Technology Will Bring Business Elasticity, Says Accenture's Chief Scientist

Kishore Swaminathan, chief scientist at Accenture, No. 2 on last year's VARBusiness 500 list with $19.7 billion, envisions a series of major technology trends that will usher in an era of "flexible and elastic capabilities to stretch, change and expand at will."

For example, technology will allow workforces to break the limitations of a fixed group of people and skill, and will allow companies to bring in experts to solve specific problems or business needs. Also, corporate IT capabilities will be more dynamic and available from a number of geographies to suit local conditions, according to Swaminathan.

Accenture's chief scientist detailed four technology trends that will shape our world.

First, the Internet will become the locus of IT-based business capabilities. The advent of cloud computing "gives organizations the opportunity to create new best-of-breed applications uniquely suited for their needs," he said.

Second, communication, collaboration, communities and content will redefine how we work. Up until now, collaboration technologies have only been an extension of meeting rooms, Swaminathan said. The convergence and emergence of e-mail, messaging, VoIP, telepresence, blogs, RSS and more now enable companies to rethink their workforces, he said.

"This may include finding better ways to deploy experts across multiple projects, reduce the time wasted in daily commute, eliminate the wear and tear of employees and the cost of travel across time zones, cut back on workspace, avoid the stress of large-scale hirings and layoffs in times of great volatility, and augment R&D with outside experts," Swaminathan said in the statement.

Third, mobile devices will eventually dwarf PCs as the electronic channel for both businesses and consumers. Nearly four billion people now have mobile devices, according to Accenture. "In the developed world, they will augment the PCs as e-commerce and customer support channels, as we're already seeing them used for financial transactions and even as train tickets," Swaminathan said in the statement. "In the emerging world, they are likely to be the sole electronic channel."

Fourth, maturing technologies are extracting intelligence from data that will help users make more sound decisions, he said. Analytics and business intelligence applications will allow end users to access and manipulate live data to suit their unique job needs, as opposed to dependence on standard, outdated reports, according to Accenture. "Companies that have a comprehensive approach to data governance will have a decided advantage," he said.