The Accenture Technology Vision 2016 identifies five technology trends fueled by the people first principle that are essential to business success in the digital economy.

1. People First:
The Primacy of People
in the Digital Age

2. People First:
Primacy of People
in the Digital Age
Every Business is
a Digital Business
Accenture Technology Vision: The Evolution
From Digitally
Disrupted to
Digital Disrupter
Digital Business
Era: Stretch
Your Boundaries
2013
2014
2015
2016
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3. Every year, the Technology Vision team partners
with Accenture Research to pinpoint the emerging
IT developments that will have the greatest impact
on companies, government agencies, and other
organizations in the next three to five years.
As technology advancements continue to
accelerate at an unprecedented rate -­ dramatically
disrupting the workforce -­ companies that equip
employees, partners and consumers with new
skills can fully capitalize on these innovations.
Those that do will have unmatched capabilities to
continuously create fresh ideas, develop cutting-­
edge products and services, and disrupt the
status quo.
Winners in the Digital Economy
Will Put People First
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4. Change is the new normal. According to our global technology survey of
more than 3,100 IT and business executives, 86 percent of the executives
anticipate that the pace of technology change will increase rapidly or at
an unprecedented rate in their industry over the next three years.
Many companies, already reeling from the impacts of technology and
the changes they need to make in response, find themselves temporarily
overwhelmed—some even paralyzed as they absorb the magnitude of
the tasks ahead.
Getting past the digital culture shock that so many businesses find
themselves in today sounds daunting. But fortunately there are models
already available for inspiration. Not only have many large tech
companies established thriving digital cultures, but there are also
early adopters in other industries showing the way ahead.
Digital Culture Shock
We are in the midst of a major technology revolution, specifically a digital revolution.
Our research model and analysis shows that digital is now dominating every sector of the economy.
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5. People First: The Primacy of People in the Digital Age
Intelligent
Automation
Liquid
Workforce
Platform
Economy
Predictable
Disruption
Digital
Trust
5
The Accenture Technology Vision 2016 identifies five technology trends fueled by the
people first principle and that are essential to business success in the digital economy.
Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved.

6. Technology Vision Evolution 2014–2016
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7. Trend 1
Intelligent
Automation
The essential new
co-­worker for the
digital age
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8. Intelligent automation is the launching
pad for new growth and innovation.
Powered by artificial intelligence, the
next wave of solutions will gather
unprecedented amounts of data from
disparate systems and—by weaving
systems, data and people together—
create solutions that fundamentally
change the organization, as well as
what it does and how it does it.
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9. Trend 2
Liquid
Workforce
Building
the workforce
for today’s
digital demands
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10. By exploiting technology to enable workforce
transformation, leading companies will create
highly adaptable and change-­ready enterprise
environments that are able to meet today’s
dynamic digital demands. This liquid workforce
competitive advantage is apparent as IT and
business executives surveyed report that “deep
expertise for the specialized task at hand” was only
the fifth most important characteristic they required
for employees to perform well in a digital work
environment – other qualities such as ‘the ability
to quickly learn’ or ‘shift gears’ were ranked higher.
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11. Trend 3
The Platform
Economy
Technology-­driven
business model
innovation from
the outside in
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12. Industry leaders are unleashing technology’s
power by developing platform-­based
business models and strategies to capture
new growth opportunities, ultimately driving
the most profound change in the global
macroeconomic environment since the
Industrial Revolution. This is reinforced by
81 percent of our survey respondents who
agree that platform-­based business models
will become part of their organization’s core
growth strategy within three years.
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13. Trend 4
Predictable
Disruption
Looking to digital
ecosystems
for the next
waves of change
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14. Fast-­emerging digital ecosystems are creating
the foundation for the next big wave of enterprise
disruptions by straddling markets and blurring
industry boundaries;; forward-­thinking leaders can
proactively predict these ecosystem trajectories
to gain a competitive advantage. Companies are
already significantly or moderately experiencing
ecosystem disruption, with 81 percent of survey
respondents indicating that they are seeing this
in their industry.
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15. Trend 5
Digital Trust
Strengthening
customer
relationships
through ethics
and security
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16. Trust is a cornerstone of the digital
economy, said 83 percent of survey
respondents. To gain the trust of
individuals, ecosystems and regulators
in this new landscape, businesses
must focus on digital ethics as a core
strategy;; better security, on its own,
won’t be enough.
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17. The research process began during 2015 with
gathering inputs from the Technology Vision
External Advisory Board, a group comprising more
than two dozen experienced individuals from the
public and private sectors, academia, venture
capital, and entrepreneurial companies. The
Technology Vision team conducted interviews with
technology luminaries and industry experts, as well
as with nearly 100 Accenture business leaders.
The team also tapped into the vast pool of
knowledge and innovative ideas from professionals
across Accenture, using Accenture’s collaboration
technologies and a crowdsourcing approach to run
an online contest to uncover the most interesting
emerging technology themes. More than 3,200
participants actively engaged in the contest,
contributing valuable ideas and voting
on others’ inputs.
Technology Vision Research Methodology
As a shortlist of themes emerged from the research
process, the Technology Vision team reconvened its
advisory board. The board’s workshop, involving a
series of ‘deep-­dive’ sessions with Accenture
leadership and external subject-­matter experts,
validated and further refined the themes.
The screens used during these processes weighed
the themes for their relevance to real-­world
business challenges.
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18. Copyright © 2016 Accenture. All rights reserved.
Technology Vision 2016 Survey Demographics
For the second year, we conducted a global survey of more than 3,100 business and IT executives
across 11 countries to understand their perspectives on the impact of technology on their organizations,
and to identity their priority technology investments over the next few years. The survey was fielded from
October through December 2015.
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Technology Vision 2016 Survey Demographics
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Technology Vision 2016 Survey Demographics
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