avanadetechnologyvision2016 full ebook final

8/19/2019 AvanadeTechnologyVision2016 Full eBook FINAL

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Avanade Technology Vision 2016

Time to relearn: Four ways to win in the digital economy

BE THE MAESTROMIND THE ETHICAL

FAULT LINEDATA IS DEAD

EMBRACE THE

DIGITAL MESHINTRO

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INTRODUCTIONRelearning is what brought the Apollo 11 astronauts home. It’s what gave us the Ford automobile

instead of the faster horse. And it’s what will help your business thrive, as the coming years witness

the explosion of cognitive computing, immersive experiences, and a digital mesh that connectspeople, things and various entities.

The value of unlearning, and learning again

As we experience the greatest shift in human productivity since the First Industrial Revolution –

one that demands speed, agility and innovation – businesses must relearn much of what they know

in order to succeed in the long term.

Why? Because the pace of change will never be slower than it is today. As counterintuitive as that

sounds, the nature of technology is such that if you haven’t started on your path today, you willalready be further behind tomorrow.

It’s this sense of urgency we hope adds a little paranoia to business leaders reading this – that if you

aren’t doing everything you can to advance your business, someone else will steal your customers.

Although, as they say, it’s not paranoia if what you fear is actually happening.

For Avanade’s Technology Vision 2016, we have identied the following themes that are

instrumental in fostering this transformation as you rewire your organization:

• Mind the ethical fault line: Building trust in a digital world• Embrace the digital mesh: Leveraging the power of borderless platforms

• Data is dead: Long live data currency

• Be the maestro: Orchestrating an augmented workforce

Also included are two sidebars, one focused on design thinking and the other on

modern engineering.

INTRO

“The illiterate of

the 21st century

will not be those

who cannot

read and write,

but those who

cannot learn,

unlearn andrelearn.”

– Alvin Tofer

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DIGITAL MESHINTRO

Dual velocity is key

At the heart of each theme breathes the concept of the dual-velocity enterprise. Gartner calls it

“bi-modal,” others have called it “two speed.” Whatever term you use, the point is always the same.

To survive in the digital world, organizations need to take two distinct approaches: They must invest

resources to drive change and unleash transformational technologies to achieve new outcomes,while simultaneously optimizing core operations.

The new economics of IT that enables a digital business to maximize eciency, increase agility

and have the freedom to innovate is possible only when there is a deep connection between

the two approaches. These connections are complementary, and not competitive for time,

resources and focus.

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DIGITAL MESHINTRO

At rst glance, many of the themes overlap. “Borderless platforms” continues to be the stance of

the future. Though, one year later, the stakes are far greater and the success stories more plentiful.

The need to scrutinize our big data habits still exists. Businesses all know, almost intuitively now,

that data in and of itself is not the value – insight is. But it’s time we pushed harder for substantial

change in how we get to those insightful moments or we risk sitting on a landll of “dead” data.

The articial intelligence (AI) revolution continues to transform the workplace behind the scenes,

alongside ever greater and accessible automation, ranging from process automation on one

end, to cognitive computing on the other. But the alarmism surrounding cognitive technologies

is getting old and we are losing sight of what counts: You must put people at the center of a

machine-augmented “superhuman” workforce. Smart machines clearly oer benets to the

enterprise, including the opportunity to increase revenues, optimize eciencies and better serve

customers in a digital world. AI still has a long way to go and enhancing, rather than replacing

humans, is going to deliver the greatest value.

Last year we talked about the shift to individual centricity based on personalization; this year we

emphasize the importance of recognizing that personalization should be transparent and handled

in an ethical way. In fact, this year we lead with the theme of digital ethics and the need to actively

foster it as a central building block for everything you do.

Ethics has always been on the radar of enterprise leaders, whether it be in protecting privacy or

ensuring compliancy. But this year we stress the new level of importance this topic is taking on,and how intimately ethics is tied into a successful, long-term digital strategy.

