Verizon anticipates using SDN If those scenarios aren’t enticing,
i
mobile video applications. to relieve loads on individual consider the ability to replace

62


Active Defense
Adapting cyberdefenses to the threat

63

Trend 6. Active Defense Accenture Technology Vision 2013

Active Defense
Despite an increasing focus on securing the digital business, IT departments struggle to keep pace with
recent advances in security technology. Enterprises know that endpoint security is not enough, but the
move to active defense—risk-based approaches to security management, analytics-driven event detection,
and reflex-like incident response—isn’t yet happening on a broad scale. Although these technologies are
maturing rapidly and communities are forming to expose risks, the biggest barrier is slow adoption of
solutions that already exist. IT’s core challenge: get current with best practices in security while getting
smarter about the new active-defense possibilities and getting real about the journey ahead.

Just because your car passes its defense activated? Check. Password
emissions test each year doesn’t update routines in place? Check.
mean you’re doing great things to Employees’ smartphones shut down
slow global warming. Nor are you remotely in case of theft? Check.
immune to burglary just because you Payment Card Industry Audit with
put timers on the lights in your home only minor findings? Check. Clearly,
before you leave for vacation. it feels good to know that everything
appears to be taken care of. But
It’s much the same story with the truth is that when it comes to
organizations that are content to data security, cybersecurity, network
work down their security checklists security—just about any kind of
at regular intervals. Perimeter corporate information

64


security—many enterprises can do blunt today’s attacks and plug the for a connected world have been simply can’t evolve fast enough to
much more to address the risks that many entry points that highly skilled brought online, opening up further keep pace. Essentially, enterprises’
their organizations face. attackers can now exploit. weak points. i default mode is perimeter protection
when it should be proactive probing,
The burden does not rest solely on The information security landscape Yet while some alert enterprises and isolationism when it should
the IT department’s shoulders. The has become an intimidating and are striving to stay abreast of be integration.
risks incurred are business risks—the confusing place. Things are harder to new advances in security, many
harm to intellectual capital when keep in order: the IT attack surface others—too many—are now further Enterprises must shift their thinking
sensitive data is compromised, the keeps expanding across more devices, behind than they were a year ago. and begin to expect that 3 a.m. call
operational risk when business is more systems, more people, more Compliance has become the comfort about a security breach. As a matter
disrupted, the reputation risk when partners, and broader infrastructure. zone, but the security “model” of urgency, they have to close the
personally identifiable consumer Extensions to the enterprise—think based on adherence to standards is widening gap between their practices
information is stolen, and of cloud and mobility—have created flawed—largely as a consequence and current best practices—they need
course the increasing likelihood of new places for hackers to probe. of rapid innovation in IT. Standards to undertake regular actions such
hefty penalties when data security Threat levels are increasing as
regulations are violated. None of sophisticated, targeted forms of
these risks goes away unless business
leaders assume responsibility for IT
cybercrime emerge. Governments
and organized crime groups are on “ Compliance has become the comforton
zone, but the security ‘model’ based
security too. the lists of hackers, while hacktivists
and lone wolves are becoming adherence to standards is flawed—largely
Although most companies certainly more dangerous because they are as a consequence of rapid innovation in IT.
have invested substantially in IT benefiting from the established
Standards simply can’t evolve fast enough
security, they are still not taking full tactics and techniques of these
to keep pace.
advantage of the maturing tools
and services now available to help
organized groups. And legacy
systems that were never designed ”
65


as deploying reflex-like responses Managing the risks that advanced persistent threats of what’s known about the breaches
to security threats in their midst when attackers do (APTs) have already penetrated your that are occurring. In doing so, IT
and leveraging analytics to create a organization, often avoiding your groups and their business colleagues
second line of defense around data
get through perimeter altogether. Few enterprises shift from compliance to action;
and services. And on top of that, In the past, IT has architected are truly ready to deal with that specifically, they put the emphasis
their IT leaders need to keep eyes everything around the idea of alarming reality. on managing risk, matching their
and ears open for the next round keeping the bad guys out. Today, responses to the magnitude of
of advancements, the better to help though, optimal IT security is not To minimize the damage when the risks posed to the business.
their organizations prepare more about complete prevention; it’s attackers have penetrated, IT groups Essentially, they are able to think like
creative and more agile responses about recognizing that attackers will must find out how, where, and when the enemy at all times.
and to get more insight into get through. In fact, it’s no longer they did so. That means that IT’s
attack profiles. just a matter of discovering that security professionals, working hand The keys to mastering risk and
someone is trying to penetrate your in glove with the relevant business figuring out the big security
firewall; it’s about acknowledging staff, must design and deploy picture for your enterprise are
processes and systems that allow in understanding the businesses
them to expect and monitor security processes and the strategic assets
compromises in the first place and that you’re trying to protect. (If
react to them before the attackers you can’t figure out what should
can begin to wreak havoc. be happening, it’s hard to say
when someone is doing something
This calls for new levels of “wrong.”) A manufacturer, for
awareness—keeping abreast of the instance, might instrument and
state of play of threat actors in protect the specifications for a
general—and for new ways to act on critical engineering component in
what is being learned in the context order to detect access anomalies

66


“ Leading organizations will understand the
business consequences of inevitable data
immediate shutdown of one portion
of a network coupled with active
monitoring, which, if it detects
data to visualization of behaviors and
anomalies.

leaks and respond proportionally; they get that the threat is large or moving To better understand their risks and
fast, shuts down other parts of the to detect attacks, leading security
the idea that different levels of attacks
network. Of course, determining the organizations will turn increasingly
require different speed, scale, and types of business consequences isn’t easy; the to data platform technologies—
responses.
”
organizations that succeed at it know technologies that provide access to
that their security organizations and and aggregation of data via services.
and to require greater levels of threats immediately. For instance, the business must work together to If they are building the system
authentication in the event of in the case of the manufacturer assess and prioritize the risk. themselves, IT groups are very likely
unusual access—say, an employee mentioned earlier, the system might to use Hadoop or Splunk; otherwise,
who is supposed to be on automatically lock the engineering they may turn to a solution such as
vacation who is downloading database for a period of time and Putting in place NetWitness, which is designed to
complete specifications. also alert the security team. a second line of provide enterprises with a precise
and actionable understanding of
Automation can play a big role here. It’s important to restate that leading
defense everything happening on
Ideally, IT should be able to deploy organizations will understand To cope with these new higher-order their networks.
security solutions and architectures the business consequences of security challenges, IT leaders must
that will, like human reflexes, respond inevitable data leaks and respond develop a second line of defense The data platform, and
instinctively to the growing speed, proportionally; they get the idea that by leveraging new data platform accompanying analytical approaches,
scale, and variety of attacks. The different levels of attacks require concepts to design, implement, and allows security to handle large
increasing attack surface supports different speed, scale, and types of run systems that shift the security volumes of fast-changing data—
the case for automated capabilities responses. A cascade of responses emphasis from monitoring to orders of magnitude greater in scale
that detect, assess, and respond to might, for example, involve the understanding; from collection of than traditional log analysis. It will

