Accenture Business Futures 2021 Report Identifies the Signals to Guide Companies Navigating Change

 A new report from Accenture shows that while 88% of companies finally have a clear picture of the challenges they face today, only 6% are completely confident in their current abilities to foresee and respond to future disruption. Business Futures 2021 aims to help leaders make sense of a new reality by identifying the Signals of business change that are reshaping organisations globally and will be critically important for leaders to understand in order to drive success today and beyond.  

“The compressed timeframe for action in the face of last year’s disruption drove a greater sense of urgency as well as opportunity for organisations to increase their agility, explore new business models and build new capabilities that boost resilience,” said Annette Rippert, group chief executive, Accenture Strategy & Consulting. “Our inaugural Business Futures report serves as an essential radar to help leaders navigate through the Signals of business change with confidence, to not just see, but also seize, their best future.” 

“I would encourage Irish business leaders to review the signals because they highlight the totality of the change ahead and can help them make sense of – and respond to – the disruption happening everywhere,” said Hilary O’Meara, managing director, Strategy & Consulting at Accenture in Ireland. “One big takeaway is that the ‘future’ window is much shorter than we’re used to – it’s up to three years, rather than the previous five- or ten-year investment outlook.  These signals stand out as significant catalysts to the future success of organisations and offer an opportunity to further drive change instigated or accelerated by the pandemic.” ?  

Longstanding trends like the increased importance of experiences, greater adoption of cloud, and changes in buying patterns, have all been interrupted, accelerated, or reversed due to the pandemic. At the same time, new supply chains and business models were set up in days not months, and the promise of new scientific breakthroughs emphatically realised in months not years. When coupled with profound, structural changes following more than a year of turbulence, a business environment ripe for reinvention emerged, with a strong desire to look deeper into the future to better map the trajectory and impact of change.   

Six Signals to prepare for the future of business  

Starting with an expansive list of 400 crowdsourced trends, Accenture teamed with external advisors, academics, and researchers to narrow down the list to 25 Signals of business change. While all 25 Signals were shown to mature and have their greatest impact on organisations within the next three years, six Signals stood out as being essential to the future success of organisations, presenting opportunities and incentives for leaders to embrace change and find new ways to grow, starting today: ?  

1) Learning from the Future – See change before it happens  

As organisations fundamentally rethink ways of doing business that deliver growth, focusing on historical data to inform the future has been challenged. To make decisions faster, many organisations are now capturing new data sets and using analytics and artificial intelligence to spot, respond to and target changing market and consumption shifts. The report finds that 77% of organisations have increased their use of both internal and external sources of real-time data over the past 12 months, yet only 38% reported that people across their organisation consistently use real-time data in their day-to-day work. Moreover, only 36% of businesses said they have a C-suite member accountable for these efforts, and fewer than half (43%) have sufficient skills within their workforce to support this capability.   ?  

2) Pushed to the Edge – Decentralise decision-making  

The global crisis has made markets much more fragmented, and distinct regions are emerging with their own governance systems, economic models, and cultural norms. At the same time, consumer behaviours are changing fast, with new competitors catering to evolving needs. Businesses are responding by pushing decision-making authority to people at the edges of their organisations, creating a networked structure of teams that can act with speed and agility. When businesses empower their “edges” to make most day-to-day operational decisions, they free up their headquarters to focus on key strategic decisions. The report found that 91% of organisations are willing and able to operate more like a broad federation of enterprises to respond to increasingly fragmented business environments, and more than half (58%) say their business model will change over the next year.   ?  

3) Sustainable Purpose – Move from purpose-focused to purpose-run  

Organisations recognise the need to have a purpose that benefits all their stakeholders, but a growing gap between intentions and results emerged. The purpose paradox demonstrates the challenges faced in building sustainability into the fabric of their operations and delivering on commitments made for the benefit of all their stakeholders. The report found that 28% of executives say that they are not personally committed to delivering value for all stakeholders, and nearly half (48%) of organisations report that one of the biggest barriers is balancing their commercial interests. However, there are signs that the tide has begun to turn toward safeguarding sustainability ambitions alongside profits, with only 24% of leaders saying they would consider cutting investments in environmental, social and governance (ESG) initiatives to avoid missing earnings guidance.   ?  

4) Supply Unbounded – Break physical limits of fulfilment  

The global pandemic stretched supply chains like never before as organisations took drastic steps to keep goods moving. To meet growing expectations for fast, flexible, cost-effective, responsible, and sustainable order fulfilment, organisations are breaking the physical limits of their supply chains and moving production to the point of demand. The report found that the majority (92%) of organisations have increased or plan to increase the use of micro-fulfilment centres; a similar number (96%) of organisations have or plan to create regional supply chains. Here too the alignment on value for all stakeholders shows its prominence, with 80% of organisations saying that their customers’ expectations around sustainability significantly increased in the last 12 months.  

5) Real Virtualities – Redefine reality and place  

As virtual environments come of age, the physical and virtual worlds are blurring and redefining our sense of reality and place while also creating new ways for people to live, work, consume and socialise. Emerging from a year of limited physical interaction, businesses are doubling down on virtual, with 88% of organisations investing in technologies to create virtual?environments and, among those, 91% are planning to invest further. While current virtual-reality (VR) technology mostly engages our senses of vision and hearing, over time it will become increasingly realistic, engaging all senses, and creating a greater connection to the physical.   

6) The New Scientific Method – Become a scientific company  

The pandemic shone a spotlight on scientific innovation, putting it at the top of the business agenda. While during the past decade, every company became a digital company, in the coming decade, every company will need to become a scientific company – and apply science to tackle the world’s fundamental challenges. Working at the convergence of the new frontiers of science will bring radical possibilities, but only if organisations can enhance their approaches to innovation. The report found that 83% of organisations agree that adopting a scientific approach to innovation will position them for future success, and 82% said that investing in sciences outside their?traditional industry boundaries will be critical to their organisation’s success.   

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