TechVision 2016

Orchestrating anAugmented Workforce

Embrace theDigital Mesh

Data is Dead

Mind the EthicalFault Line

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MIND THE ETHICAL FAULT LINEBuilding trust in a digital world“As we are about to endow millions of vehicles with autonomy, taking algorithmic morality

seriously has never been more urgent.”

So says a team of researchers, working on a problem that could only exist in the last few years. 1

As self-driving cars enter the market, how do we handle the ethical dilemma of programming an

algorithm to save lives in the event of an unavoidable car accident? Should the car protect its owner

at all costs, or do its best to minimize the total death toll? Should the car do the smallest amount of

damage based on the insurance company coverage or rules? Should the car have allegiance to the

manufacturer and try to limit the damage if the other car is from the same manufacturer? Could

one of these latter scenarios actually prevent future self-driving car sales, and hence cause even

more damage by keeping dangerous human-driven cars on the road?

In the case of self-driving cars, trust is obviously a critical factor. Who is making sure each

manufacturer’s platform adheres to the same standards and that the platforms interact with each

other in the same way? And how do these platforms interact with the surrounding environment –

roads, trac signals, bicycles, etc., as well as the driving laws and accepted norms of the particular

city, region, state and country?

With dual velocity being increasingly adopted – and computing being more adaptable, responsiveand embedded in all aspects of our daily life – the intended and unintended consequences of

technology require a new and dierent approach. Our digital behaviors, intent and movement

leave “footprints” across sensors, applications, workplace tools, social platforms and more. With

such an expanded surface area, spanning work and personal lives, the corresponding risk increases.

It cuts across technology, regulatory and legal issues, and cultural and social norms. This increased

risk must be accepted and managed. Which is why ethics needs to be the cornerstone in the new

digital economy.

INTRO

1 “

Why Self-Driving Cars Must Be Programmed to Kill ,” MIT Technology Review, October 22, 2015

5

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542626/why-self-driving-cars-must-be-programmed-to-kill/https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542626/why-self-driving-cars-must-be-programmed-to-kill/https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542626/why-self-driving-cars-must-be-programmed-to-kill/


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The potential impact of unintended consequences is becoming apparent with new applications

such as familial DNA searching by law enforcement. The technology enables authorities to search

in DNA databases for genetic information indicating a relative of a person they seek to identify.2

However, that information may have been included in the database for entirely dierent purposes –

for example, searching for relatives as part of a genealogy project or on a website. The currentstate of the science is such that false positives are common, which can result in consequences that

include false arrests.3

From personal data and privacy, to compliance, trust and responsibility, ethics has never been so

important to the entire operation, success and longevity of any business. In this environment, a

deeply humanistic approach needs to be hardwired into businesses’ DNA – everything must start

and end with people. Digital businesses that adopt an inherently humanistic and ethical point of

view and oer mechanisms that build and maintain trust will be the winners.

This fact has not gone unnoticed. In recent Avanade research, 92 percent of executives say they

believe companies will need to establish and adhere to digital ethics guidelines to be successful in

the future.4 But far fewer have star ted to address the issue. Only 43 percent of executives in our

survey say they are developing new roles that focus specically on digital ethics.

Why now: 78 percent of executives not ready for digital ethics

Fundamentally, digital ethics is a concern about transparency, security, privacy and trust. As the

dual-velocity enterprise enables the business to reach new heights, and connect more intimatelyand rapidly with customers and workers, fostering these dierent aspects of digital ethics is no

longer optional. It is mandatory!

And there is no time to waste. We found that 78 percent of executives say their organization has

not given enough thought to the workplace ethical dilemmas created by developments such as

smart technologies, yet those technologies are already here and growing rapidly.