67


also make it easier to harness new signed into your computer really are starting to push conventional Fingerprinting your
forms of data from the unstructured is you. In another instance, a data security boundaries. Unsurprisingly, enemies…
world, opening up fresh opportunities platform might assist in making real- over the last 12 months many of
for security analysis. These platforms time decisions about who is allowed the emerging security techniques New technology developments are
will help organizations acquire a access to a patient’s electronic have revolved around data, albeit making it easier to identify who’s
new understanding of their risk medical record, based on the patient’s in markedly different ways than attacking you. Essentially, they enable
landscapes, explore their data in history of care. conventional security approaches. security professionals to get closer
new ways, and create more timely Some of the focus is shifting from and closer to potential attackers “in
detection and responses to improve studying your systems to studying the wild”—helping them identify their
the confidence of the business. The sharp edge of the people using them—that is, tactics, techniques, and procedures
the latest security getting to know your intended users earlier and track down signs of
In one example, DARPA’s Active thinking and your hackers alike. Even more compromised security before damage
Authentication program is exploring interestingly, some new systems can be done.
new ways to authenticate users It would be wonderful if these are geared to keeping hackers from
through their “cognitive footprint.” ii kinds of security approaches were knowing you.
Gathering and analyzing large being practiced regularly today by
amounts of data on your user IT departments in every industry. IT
behavior creates a picture of the departments in many organizations
ways you use your computer—the have made big strides in a lot of
ways you move your mouse or the areas, as we noted in Accenture’s
language you use in documents, Technology Vision 2012. But
for instance. Eventually, cognitive there is much more to be done. IT
footprint software will help your leaders need to continue looking
organization’s security systems to ahead, familiarizing themselves
determine that the person who with security technologies that

68


Similarly, enterprise architectures whether they are smartphones,
are evolving rapidly to include much tablets, or laptop computers—the
more capable identity and access Nok Nok Labs technology enables
management (I&AM) systems.
Authentication and authorization
companies to recognize these strong
authentication capabilities and to
“Authenticationbecoming increasingly
technology is
and authorization
technology is becoming increasingly leverage them to deliver a more
adaptive, context-aware, and risk based.
adaptive, context-aware, and risk-
based. More and more of the I&AM
secure experience appropriate to the
risk of the transaction or the identity ”
systems are being strengthened with of the user.
analytics tools that work increasingly
with growing sets of data— Today’s usage patterns can also help
unstructured as well as structured. build smart profiles of users and business trip to India. Or a customer existing compromised systems while
And risk profiles are being their computing habits. The idea is service representative with access to providing counterintelligence and
used more and more as “trust that authentication is now less a customer records might be prompted recommendations to help prevent
anchors” for sensitive transactions, simple “are you who you say you for additional authorization if she future targeted attacks. Through
based on behavioral and are”—based on a simple password, suddenly attempts a bulk download hunting operations, including host-
environmental context. say—and more a way of establishing of the whole database. based detection, threat-specific
when “authorized access” is out of network analysis, and victim threat
Nok Nok Labs, the new venture character relative to a user’s normal At the same time, a new battlefront profiling, the services identify
from PGP cofounder Phillip behavior. For instance, a Texas-based is opening up in the field of adversaries and find out what they
Dunkelberger, is a good example engineer who regularly accesses hacker identification. Security are after.
of a company helping to simplify important design data for a product specialists such as CrowdStrike are
strong authentication.iii Because the might be asked for an additional developing powerful capabilities in Other providers, such as
machines that surround us use are level of authentication when he “enterprise adversary assessment.”iv Mykonos Software, specialize in
delivered with security embedded— tries to access that data while on a CrowdStrike’s services help reveal “fingerprinting” hackers’ equipment

69


to identify the machine delivering appropriate response to thwart the …and making it experience at the same time—a win
a script intended to hack a website. attack. For instance, after detecting easier for users to do for everyone. v
Mykonos’s tools can also create a a potential attack, the system might
profile of the attacker; that profile prompt for higher authentication
the right thing Research has demonstrated that
can then be shared within an in the middle of a session to thwart At the same time, there is growing system design can greatly influence
industry or within a community of IT a machine-based attack, while acceptance of the idea that a user’s ability to make appropriate
security professionals. To our earlier throttling bandwidth to the system better usability can be a powerful security decisions. At the Georgia
point about proportional responses: to reduce impact on other resources. mechanism for increasing security Institute of Technology, researchers
fingerprinting in this way allows the This kind of approach would not be effectiveness—consider a biometric have studied two persistent
defender to get a better sense of the too costly in terms of unnecessary reader checking your fingerprint problems: user authentication and
actual threat—who is attacking us system shutdowns, say, but it would versus having to remember a e-mail encryption.vi They described
and what they are after—and then be enough to raise the bar for complex password. By specifically two successful design cases that
to properly evaluate it in terms of its the attacker. designing for security, an enterprise made it easy for users to achieve
risk to the business and mount an can increase compliance with their desired security goals, and two
security protocols by making it easier flawed ones that made it difficult for

“ By specifically designingcompliance with
enterprise can increase
for security, an for users to do the right thing than
to create a clever workaround. The
even very motivated users to
operate securely.
key is to understand how people
security protocols by making it easier for want to use the system and what Guidelines for more usable security
users to do the right thing than to create a they’re trying to accomplish. One already exist—Georgia Tech
example: security experts at Schiphol researchers draw on prior work from
clever workaround. The key is to understand Airport in Amsterdam have designed influential scientist Ka-Ping Yee. The
how people want to use the system and ways to deploy baggage-screening guidelines include factors such as the
what they’re trying to accomplish.
”
technologies to upgrade security following: the path of least resistance
while improving the customer (matching the most comfortable

70


way to perform tasks with the to make). Collectively, these factors objectives of making it more difficult, Misinformation and misdirection
least granting of authority), active help designers focus on making it more expensive, and less profitable systems hold some of the greatest
authorization (meaning the granting easy for users to do the right thing to do their work. (Think of it as the promise. Allure Security Technology
of authority to others in accordance most of the time. cyber equivalent of a safebox that’s is one start-up that is developing
with user actions indicating consent), full of nothing but costume jewelry, decoy documents to defend against
revocability (offering the user ways Fooling enemies perhaps, or stacks of fake $50 bills data loss, essentially fronting bogus
to reduce others’ authority to access
more of the time... in a folder in an office bureau, files that may cause damage to the
that user’s resources), identifiability for instance.) The systems being systems of the hacker trying to get at
(presenting objects and actions In parallel, there is intense developed range from technologies them. The real kicker: as these tools
using distinguishable, truthful activity—and plenty of venture- that signal to the intruder that he is become commonplace, they force
appearances), and foresight (that is, capital funding—going into “active being tracked to others that deceive attackers to consider the possibility
indicating clearly the consequences defense”; that is, into systems that him with electronic “pollution”— that the files are bogus, and thus
of decisions that the user is expected actually engage the enemy with the cyber smokescreens, if you like. to question whether an intrusion
attempt is worthwhile.vii
It’s important to point out that
the emerging developments owe Another software provider—
a lot to the momentum seen in DataSoft—has created what it
several foundation technologies. calls its Network Obfuscation and
More granular and more flexible Virtualized Anti-Reconnaissance
levels of system control are possible System (Nova)—a tool developed to
because of rapid progress with detect network-based reconnaissance
software-defined networking (SDN) efforts and to deny the attacker
and because of the advances in access to real network data while
virtualization across the IT landscape. providing false information regarding
the number and types of systems

