Digital disruption will reshape industries, but very few are equipped to navigate the change, Accenture survey of Chief Strategy Officers (CSOs) revealed.
The Accenture Institute for High Performance surveyed 561 CSOs across 10 industries in 11 countries.
It found that while 93 percent agree that new technologies will rapidly change their industry in the next five years. At the same time, only 20 percent are well prepared for sudden industry disruption.
According to the study, those who feel most prepared are embracing new strategic alliances, devising more collaborative ways of operating with partners and making themselves indispensable within a broader ecosystem.
“Rapid and disruptive change is coming, regardless of the industry that you operate in,” said Paul Nunes, managing director, Accenture Institute for High Performance.
“Current economic outlook suggests that based on the declining lifespan of companies, 75 percent of today’s leading industry players will be gone within the next decade.”
“Our research shows that although some companies aren’t ready for this disruption, they can borrow from the playbook of those who are by ensuring they don’t face it alone and make strategic investments in technology platforms that support more collaborative operating models,” Nunes stated.
Further, the study found that companies that are better prepared for industry disruption are much more engaged in growing and broadening their ecosystem partnerships.
Almost 95 percent CSOs surveyed say that their company growth agendas over the next five years rely on collaborative partnerships.
Peter Lacy, managing director, Accenture Strategy is of the view that it’s time for companies to rethink their approach to business strategy.
“In order to successfully navigate industry convergence and strengthen their network of alliances to build truly collaborative operating models, they must shift their mindset to compete as a ‘cluster,’ not as a single company, creating shared value for their alliance partners and customers,” Lacy adds.
A significant majority, 88 percent, of CSOs who claim to be very well prepared for industry disruption have already begun investing heavily in platform-based business models and will continue to do so into the future.
Also on Tuesday, a Gemalto survey found that organizations have embraced the cloud with its benefits of cost and flexibility, but they are not adopting appropriate governance and security measures to protect sensitive data in the cloud.
However, confidence in knowing all cloud computing services in use is increasing. 55 percent of respondents are confident that the IT organization knows all cloud computing applications, platform or infrastructure services in use, a 9 percent increase from 2014.