INTRO

2 “Familial DNA Searches,” FindLaw3 “Your relative’s DNA cou ld turn you into a suspect,” Wired, October 13, 20154 “Navigating ethics – a new priority in a digital world,” Avanade, March 2016

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http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-rights/familial-dna-searches.htmlhttp://www.wired.com/2015/10/familial-dna-evidence-turns-innocent-people-into-crime-suspects/http://www.wired.com/2015/10/familial-dna-evidence-turns-innocent-people-into-crime-suspects/http://www.avanade.com/en/innovative-approach/research-and-insights/smart-techhttp://www.avanade.com/en/innovative-approach/research-and-insights/smart-techhttp://www.wired.com/2015/10/familial-dna-evidence-turns-innocent-people-into-crime-suspects/http://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-rights/familial-dna-searches.html


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The bottom line: Digital ethics is more than a nice to have

Businesses that do nothing to rewire their approach to ethics in the digital context risk losing

customer faith and trust, without which the fruits of a dual-velocity enterprise cannot possibly

be enjoyed.

Enterprises need to adopt and implement an “ethical programming” approach where responsibility

is shared by all players – the user, the provider and the designer. Consider the example of VTech,

which makes educational toys, among other products. Following a data breach last year, the

company issued new terms and conditions stating that parents must assume responsibility for

future breaches. This gave the impression that the company was not taking responsibility and led to

calls for parents to boycott the company’s toys, potentially impacting sales.5

To get started on your digital ethics journey, the conversation needs to happen at all levels of the

business – from the top down. Our research indicates that C-level executives are already grappling

with ethical issues stemming from the use of smart technologies more than anyone else in their

organizations, with 42 percent experiencing a digital ethics issue at work more than once. This

compares with only 28 percent of IT decision makers encountering a digital ethics issue at work.

Business leaders understand that ethics guidelines should be put in place: 84 percent say they are

likely to invest in digital ethics in the next ve years and a majority will target up to 10 percent of

their IT budgets to address this emerging issue.

In short, ethics is not a nice to have. It needs to be an essential element of your long-termdigital strategy and par t of your organization’s DNA.

INTRO

5 “Parents urged to boycott VTech toys after hack,” BBC, February 10, 2016

7

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35532644http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35532644http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35532644http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35532644


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EMBRACE THE DIGITAL MESHLeveraging the power of borderless platforms

An evolving digital mesh of smart machines will connect billions of things into acontinuous digital experience.6

Teamwork is something every business knows they need. But what about collaborating with other

businesses, services and even your customers in order to thrive? This idea of breaking down the

borders that contain your organization is new for many traditional businesses.

In fact, enterprises that adopt an open ecosystem today will become the next digital leaders,

increase market share and tap into new growth opportunities. The reason is simple: Digital

ecosystems and borderless platforms create opportunities for multiple, meaningful engagements

with customers, and enable businesses to take advantage of a “mesh of interactions.” This mesh

is dynamic and pervasive and connects people, things, algorithms, digital personal assistants,

automated agents and other entities. It generates even more value than the sum of its par ts,

advancing entire industries and ecosystems, not just individual companies.

The digital mesh will increasingly lead businesses to relearn how they partner and collaborate.

Take, for example, GE’s open innovation approach, which involves crowdsourcing innovation – both

internally and externally. This approach has helped the company solve problems by going beyond itsown borders to benet from the knowledge of people with whom it would not ordinarily interact.7

INTRO

6 “Top 10 Technology Trends Signal the Digital Mesh,” Gartner, October 7, 20157 “How GE plans to act like a startup and crowdsource breakthrough ideas,” Wired, April 11, 2014

8

http://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/top-ten-technology-trends-signal-the-digital-mesh/http://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/top-ten-technology-trends-signal-the-digital-mesh/http://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/top-ten-technology-trends-signal-the-digital-mesh/http://www.wired.com/2014/04/how-ge-plans-to-act-like-a-startup-and-crowdsource-great-ideas/http://www.wired.com/2014/04/how-ge-plans-to-act-like-a-startup-and-crowdsource-great-ideas/http://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/top-ten-technology-trends-signal-the-digital-mesh/


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Borderless platforms and new digital ecosystems benet large and small businesses alike. Ford,

for example, is looking beyond its traditional boundaries, exploring “multimodal transportation,”

which includes all manner of transportation that doesn’t involve driving yourself in a car – from

ride sharing to bike rentals.8 At the other end of the spectrum, farmers in India are using WhatsApp

not only as a marketing tool to connect to customers, but also as a support network to shareagricultural advice, interact with experts and learn new farming practices – bridging regions,

languages and socio-economic issues.9

Why now: From data to dashboards, success is all about connections

The importance of borderless platforms and digital ecosystems will grow in the coming years as

massive movements such as the internet of things, big data and analytics evolve. As that happens,

the ability of businesses to plug into those connections through open standards and collaboration

will be an important factor in succeeding in the digital economy.