71


connected to the network.viii Nova Web Intrusion Prevention System as a way to compartmentalize risks reconnaissance. Another provider,
is designed to spoof network data inserts instrumentation into a Web by setting up virtual environments, Invincea, relies on virtualization
to attackers, thus revealing their application to create an invisible making it much more difficult for to secure your network against
intentions. Its autonomous agents minefield throughout. The honey attackers to “see” the contours of employee mistakes by protecting the
x
combine lightweight virtualization, pots allow you to detect attackers what they’re trying to access. Putting employee from all untrusted content.
attacker classification, dynamic while they’re still snooping but it in IT security terms, virtualization Invincea’s technology is all about
rerouting for asset protection, and before they begin to do damage. gives the organization more control containment: it takes the most highly
an array of mechanisms for sending Attackers are detected when they over, and more agility in, how it targeted applications in your network
false information to attackers. manipulate the honey pot parts of responds to attacks. (the browser, PDF reader, Office suite,
the application. So, because attackers zip files, executables) and seamlessly
Such “honey pots” lure attackers to are manipulating code that has The Nova system referred to earlier contains them in a virtualized
what appear to be more promising nothing to do with your website uses large arrays of virtual machines environment. Every time the browser
targets. The core ideas have been or Web application, you know with to detect and prevent hostile is opened, or any time an attachment
around for at least a decade, but the absolute certainty that an attack
underlying technologies are pushing is in progress.
these approaches further, spurred by
the proliferation of security threats
in general.ix …and preventing “ Think of sandboxing as abyway to up
compartmentalize risks setting
them from knowing
One example: besides developing you in the first place virtual environments, making it much more
tools that can “fingerprint” difficult for attackers to ‘see’ the contours
attackers, Mykonos Software “Sandboxing” is another technique
of what they’re trying to access.
has developed deceptive honey
pots to detect attackers without
that is gaining a lot more attention,
thanks largely to developments in
”
generating false positives. Its virtualization. Think of sandboxing

72


comes from outside the network, infrastructure is denied. In one recent
Invincea creates a segregated
environment for these applications to
operate. That way, Invincea contains
experiment, Bromium’s technology
almost immediately reduced an
attack surface from 1 million lines of
“ There is noshould be waiting for. There
IT leaders
‘silver bullet’ technology that

all malware—whether zero-day codes to about 10,000 lines. xi never will be. No one tool, no matter how
or known—and prevents it from
capable, can handle the scope, scale, and
attacking the host OS as a pathway The next natural step is toward
for breach and lateral movement in what are being called moving target complexity of the information security
challenges of today and tomorrow.
your network. defenses (MTDs)—systems that
continuously blur the lines between
At the same time, Bromium, another what is real and what is virtual. The
”
xii
security software start-up, is applying driver behind MTD is that static be redirected in many different IT stack. JumpSoft uses MTD at the
what it calls “micro-virtualization” environments enable adversaries misleading directions. MTD is still application layer in order to disguise
to secure desktops, allowing to plan and execute attacks over in its earliest stages, but we predict and deflect threats to the OS and
untrustworthy desktop tasks to time. Essentially, MTD is a nonstop that it will gather momentum rapidly, network layer as well as at the
safely coexist with trusted enterprise version of musical chairs; as soon as especially as it converges with new hardware and system layer.
applications and data. The technology your systems are truly virtualized, developments in SDN.
uses hardware-level isolation to stop they can be set to change all the
even “undetectable” attacks without time. It is not simply a question of There’s at least one example of Don’t wait for the
disrupting the user. It automatically,
instantly, and invisibly hardware-
randomizing passwords; it’s about
randomizing all the connections. That
MTD in action, although it’s early
days yet. The technology provided
silver bullet
isolates each vulnerable Windows way, hackers can no longer simply by JumpSoft, an MTD specialist, is There is no “silver bullet” technology
task so that Windows cannot be hack in and wait for vulnerabilities designed to respond to disruptions that IT leaders should be waiting
modified and so that unauthorized to appear in users’ regular patterns. to applications themselves and to for. There never will be. No one tool,
access to enterprise data or network More interesting still: hackers can any of the preceding layers in the no matter how capable, can handle

73


Putting a plan into
“
entirely unlikely that some of
IT must build up a concentration of force in IT your organization’s business action
security capabilities, but the security burden leaders, burned by information
has to be shared by the organization’s data security breaches, might make It is also vital to have the specialty
rash decisions—a knee-jerk skills to be able to mount effective
professionals, by its traditional developers response, perhaps—to isolate parts defenses. A challenge for many
(remembering the need for user experiences of the organization in ways that IT leaders is that such specialists
that are designed for security), and by more could be detrimental to business are in short supply, partly because
effectiveness. The IT teams must many are being hired by the security
and more categories of business users.
” anticipate and prepare answers for
such a scenario.
software vendors. So it is incumbent
on every IT leader to budget for
the scope, scale, and complexity of migrated to the CEO’s priority list; finding, competing for, hiring,
the information security challenges aside from the obvious business At the same time, IT leaders need and retaining the new breed of IT
of today and tomorrow. The real risks of having substandard security to take a lesson from the world of security professionals.
advantage lies in successfully systems, the fact is that many more prudent investment by developing
integrating solutions and business users are increasingly able portfolio-based approaches to Of course, the skills issue extends
approaches—calling for a holistic to compromise security, knowingly security—approaches that minimize far beyond the IT security staff’s
security architecture—and ensuring or not. Yet they are also ideally the risks to the business by enabling cubicles. Yes, IT must build up a
that the architecture remains flexible placed to improve it by collaborating responses to all kinds of attacks concentration of force in IT security
enough to deal with the continual with IT to protect the business. in all sorts of circumstances. The capabilities, but the security
flux in security requirements. fundamental emphasis must be on burden has to be shared by the
There are many reasons to expand fully understanding their risk profiles organization’s data professionals,
Integration must extend in another and enrich the security dialog and the type of integrated picture by its traditional developers
direction too—between IT and the between IT and the business that can help them better manage (remembering the need for user
business. Information security has side. Just one aspect: it’s not those risks. experiences that are designed for

74


security), and by more and more
categories of business users.

There should be no doubt about
what actions need to be taken to
bring data security up to par. Many
organizations are already pushing
hard in many appropriate ways; they
are working overtime to catch up
with best practices while proactively
exploring the newest information
security techniques. Indeed, it’s
not unrealistic to expect that some
IT groups will deploy honey pots
or sandboxing or other emerging
methods sooner rather than later,
especially to protect their most
valuable data or services.

The bigger question is whether
current efforts are enough. That
is the core question that CEOs
and their top teams should not be
leaving to their IT leaders alone.

75


Your 100-day plan This time next year
In 100 days, solidify security on the C-level agenda and define the plan to In 365 days, start addressing the weakest security links.
close the gaps in your security strategy.

• Work with heads of business to align security strategy with business strategy • People continue to be the softest target. Update your
and update your enterprise threat assessment. strategy for how malicious or unintentional misuse can
be compartmentalized and contained.
• Reassess the organization’s reliability needs for critical business IT systems,
• Test and confirm responses to security breaches including
processes, and assets.
the effectiveness of community involvement.

• Determine how security can support them. • Implement your second line of defense—begin
experimenting and prototyping platforms and
• Develop or revise your security architecture roadmap—include ideas regarding technologies for security analytics.
your second line of defense.
• Identify where techniques such as sandboxing,
misinformation, and MTD could better address your first
• Evaluate your threat scenarios to identify missing perspectives that would line of defense.
improve your security effectiveness.
• Identify the skills necessary to stay abreast of emerging
• Identify the industry sharing communities where you want to participate and security processes and technologies.
generate and share valuable insights.
• Engage with your chief counsel and chief risk officer on
risk tolerances and the evolving threat landscape.
• Evaluate your ability to respond to new insights or security events.

