Accenture's Tech Visions Of The Future Match Delphix Technologies Today

I was invited to Accenture Labs in San Jose Monday evening for the annual unveiling of Accenture's Technology Vision 2016 report — five trends that will have a "profound impact on enterprises for the next three to five years." Paul Daugherty, Accenture CTO and his team, took turns to present the trends and this was the most important one:

- "People First: The primacy of people in the digital age."

It sounds like a progressive message and a vote for rethinking a corporation's priorities. It's not, it's about creating an enterprise that can best "harness" its people and use technology to scale their productivity. "People first" and their productivity has been the central obsession of capitalism for its entire history. Labor interacts with investment capital to produce wealth. Technology reduces the cost of labor by increasing its productivity, which makes capital more efficient at producing wealth. Only people can transform capital into wealth. People First indeed -- it's a good reminder from Accenture.

- Liquid Workforce: Liquid loyalties...

Accenture says that corporations will employ a "Liquid Workforce" that will transform "entire organizations into a highly adaptable and change-ready enterprise." This vision of the future is staffed by millennials who are multi-skilled and employer adaptable undergoing continuous training, and are data-managed. Liquid Workforce sounds like it's Employer First. Accenture's vision was likely tripped by the nascent success of the "gig economy" and the atomization of labor by Uber and other startups. Liquid Workforce sounds as if it is related to "Liquid Modernity" a term invented in the late 1990s by UK-based sociologist Zygmunt Bauman.

Liquid Modernity describes a society where "all agreements are temporary, fleeting, and valid only until further notice."

Accenture's Liquid Workforce seems a perfect expression of Bauman's Liquid Modernity. More Tech Visions:

- Predictable Disruption: No chance...

Accenture claims that companies will be able to avoid disruption because they'll see it coming years ahead. Good luck with that. The problem with disruption is not that you don't see it. The problem is you can't get out of its way. In three decades of business news reporting, many companies have boldly told me they see the disruption and they'll be fine. thank you. They slam straight into the back of the train wreck on the line ahead: They can't downsize, slow down or pivot fast enough to avoid it. Disruptive technologies disrupt. And you always see them coming.

- Intelligent Automation: Dumb and Dumber...

Accenture says, "The true visionaries use intelligent automation to create a new digital world where they are masters of competitive advantage." - "70% of executives are making significantly more investments in Artificial Intelligence than in 2013." We have enough challenges with human intelligence let alone artificial intelligence. Dumb and Dumber doesn't result in a genius. I've seen the movie.

- The Platform Economy: Start scaling now!

Accenture says that every company must think of itself as a technology company. And every company must have a platform business model -- Build an industry platform or pick which one to join. At Delphix we know this trend very well and we are way ahead of it and ready. Delphix technologies are absolutely vital in enabling global enterprises to build agile digital business platforms.

- The rise of killer apps...

Accenture spotted the platform trend but it said nothing about applications. At Delphix we know that apps are moving into the front lines of business competition. We know because that's what our customers are doing. We have over 25 of the world's 100 largest corprations as customers, and many more in the Fortune 500. Our growth is at record levels. The smartphone app stores have shown how scarily fast apps can scale and gather large numbers of users and how difficult it is to challenge dominant apps. If your app scales first you win. In this brave new world of digital business — apps are how you harness your data, knowledge and engage your engines of commerce. And because people spend more time on their smartphones than inside stores — the all-important Brand Experience is now held in the hand. This is a huge change. Yet and the rise of the killer app is a trend that is poorly understood in the boardroom. It will require a major shift in thinking and in allocation of resources.

Every company is a tech company...

Enterprises becoming tech companies won't be easy. Accenture recognizes that a lot needs to happen: - Companies will have to figure out how to recruit top engineers, and build teams capable of continuously developing, testing and deploying apps. This why Dev Ops has emerged and is such an important movement. - Enterprises will have to transform their culture and their IT systems. Company culture changes extremely slowly and IT organizations are even slower. Fast CIOs will be the heroes. Fortunately for us and our customers, Delphix has been years ahead in predicting business trends and preparing the IT technologies that will be needed by enterprises. Our timing is perfect and we are in the sweet spot on apps: Delphix virtual data accelerates application delivery by more than 10x — customers can jump into markets months ahead of anyone and start building a potentially unassailable user base. That's a priceless advantage.

Accenture offers a Tech Vision of the future. Delphix delivers digital business platform agility today.

An ironic photo opportunity...