An example is Freeport-McMoRan, which is one of the largest natural resource companies in the

world. The company is creating an industrial IoT platform to help supervisors take actions based

on real-time information. This information is captured, connected and generated from trucks, drills

and other equipment and is used in conjunction with the company’s legacy data investment to help

drive mine productivity and, as a result, revenue.10

INTRO

8 “The Commute of the Future? Ford Is Working on It,” The New York Times, Februar y 13, 2016

9 “WhatsApp is changing how people grow and buy food in India ,” Mashable, February 11, 201610 “Embracing digital transformation when digging for gold … or coal … or …,” Microsoft, September 14, 2015

9

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/business/the-commute-of-the-future-ford-is-working-on-it.html?_r=0http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/business/the-commute-of-the-future-ford-is-working-on-it.html?_r=0http://mashable.com/2016/02/11/whatsapp-india-grow-food/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link#FhHyUudwFuq3https://blogs.microsoft.com/business-matters/2015/09/14/embracing-digital-transformation-when-youre-digging-for-gold-or-coal-or/https://blogs.microsoft.com/business-matters/2015/09/14/embracing-digital-transformation-when-youre-digging-for-gold-or-coal-or/http://mashable.com/2016/02/11/whatsapp-india-grow-food/?utm_cid=mash-com-Tw-main-link#FhHyUudwFuq3http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/02/14/business/the-commute-of-the-future-ford-is-working-on-it.html?_r=0


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The bottom line: Go beyond your borders

Businesses in all industries have started to realize the need to open up their borders, but where

to begin? To get the most from a collaborative-centric business, you need to put the individual

(customer, employee, client) front and center. What connections and interactions can you make

to enhance and delight the individual at every moment? Think of it as “capturing the businessmoments.” At the same time, enterprises must also consider what is truly unique about their own

business and how they t into the broader collaborative context.

Importantly, these connections must be seamless, invisible, natural and intuitive – not requiring

the user to do anything more than simply enjoy. Spotify has made it possible to like a song you

hear when picking up your morning coee in Starbucks, and listen to it again later as you travel to

work in a taxi, or when relaxing in the evening in your connected living room. And by opening up

its loyalty program to a third party in this way, Starbucks stands to boost customer loyalty and its

reputation for being in the tech vanguard.11

What connections and interactions can you make to go beyond your borders, to enhance and

delight the individual at every moment?

INTRO

11 “Spotif y is turning Starbucks baristas into coee shop DJs ,” Wired, May 18, 2015

10

http://www.wired.com/2015/05/starbucks-spotify/http://www.wired.com/2015/05/starbucks-spotify/http://www.wired.com/2015/05/starbucks-spotify/


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The importance of a design thinking approach

At the heart of all this change is a profound adaptation to the way technology interacts, engages,

enhances and empowers the people it is designed for. This requires a design thinking approach.

This approach visualizes the end experience rst and then synthesizes the pieces together to

achieve, augment and build toward that vision. Design thinking must be human-centric and

iterative. It must also be possibility-driven in that it looks at various dierent perspectives for the

problem at hand, as well as options-focused with a fail-early-and-often mindset.

A design thinking approach can result in a fundamental shift in user experiences, interface and

design, moving from today’s graphical and natural interfaces to perceptual user interfaces. In this

new world, typing and tapping are no longer the de facto interactions. Instead, the digital language

is focused on more immersive experiences, covering gestures, haptics, voice, gaze and so on –engagements between users and machines.