• Determine whether, with perfect information, you could act on these insights.

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Beyond The Cloud
The value lies in putting the cloud to work

77

Trend 7. Beyond the Cloud Accenture Technology Vision 2013

Beyond the Cloud
No vision would be complete without commenting on the cloud. However, cloud computing is no longer
an emerging trend. The on-demand, elastic technology needs to be considered in all decisions made today;
the key question is not “should we use cloud?” but “how can we use cloud?” More than that: cloud isn’t a
single concept. Its individual elements—from IaaS to SaaS to PaaS, from public to private—are as distinct
and different from one another as the opportunities for enterprises to use them. So the real “trend” is a
shift in focus to the next phase: putting cloud to work and crafting an overarching approach that weaves
cloud capabilities into the fabric of the enterprise—with business value uppermost in mind.

There are far more followers than of private cloud versus public cloud
pioneers when it comes to adoption without delving into who manages
of emerging technologies. That’s one what data where, who’s responsible
of the findings in Accenture’s latest for security, how cloud deployments
High Performance IT study, and it’s affect network infrastructure, and
a truth that is borne out in what we more. Cloud computing doesn’t get
see in many enterprises’ hesitant its name just because it’s something
i
approaches to cloud computing. with wispy edges that you can’t
touch. It’s called cloud because it’s
It’s easy to see why so many IT big, and no matter what progress
leaders hold back. It’s daunting you’ve made with it so far, there’s so
enough to determine the vagaries much more cloudscape to traverse.

78


Leading organizations already sense thinking about the cloud as a single
that they’re still only at the beginning concept. It’s time to start realizing
of what they can do with cloud—and cloud’s transformational impact
what it can do for them. across the business.

Lest there be any doubt that the Enterprises must view cloud as
cloud has arrived, it has been 14 an overarching approach that
years since Salesforce.com was considers the value of PaaS, IaaS,
founded, and 5 years since it topped SaaS, and several other as-a-service
1 million subscribers. Likewise, technologies, and helps determine
finance and HR cloud-services how they can best become a part of
company Workday was founded in IT’s current toolbox. The technology
2005. In 2006, Amazon Web Services is here, so the conversations should
began offering IT IaaS; it has since now turn to how these tools can be Let’s be clear: the opportunity is to The cloud
begun offering PaaS. Software giants used to differentiate a company’s use cloud technologies to enable
opportunity
such as Microsoft, Oracle, and SAP business, helping it get to market your business. As an integral part
have made significant progress in faster and respond more flexibly of your IT strategy, cloud can make Accenture estimates that by 2016,
cloud-enabling their applications. to opportunities and obstacles. By your business more responsive, enterprises will devote 14 percent of
Cloud has been so successful, in fact, harnessing cloud skillfully, companies more flexible, more scalable—more their overall IT product and services
that while many everything-as-a- can enter whole new businesses or competitive. But the point should not spending to cloud, up from 5 percent
service (XaaS) start-ups are already launch new products in short order. be cloud itself—instead, it is how you in 2011. More importantly, by that
old enough to shave (metaphorically VELUX Group, for instance, was able embed cloud in your business that same time, 46 percent of their new
speaking), even newer ones regularly to launch a new product campaign will differentiate you. spending will be on cloud-enabled
present enterprises with innovative in just three weeks—from start to technologies.iii The implementation
ii
opportunities. It’s time to stop finish—using Microsoft Azure. stories support the data: leading

79


enterprises are approaching new Despite all the attention to cloud, cloud adoption in the enterprise. Of consumers with partners, social
system architectures with a “cloud- the expanse of cloud opportunities large enterprises, 43 percent are at recommendations, and other high-
first” mentality—that is, looking remains largely underdeveloped. least piloting public SaaS with nearly quality content. Just 18 weeks after
at what can be achieved with the Accenture’s latest research shows half of those (19 percent of total) the Tripdiscover project began,
different flavors of cloud rather where the biggest gaps lie: more having committed a large percentage Deutsche Telekom had in place a fully
iv
than reflexively considering in- than one-third of large enterprises of their business to it. deployed, flexible, real-time scalable
house development or off-the-shelf have yet to implement any cloud system intended to inspire and excite
solutions. The implicit message for technology, public or private, in their Accenture expects areas that have its users with a new type of online
companies that have focused on one infrastructure. For platform cloud lagged, such as IaaS and PaaS, travel-booking experience.v
area of the cloud to date: consider technologies, that percentage jumps to accelerate in the next three to
the potential payoffs from other to one-half. The encouraging part: five years. Continuing innovation But among the growing ranks of
cloud technologies. applications. SaaS continues to lead and investment will drive further companies investigating a wider
improvements in areas important array of cloud technologies, a
to the enterprise, such as cost and farsighted subset is looking for more
security. As a result, IaaS growth will sizable benefits from their efforts.
pick up and PaaS is likely to become They understand that every time

“ Despite all the attention to cloud, the primary application development
and replatforming approach for the
they master one element of cloud
computing, it’s easier to see the
the expanse of cloud opportunities enterprise. It’s hard to ignore the cost potential of another one. Despite

”
savings, flexibility, and faster time to inconsistent rates of adoption across
remains largely underdeveloped. market that PaaS offers. Deutsche layers of the stack and in some
Telekom opted for Google’s PaaS verticals, cloud services have become
offering, Google App Engine, as drivers for many other technology
the basis for Tripdiscover.de—a new changes—for social media, for instance,
type of travel portal that connects and for at least part of the rising

80


popularity of today’s data analytics of all of cloud’s elements? Imagine, cloud deployments, supported by or legacy mainframe applications.
activities. Case in point: BMW Latin for instance, the viability of a retailer maturing technology, have increased When EMC turned to Salesforce.
America used Microsoft Azure to drive that can successfully use the cloud enterprises’ confidence that cloud, in com for an update to its CRM
a social-marketing campaign for to hire extra e-commerce capacity many shapes and forms, can create systems, it was far from a standalone
the launch of two new model lines.vi for the five weeks at year-end, and value. Today’s cloud projects, even in deployment. The company integrated
Another snapshot: Shell is relying on then bring all the customer and a private cloud environment, now are the SaaS solution with Oracle
Amazon’s cloud to pilot its use of transaction data back to its internal less about simple SaaS configuration E-Business Suite, its own custom
vii
Hadoop for new analytics work. system in January. The ability to and more about the complex campaign-management tool, and
rapidly build capabilities to capture integration required to weave new its e-mail infrastructure in order to
more of the available demand gives SaaS systems into the existing IT handle financial, operational, and
Getting a handle on the retailer potent advantages. fabric—into and around ERP systems communication information.viii
the hybrid cloud
The hybrid cloud means different
Given the growing number of things to different people. Whether
mature cloud-computing options, it means mixing forms of clouds or
enterprises have tough decisions integrating cloud with existing IT, the
to make about cloud in the real real challenge is a new flavor of the
world. Can they deploy different perennial one: how will you handle
forms of cloud at the same time, the complexities of service and data
and, if so, how? What’s the potential integration across systems?
for mixing on-premise and off-
premise IT, or for integrating cloud When enterprises first began to
with legacy systems and traditional rely on the cloud, many cloud
software, in order to create hybrid systems were siloed applications.
capabilities that combine the best Since then, the surging numbers of

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For the foreseeable future, traditional valuable talent will be the architect opportunities. When an enterprise relegated to a limited role as a
software systems will continue to who understands the functions and has one or two cloud-dependent management function that keeps
play a crucial role in the overall IT roles of all the pieces and who knows applications integrated with the technology in check, meaning that
landscape. Recognition that the how they all work together. legacy systems in its portfolio, an those organizations have missed
hybrid world of cloud and traditional ad hoc approach can still work. valuable opportunities to use cloud
IT must coexist has important Just as important, the governance However, even if the number of to substantially transform
implications for how an enterprise of the solutions becomes key. The those applications simply doubles, their processes.
prepares for the future. In many technology organization now needs it suddenly becomes crucial to
enterprises today, skills are separate to design and operate a mosaic of properly broker those connections Whenever the business undertakes
and isolated—a Microsoft Azure team best-in-class capabilities so that and relationships. An architect needs a new project—a business process
here and a SAP team there. A hybrid the business can take advantage not only the ability to patch together change or an investment to enter
world demands hybrid skills; the most of the capabilities to create new the mosaic of services but also an a new business, for instance—it is
understanding of the changing important to inject the art of the
implications of the cloud on supplier possible into those early decisions
and vendor management. and discussions. “Cloud thinking”

“ A hybrid worldtalent willhybrid skills; the
most valuable
demands
be the architect
The enterprise architecture of
tomorrow—e.g., data, integration,
can help bring out the project’s true
potential by asking new questions:
Can we consume this as a service?
who understands the functions and roles of monitoring, security—will look very Can we sell this as a service? How
different from its forebear of just would we monetize it? If we can
all the pieces and who knows how they all
a few years ago. To be successful, scale on a moment’s notice, what
work together.
” enterprises need to fundamentally
revise their notions of enterprise
possibilities does that bring? The goal
of using cloud has to be business
architecture; for many, enterprise value; cost reduction is a byproduct,
architecture has already been not the answer.

82


Choosing the right However, this is not to say that public never move their ERP/finance system internal processes. The new cloud-
cloud cloud is now universally applicable. (64 percent) or any core industry- based solution, completed in just
IT leaders continue to wonder what specific application (59 percent) to nine months, simplified operations,
The last question, then, is this: systems will work best in the cloud. the public cloud—and that may be accelerated applications, and reduced
public or private cloud? What’s most What’s clear is that there is no prudent of them.ix In the near term, risk—allowing the copper company to
important to note—and what keeps tipping point beyond which public the vast majority of Fortune 500 focus on its overarching
cloud deployment rates on the timid cloud technologies become the companies will host “in the cloud,” objective: growth.x
side—is that there’s no one right default for all IT systems. In fact, it’s but they’ll also maintain tight control
answer. Many IT leaders shy away unlikely that companies will move of their mission-critical systems As cloud technologies have matured,
from public cloud SaaS options, their core systems to a public cloud through private cloud solutions. the decisions about when to use
even those that are financially and service anytime soon. For instance, public cloud services have become
logistically viable. the majority of respondents to Here’s one example of where the more nuanced—and more important.
Accenture’s research felt they would leading implementers are going. Although today’s public cloud
Following a major acquisition, decisions may be all-or-nothing
Freeport-McMoRan, the world’s propositions, over time, applications
largest publicly traded copper will be partitioned differently, and

“ As cloud technologies have when
matured, the decisions about
company, launched an extensive
ERP transformation initiative using
a private cloud architecture. The
IT groups will adopt more granular
ways to split applications (even
inside tiers). For instance, it won’t be
to use public cloud services have company’s existing infrastructure a question of where the complete
and ERP environment were inhibiting customer database resides; it will
become more nuanced.
” its ability to grow at a critical time,
when Freeport was revising its
be a matter of deciding what data
belongs where (based on source,
operating model to harness emerging scale, cost, and accessibility) and how
technologies and streamline its the services that operate on it can

83


and should be integrated. In short, Enterprises are just starting their
it’s about the emergence of a cloud journey. Although the “safe”
highly flexible, services-based
data layer.
option may appear to be private
cloud, we expect more and more
“ The proof that an organization is
headed in the right direction is that the
organizations to start relying on
Eventually, business leaders will more public options for some
term ‘cloud’ will start to fade out of the
conversation.
stop asking questions like, “is the
cloud secure enough for storing my
customers’ personally identifiable
business units or geographies.
Wireless semiconductor maker
Qualcomm took this approach
”
information?” Their actual behaviors in rolling out a public cloud ERP
hint at the ambivalence behind such (NetSuite) to certain subsidiaries
questions: 77 percent of enterprises while maintaining its traditional ERP why enterprises must prepare for a maturity of the tools available and
say they will never place sensitive xii
system (Oracle) at the corporate level. hybrid world. the value they can generate today.
customer information in the public
cloud, yet CRM is one of the hottest Over time, then, enterprises will have The proof that an organization is
SaaS areas.xi The question will give built up enough success stories about Moving beyond the headed in the right direction is that
way to compromise: businesses will public cloud deployments, and will
cloud the term “cloud” will start to fade
out of the conversation. Instead, its
figure out how to take customer have captured enough value from
data—without identification—and them, that they will be confident IT leaders, and to an increasing extent use will be described in ways that
partition, protect, and integrate enough for public cloud to become their business colleagues, now need relate to its business value. Perhaps
it as appropriate, on the basis of their “go-to” option whenever public to move “beyond the cloud.” The the CIO will touch on her reliance
technology capability, security cloud alternatives exist. Few CIOs will discussions that continue to make on on-demand services to socially
standards, and their users’ own be able to match the economies of headlines are already obsolete topics enable the enterprise, but there
comfort levels. scale that public cloud providers can when reviewed in the context of the won’t be explicit discussion about
deliver—which is one more reason those services—much less any special

84


mention of “cloud”—unless the CIO’s Your 100-day plan
audience requests it.
In 100 days, agree on a cloud strategy that emphasizes
Put simply, every organization can cloud as an enabler of business growth.
use cloud now to support its other
technologies and to bolster its
business processes. Cloud is entirely • Inventory current cloud deployments across the
good enough to help organizations enterprise—public and private, IaaS and PaaS and SaaS,
achieve much of what they need to diversity of cloud vendors, and so on—in order to build
achieve—and it has the potential to awareness among leadership.
deliver much more in the years
to come. • Look at the external marketplace for representative/peer
cloud success stories to broaden understanding of the art
of the possible.

• Identify and prioritize opportunities to implement
services in the cloud within your existing IT road map,
particularly in near-term application modernization—
challenge yourself to think “cloud first.”

• Evaluate the cloud knowledge/skills of your enterprise
architects and develop updated training plans as
necessary to prepare them to lead the rest of the IT
organization forward.

85


This time next year
In 365 days, execute your cloud strategy; implement
it piece by piece as your company buys, builds, and
connects to its next generation of IT services.

• Create decision criteria for cloud selection and readiness
evaluations.

• Update your cloud strategy to create company standards
for procuring and managing cloud services. Extend your
operations architecture and services catalog to include
private and public cloud services.

• Integrate cloud into your other technology road maps—
use cloud to enable social, mobile, or analytics. All your
approaches need to be cloud-ready.