A design-centric approach can rene and perfect these user experiences and take into consideration

how technology ts into the broader picture. This can create better, more eective, more enjoyable

productivity – for both customers and employees. As always, the design approach should be

centered on people, and how the technology is used in the real world. It should evolve and change as

observations and validations are made at each new stage. And it needs to extend beyond individual

centricity to incorporate more holistic experiences happening via the digital mesh.

With these principles in mind, even our modern mobile world will be completely changed in

just a few years. The dominance of apps and siloed user experiences will fall victim to the rise of

connected, immersive and gesture-driven experiences.

INTRO

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It’s already started with examples such as BMW’s Gesture Control, which enables drivers to operate

selected functions with dened hand movements. Another example is the Supermarket of the

Future, developed by Avanade in partnership with Coop Italia, an Italian grocery retailer. Digital

solutions, such as smart shelves and interactive food display tables, are operated by gestures and

interact with consumers, providing intelligent labels that include supply chain details and promotehealthy consumption.

The new IT reality: Security in the digital world

A design-centric approach is needed not only for creating better experiences and better business

outcomes. As we engage with technology in new ways, the surface area for attack expands. In this

new age of digital and immersive UX, a more security-minded design is crucial. A recent article in

Information Age noted: “A more holistic approach to cyber security will be needed to protect and

make the most of our widely connected world.”12

Thus, our denitions for security also need to be relearned. The idea of the perimeter is dead,

harkening back to a time where borderless platforms did not reign supreme. Gone, too, is the idea

of keeping your business safe from a breach. A more uid, eective and accurate perspective is that

of the proactive, predictive security design. This notion takes the stance that experiencing a security

breach is a certainty – and focuses on recognizing a breach and developing algorithms to ag risks

as they arise. This will lead the way to the notion of “self-healing apps” and “Security-as-a-Service,”

the latter a signicant step as the dual-velocity enterprise continues on the path of optimizing its

capacity to innovate – quickly and at lower cost.

INTRO

12 “The connected world: the ‘black swan’ of the global economy,” Information Age, February 3, 2016

12

MIND THE ETHICAL EMBRACE THE

http://www.information-age.com/technology/security/123460879/connected-world-%E2%80%98black-swan-global-economyhttp://www.information-age.com/technology/security/123460879/connected-world-%E2%80%98black-swan-global-economyhttp://www.information-age.com/technology/security/123460879/connected-world-%E2%80%98black-swan-global-economy


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DATA IS DEADLong live data currency

Less than 1 percent of customer data is analyzed by businesses today.

Last year our Technology Vision advocated that businesses forget about data itself, and instead

focus on the value it potentially contains. One year later, the notion of data as currency – a resource

that can be applied in various ways, though valueless on its own – is already cliché. But does that

mean businesses have heeded this lesson? Not even close: Only 0.5 percent of the world’s data is

being leveraged, analyzed or used.13

It’s time that organizations nally start to invest in practical, concrete actions to put this perspective

into play. From AI to analytics, the way you use data will be more important than how much of

it you can amass. Consider how a utility company can gain insight into the supply and demand

for energy by using the integration of customers’ smart thermostats to assess their behavior and

usage patterns. This helps the utility gather enough data and run predictions about energy usage

patterns via machine learning, allowing them to proactively bring power stations online and oine.

These kinds of capabilities will only increase in the coming years, with the AI market estimated

to experience a CAGR of more than 50 percent to 2020 on the back of diversied use cases and

application areas, improved productivity and increased customer satisfaction.14

An example is Woodside Energy, Australia’s largest publicly traded oil and gas company and one of

the world’s largest liquid natural gas companies. The rm is building a new community called the

Woodside Innovation and Technology Hub (WITH) to unlock growth opportunities. Among other

work streams, WITH will feature a blend of physical and virtual capabilities across both technical and

non-technical parts of the business based on AI, data analytics, sensors and control systems. This

will provide the chance to control or automate high-cost, high-risk or error-prone tasks.15

13 “Less than 1% of World’s Information is Being Analyzed – IDC Report,” CloudTimes, December 27, 2016

14 “Articial Intelligence Market Growing at 53.65% CAGR to 2022 ,” MarketWatch, February 9, 201615 “Woodside Innovation and Technology Hub,” Woodside, May 2015