• Update your enterprise architecture in preparation
for partitioning of data and services across hybrid cloud
deployments. Create an architectural review process to
evaluate new IT projects for cloud usage.

• Develop cloud skills aligned to your chosen platforms
through recruiting or training and embed these skills in
your project teams.

• Actively govern your use of cloud—continuously evaluate
cloud usage and providers against your plan and
standards.
86

Conclusion Accenture Technology Vision 2013

How will your digital business take shape?

When U.S. president John F. Kennedy a grand challenge of their own: increasingly software-driven world. their grand challenges if they expect
gave his famous “man on the moon” relentless and rapid changes In every company, IT will have to their organizations to outcompete
speech to the U.S. Congress in in the digital landscape that become a strategic competency throughout the decade to come.
1961, he did not try to disguise the continue to reshape the business woven through the enterprise—in
scale of the challenge. “No single environment around them. The fact particular, the ability to derive Hark back to when Kennedy pointed
space project in this period will be that companies need to quickly insights from an increasingly to the specter of the Soviets’ Sputnik
more impressive to mankind, or adapt is well known, but often the quantified world and leverage the satellite to show that the United
more important for the long-range direct and obvious impetus to change arsenal of constantly emerging States did not have the luxury of
exploration of space,” he declared. is absent. software advancements will power time in the space race. With as
Kennedy’s grand challenge set an efforts to optimize, grow, much conviction and vigor, business
objective that invoked competition Accenture believes that business and innovate. leaders must cite the volatility and
and fired imaginations, even though leaders must now set out uncertainty of global business to
the goal seemed so far out of strategic challenges that become To be effective, the challenge has frame their own grand challenges.
reach. More importantly, though, it the drivers for change for their to have an imperative. Kennedy The technology trends described
also served as the catalyst to drive organizations. The ways in which called for setting a man on the in this report will become the
innovation to keep the United States those organizations recognize surface of the moon and returning approaches that help transform
from being left behind. and realize their challenges will be him safely before the end of that those challenges into reality.
unique, but the digital challenge decade. We propose that by the
While the scale may be different, they all share will be to reimagine end of your next planning cycle, The groundwork for such
enterprises find themselves facing themselves in the context of an business chiefs should have issued declarations lies in recognizing

87


the reach of technology in each address business’s challenges and top executive team as its members so they grasp the implications and
organization today. Every company opportunities and the capabilities consider what it means to have possibilities of technology—from
is, to some extent, becoming of many organizations to utilize technology become an essential part designing for analytics and digitally
“software-centric”—not in terms of those technologies. The faster that of how they grow their business. managing customer relationships
the product or service it sells or the technology develops, the more that They will need to be role models to shifting to active defense models
industry it belongs to, but in terms gulf widens. The gulf has to start themselves for the changes required of Internet security. The necessary
of the impact that software, in all its closing. The technologies that until before they can expect their business follow-on will be to design and
manifestations, has on the company’s recently were considered cutting managers and IT managers to begin implement cross-functional ways of
fortunes. Yet there is a widening gap edge—from mobile to social, from working in tandem. working so that the retooling efforts
between the companies that embrace analytics to virtualization—are stick and the silos don’t reappear.
that reality and seek ways to benefit accessible and realizable today. The Assuming that the company’s
from it and those that continue to appropriate response now is to leaders can and will embrace the Another key action will be to infuse
see IT as nothing but support for the acknowledge that the technologies new mindset and demonstrate it in the whole organization with a
business. Software is an essential part are “good enough” and that the their actions as well as their words, culture that is driven by insight.
of every company and a potential immediate issue is to look inward one of the first actions toward This will call for new ways to think
disruptor in every business. to prepare the organization to work becoming a digital business will be about and act on data. For instance,
with them. to retool IT to equip its professionals both business and IT professionals
Furthermore, there is a growing to understand the business hurdles will need to develop a sixth sense
gulf between the technologies To start with, the challenge will call and opportunities and to do the for value in sources of information
that are increasingly available to for some soul searching within the same with business professionals previously out of reach or viewed as

88


irrelevant—social media and e-mails, Organizations must then prepare for That means rewarding for Of course it is. We all know the
for instance. And as we mention in a state of constant evolution. This collaboration, for innovation and results of Kennedy’s grand challenge:
this report, they will have to learn is where IT can step up to make the change, and for experimentation and Neil Armstrong became a household
to look for insights from data in all whole enterprise as agile as it can be, tolerance of failure. These measures name worldwide. And compelling
three of its dimensions: velocity as leveraging on-demand services (a.k.a. will involve a wholesale reframing examples can be found in the
well as variety and volume. The next “the cloud”), agile user-experience of IT’s purpose, from cost center to business world. General Motors has
part of the digital challenge will be to models, and data platforms and business driver. And they will extend reaffirmed its position as one of
quantify everything that moves, and taking a portfolio approach to deep into the development of human the top-selling auto manufacturers
plenty that doesn’t, cataloging what technology so that many small capital, identifying and helping to in the world, owing, in no small
is known and what the organization experiments are constantly in play implement new criteria for hiring, part, to its reinvention of itself as a
needs to know. That last part is really and those that prove to be winners retaining, and developing data-savvy leaner, greener, and more innovative
important: increasingly, organizations can scale up fast. business professionals as well as IT company. Big change is
will have to design their applications staff with very different skill sets and entirely possible.
to collect and report transactions, And then there are the issues of skills, aptitudes from their forebears.
activities, and logs. In short, capabilities, and incentives—no small Right now, it’s 1961 in the corporate
organizations need to have the right matters. The challenge has to include Such a grand challenge is no mean world—at least as far as technology’s
data, not just more data, if they specific measures to enable and feat. It represents a massive change proper role is concerned. That’s the
are to extract the insights that can motivate according to the behavior effort in its own right. So is it moon up there. Go for it.
accelerate their performance. and culture required. even feasible?

89

Research Methodology Accenture Technology Vision 2013

Research Methodology

Every year, the Technology Vision to read, converse, and help improve the technologies that already drive • Impact beyond any one industry
team at Accenture Technology the ideas as a whole. change—discrete categories such “silo”
Labs, with contributions from the as social networking, mobility, and
Accenture Research organization, These crowd-sourced ideas were “big data”—and concentrated on the • Ability to be more than a “one
pinpoints the emerging IT then screened against inputs from themes that will soon start to appear for one” replacement for an
developments that will have the several other sources, including on the C-level agendas of existing solution
greatest impact on companies, the recent activities of commercial most enterprises.
government agencies, and other R&D labs, the academic literature, • Practical actionability within the
organizations in the years ahead. the flow of venture capital funding, The Technology Vision team next 12 months
trends highlighted by IT analysts, and then worked with experts from
This year’s research effort began with key themes at industry conferences. throughout the company to • Transcendence of any one vendor
the collection of nearly 2,000 ideas, For perspective, we tapped consolidate, filter, and prioritize the or discrete “product” technology
trends, and technology hypotheses Accenture’s High Performance IT accumulated ideas and to test each
from the architects, engineers, and research and the findings from our idea against the following criteria: These tests produced a handful
scientists across Accenture who see annual CIO Forum. of robust hypotheses that were
the impact of technology changes • Certainty of transformational synthesized into the seven
every day in their work with clients. The ideas that bubbled to the top impact on enterprises overarching themes presented in this
Using a social platform to gather stood out for their relevance to year’s report.
the ideas and host the discussions, “real world” business challenges. • Velocity and scale of technology
participants went far beyond simply Specifically, the Technology Vision change
posting an idea; they took the time team sought ideas that transcend

90

End Notes Accenture Technology Vision 2013

End Notes
v “Burberry: Entrenched in the Digisphere,” Telegraph, November 24, 2012.
Introduction http://fashion.telegraph.co.uk/news-features/TMG9694181/Burberry-entrenched-in-the-
digisphere.html
i “Ford Looks to Hadoop, Innovative Analytics,” Datanami, July 6, 2012.
http://www.datanami.com/datanami/2012-07-06/ford_looks_to_hadoop_innovative_analytics.
vi “The Navigator: With Social Media, Airlines Have a New Kind of VIP,” Washington Post,
html
December 13, 2012.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-13/lifestyle/35813170_1_social-media-virgin-
Relationships at Scale america-customer-service

i “Shopper Alert: Price May Drop for You Alone,” New York Times, August 9, 2012. vii
“Case Study: Hijack by Meat Pack,” Creative Sandbox, December 11, 2011.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/10/business/supermarkets-try-customizing-prices-for- http://www.creativesandbox.com/case-study/meat-pack-hijack
shoppers.html

Sidebar: Gauging the Value of Trust
ii
“Sports Fans Online: Examining the Digital Element of the Total Fan Experience,” eMarketer,
July 2, 2012.
i “Borders to Sell Customer Data to Barnes & Noble Under Privacy Opt-Out Deal,” Bloomberg,
September 26, 2011.
iii
“Global Trust in Advertising and Brand Messages,” Nielsen, April 10, 2012.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-22/borders-intellectual-property-sale-delayed-by-
http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports-downloads/2012/global-trust-in-advertising-
privacy-issue-judge-says.html
and-brand-messages.html

“Privacy Policy May Sink B&N’s Purchase of Borders Name,” PaidContent, September 22, 2011.
iv
“Accenture Video-Over-Internet Consumer Survey 2012: Winning the Battle for Consumer http://paidcontent.org/2011/09/22/419-privacy-policy-may-sink-bns-purchase-of-borders-
Trust,” Accenture, April 12, 2012. name
http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-video-over-internet-consumer-survey-2012.
aspx

91


“Borders’s Sale of Personal Information Approved by Bankruptcy Court,” The Secure Times, iv
“M2M Cellular Connections to Hit 2.5 Billion by 2020,” Strategy Analytics, August 3, 2012.
September 29, 2011. http://www.strategyanalytics.com/default.aspx?mod=pressreleaseviewer&a0=5263
http://www.thesecuretimes.com/2011/09/borderss_sale_of_personal_info.php
v
“UPS Makes No Left Turns in Quest to Deliver Sustainability,” Bloomberg, September 20, 2012.
ii
“The Economic Value of Trust,” Outlook, Accenture, October 2003. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-20/ups-makes-no-left-turns-in-quest-to-deliver-
http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/technology.pdf sustainability-q-a.html

iii
“Facebook Director of Product Design Margaret Stewart on Users Deserving an ROI,” Fast vi
“Redline Communications Announces the Major Expansion of Its Network at a Shell Oil Joint
Company, November 26, 2012. Venture Oil Field,” Redline Communications, April 9, 2012.
http://www.fastcompany.com/3003153/facebook-director-product-design-margaret-stewart- http://www.rdlcom.com/en/about/news/archive/redline-news-2012/519-expand-shell-joint-
users-deserving-roi venture

“Digital Oilfields Special: Got Oman Covered,” Arabian Oil and Gas, September 12, 2012.
Design for Analytics http://www.arabianoilandgas.com/article/viewArticle/10610

vii “Ford Hybrid’s EV+ Feature Learns and Automatically Adjusts Powertrain to Deliver More
i Erik Brynjolfsson, Lorin M. Hitt, and Heekyung Helen Kim, “Strength in Numbers: How Does
Electric-Only Driving,” Ford, November 8, 2012.
Data-Driven Decisionmaking Affect Firm Performance?” April 22, 2011.
http://media.ford.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=37344
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1819486
viii “eBay Pushes More Personalized Shopping,” PC Magazine, October 10, 2012.
ii
“Netflix Analyzes A Lot of Data About Your Viewing Habits,” GigaOM, June 14, 2012.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2410811,00.asp
http://gigaom.com/2012/06/14/netflix-analyzes-a-lot-of-data-about-your-viewing-habits/

iii
ix Rethinking Analytics for the Social Enterprise,” Tapscott Group, September 2012.
“Knewton Is Building the World's Smartest Tutor,” Forbes, February 22, 2012.
http://dontapscott.com/wp-content/uploads/Rethinking-Analytics-for-the-Social-Enterprise-1.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2012/02/22/knewton-is-building-the-worlds-
pdf
smartest-tutor

92


Sidebar: Why the Business Now Needs to Care About APIs iv Ibid.

v
i “OnStar Gives Volt Owners What They Want: Their Data, in the Cloud,” Ars Technica, November “Time—The Next Source of Competitive Advantage,” Harvard Business Review, July-August

25, 2012. 1988.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/onstar-gives-volt-owners-what-they-
vi
“Predicts 2013: In-Memory Computing: Growing Gains, but Also Growing Pains,” Gartner,
want-their-data-in-the-cloud/
November 30, 2012.
ii “Bechtel: Improving Workforce Efficiency and Productivity through APIs,” Apigee, 2012. vii
“SAP Exec: HANA Customer Count Nears 600, Pricing Tweaks Coming,” Computerworld,
http://apigee.com/about/customers/bechtel-improving-workforce-efficiency-and-productivity-
September 5, 2012.
through-apis
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9230936/SAP_exec_HANA_customer_count_
nears_600_pricing_tweaks_coming

Data Velocity viii
“Early SAP HANA Adopters Describe Analytics Possibilities and Performance,” Data Informed,
May 15, 2012.
i “Walmart’s New Search Engine Increased Conversion Rates Says Its Global E-Commerce CTO,”
http://data-informed.com/early-sap-hana-adopters-describe-analytics-possibilities-and-
NextBigWhat, September 11, 2012.
performance/
http://www.nextbigwhat.com/walmart-search-engine-india-bangalore-297/

ix “GE Works: 2011 Annual Report,” General Electric, February 24, 2012.
ii “3D Data Management: Controlling Data Volume, Velocity, and Variety,” Meta Group (Gartner),
http://www.ge.com/ar2011
February 6, 2001.
http://blogs.gartner.com/doug-laney/files/2012/01/ad949-3D-Data-Management-Controlling-
Data-Volume-Velocity-and-Variety.pdf
iii “Why P&G CIO Is Quadrupling Analytics Expertise,” InformationWeek, February 16, 2012.
i
“Mobile and Social CRM,” Nucleus Research, March 2012.
http://www.informationweek.com/global-cio/interviews/why-pg-cio-is-quadrupling-analytics-
expe/232601003

93


ii “Finding Value in the Information Explosion,” MIT Sloan Management Review, June 19, 2012. iv “eBay Fires Up OpenStack Cloud with Nicira Network Virt,” The Register, August 8, 2012.
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/2012-summer/53409/finding-value-in-the- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/08/08/nicira_virty_network_ebay_openstack/
information-explosion/
v
"See the Future of Cloud Networking at Interop," Rackspace, October 3, 2012.
iii
“How Clearspire Used IT to Reinvent the Law Firm,” WSJ Blog – CIO Journal, April 9, 2012. http://www.rackspace.com/blog/see-the-future-of-cloud-networking-at-interop/
http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2012/04/09/how-clearspire-used-it-to-reinvent-the-law-firm
vi
“Software-Defined Networking: Loads of Potential, but It Will Not Cause Cisco’s Demise,”
iv “The Social Sales Revolution,” Salesforce.com, August 16, 2011. Technology Business Research, Inc., November 26, 2012.
http://www.slideshare.net/salesforce/the-social-sales-revolution

“Collaboration Helps GE Aviation Bring Its Best Inventions to Life,” Salesforce.com, 2012.
Sidebar: Network Optimization
v

http://www.salesforce.com/customers/stories/ge.jsp
i
“IP Infusion to Showcase OpenFlow/SDN for Mobile Video Applications on Broadcom
StrataXGS Switch Solution at Open Networking Summit 2012,” IP Infusion April 11, 2012.
Software-Defined Networking http://www.ipinfusion.com/about/press/ip-infusion-showcase-openflowsdn-mobile-video-
i “Government Virtualization Could Save More Than $30 Billion by 2015,” applications-broadcom-strataxgs-switch-sol

MeriTalk, January 30, 2012.
ii “Going With the Flow: Google’s Secret Switch to the Next Wave of Networking,”
http://www.meritalk.com/pdfs/virtualization-vacuum/MeriTalk_Virtualization_Vacuum_
Wired, April 17, 2012.
Release_013012.pdf
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/04/going-with-the-flow-google/all/
ii “eBay Goes Live with Virtual-Networking Maverick Nicira,” Wired, August 7, 2012. iii “Verizon’s Elby Outlines Software Defined Networking Plans,” TMCnet, May 18, 2012.
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/08/ebay-and-nicira/
http://www.tmcnet.com/topics/articles/2012/05/18/291031-verizons-elby-outlines-software-
iii “SDN Shakes Up the Status Quo in Datacenter Networking, IDC Says,” IDC, December 19, 2012. defined-networking-plans.htm

http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS23888012

94


Active Defense http://www.homelandsecurityresearch.com/2009/04/schiphol-airport-security-new-screening-
technologies-designed-to-improve-passenger-and-luggage-screening/
i
“Traditional Approaches to Information Security Are No Longer Sufficient,” Accenture,
November 23, 2011.
vi Bryan D. Payne, W. Keith Edwards, “A Brief Introduction to Usable Security,” IEEE Internet

http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/insight-security-traditional-approaches-information. Computing, May/June 2008.

aspx http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~keith/pubs/ieee-intro-usable-security.pdf

vii
“Decoy Documents May Soon Defend Against Data Loss,” eSecurity Planet, April 23, 2012.
“Critical Control System Vulnerabilities Demonstrated - And What to Do About Them,” SANS
http://www.esecurityplanet.com/network-security/decoy-documents-may-soon-defend-
Analyst Program, November 2011.
against-data-loss.html
http://www.sans.org/reading_room/analysts_program/nitro-critical-infrastructure.pdf
viii DataSoft website.
ii
DARPA Active Authentication Program.
http://www.datasoft.com/products/nova/index.htm
http://www.darpa.mil/Our_Work/I2O/Programs/Active_Authentication.aspx
ix Lance Spitzner, “The Honeynet Project: Trapping the Hackers,” IEEE Security and Privacy, March
iii
“PGP Corp. Co-founder’s Startup Targets Cloud Authentication,” Network World, November 26,
2003.
2012.
http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=859075
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2012/112612-dunkelberger-noknok-264526.html
x
Invincea website.
iv CrowdStrike website.
http://www.invincea.com/make-prevention-possible/detection/
http://www.crowdstrike.com/services.html
xi “Size Matters: Bromium 'Microvisor’ to Guard PCs for Big Biz,” The Register, September 19,
v
“Schiphol Airport Security—New Screening Technologies Designed to Improve Passenger and
2012.
Luggage Screening,” Homeland Security Research, April 2009.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/09/19/bromium_vsentry_security_launch/

95


xii “Next Gen Cyber Defense,” JumpSoft, February 11, 2012. vii “Shell Oil Targets Hybrid Cloud as Fix for Energy-Saving, Agile IT,” Computerworld, April 4,
http://www.jumpsoft.net/2012/02/11/next-gen-cyber-defense/ 2012.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9225827/Shell_Oil_targets_hybrid_cloud_as_fix_
for_energy_saving_agile_IT?taxonomyId=158&
Beyond the Cloud
viii “EMC Improves Customer Visibility with the Sales Cloud,” Salesforce.com.
i
Accenture High Performance IT Survey Round 4, Preliminary Findings (N=187), 2013. (Survey http://www.salesforce.com/showcase/stories/emc.jsp
demographics: 187 CIOs at global large enterprises.)
ix
Accenture High Performance IT Survey Round 4, Preliminary Findings (N=187), 2013. (Survey
ii
“VELUX: Cloud Microsite Delivered in Three Weeks Supports Product Campaign,” Accenture, demographics: 187 CIOs at global large enterprises.)
2012.
x
“Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold: Global ERP Implementation,” Accenture, 2011.
http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/success-velux-microsoft-windows-azure-platform.
http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/success-freeport-mcmoran-erp-implementation-
aspx
summary.aspx
iii Accenture analysis; IDC base IT spending data from “IDC Worldwide Black Book Query Tool,
xi Accenture High Performance IT Survey Round 4, Preliminary Findings (N=187), 2013. (Survey
Version 1, 2012,” May 2012.
iv Accenture High Performance IT Survey Round 4, Preliminary Findings (N=187), 2013. (Survey
xii “NetSuite Steps Up Large Enterprise Push: Lands Qualcomm, Groupon, Partners with
Accenture,” ZDNet, May 9, 2011.
v “Deutsche Telekom: Creating a Customer Portal Using PaaS,” Accenture, 2013. http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/netsuite-steps-up-large-enterprise-push-lands-qualcomm-
http://www.accenture.com/us-en/Pages/success-deutsche-telekom-customer-portal-paas.aspx groupon-partners-with-accenture/48496

vi “BMW Supports Model Launch, Develops Prospects with Cloud-Based Social Marketing,”
Microsoft, July 10, 2012.
http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/Windows-Azure/BMW-Latin-America/BMW-Supports-
Model-Launch-Develops-Prospects-with-Cloud-Based-Social-Marketing/710000001091

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Contacts Accenture Technology Vision 2013

Contacts

Paul Daugherty
Chief Technology Officer
paul.r.daugherty@accenture.com

Michael J. Biltz
Director, Accenture Technology Vision
michael.j.biltz@accenture.com

Scott W. Kurth
Director, Accenture Technology Vision
scott.kurth@accenture.com

For more information

www.accenture.com/technologyvision

97


About Accenture

Accenture is a global management consulting, technology services and outsourcing company, with
approximately 259,000 people serving clients in more than 120 countries. Combining unparalleled
experience, comprehensive capabilities across all industries and business functions, and extensive research
on the world’s most successful companies, Accenture collaborates with clients to help them become high-
performance businesses and governments. The company generated net revenues of US$27.9 billion for the
fiscal year ended Aug. 31, 2012. Its home page is www.accenture.com.

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