13


http://cloudtimes.org/2012/12/27/world-information-analyzed-idc-report/http://cloudtimes.org/2012/12/27/world-information-analyzed-idc-report/http://www.marketwatch.com/story/artificial-intelligence-market-growing-at-5365-cagr-to-2022-2016-02-09-7203312http://www.marketwatch.com/story/artificial-intelligence-market-growing-at-5365-cagr-to-2022-2016-02-09-7203312http://www.marketwatch.com/story/artificial-intelligence-market-growing-at-5365-cagr-to-2022-2016-02-09-7203312http://www.woodside.com.au/Working-Sustainably/Science-and-Technology/Documents/WITH_Brochure.pdfhttp://www.woodside.com.au/Working-Sustainably/Science-and-Technology/Documents/WITH_Brochure.pdfhttp://www.marketwatch.com/story/artificial-intelligence-market-growing-at-5365-cagr-to-2022-2016-02-09-7203312http://cloudtimes.org/2012/12/27/world-information-analyzed-idc-report/


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Since data truly is the currency that drives new business models, what shapes and applications will

it take? We need to start tackling this essential question. We must rewire our organizational view

to recognize that data, on its own, is nothing, and that its true value lies solely in the information

potential it possesses. It’s time to bring data back from the dead – in a new form where it can be

analyzed and then “spent” in a manner where it delivers value.

Why now: The mess will only get worse

The internet of things is exploding, and the mesh of interconnected interactions is only getting

denser as devices proliferate across home, work, cars, recreation and more. The industrial IoT is

set to deliver over $15 trillion to the global GDP by 2030. 16 And as the sensor-connected world

expands, so too will the amount of data and ambient information that is created, most of it coming

from the edge and in real time.

In other words: The mess will only get worse if you don’t make sense of and nd value in the dataowing in. Businesses that fail to do so will nd themselves sitting on a massive landll of dead data.

The bottom line: Use data to create new value

A dual-velocity enterprise is armed with a concrete plan to get the most insight and information

from the data it collects in order to support both approaches. But where do you start? An iterative

approach to nding new ways to use data as a currency gives you learnings that can chip away at

the data landll. Your ability to nd new and innovative ways to connect data to insight can help

drive your digital business transformation.

To get there, businesses are pursuing a number of approaches. Many of them put the consumer’s

needs and experience in focus to see how data can be used to solve a problem or create new

value. GE, for example, has unlocked smart algorithms that let users charge electric cars only during

o-peak hours, saving them money without eort. The company expects to extend this area of

research to other applications that depend heavily on energy usage, such as data centers, lighting

and HVAC controls.17

16 “Industrial Internet Insights Report,” GE and Accenture, 2015

17 “GE Uses AI to Charge Electric Cars Without Running Up the Bill,” Wired, December 15, 2014

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https://www.accenture.com/t20150523T023646__w__/us-en/_acnmedia/Accenture/Conversion-Assets/DotCom/Documents/Global/PDF/Dualpub_11/Accenture-Industrial-Internet-Insights-Report-2015.pdfhttps://www.accenture.com/t20150523T023646__w__/us-en/_acnmedia/Accenture/Conversion-Assets/DotCom/Documents/Global/PDF/Dualpub_11/Accenture-Industrial-Internet-Insights-Report-2015.pdfhttp://www.wired.com/2014/12/ge-nyc-electric-car-charging/http://www.wired.com/2014/12/ge-nyc-electric-car-charging/https://www.accenture.com/t20150523T023646__w__/us-en/_acnmedia/Accenture/Conversion-Assets/DotCom/Documents/Global/PDF/Dualpub_11/Accenture-Industrial-Internet-Insights-Report-2015.pdf


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Another example is SoFi, the social nance giant that is making banks think twice about the way

they underwrite loans.18 Rather than using traditional data like credit scores, SoFi leverages the

community close to its borrowers (called “members,” not customers) in order to unlock funds

at rock-bottom rates. Transactions that might have seemed too risky to traditional lenders are

approved, based on the underlying data and mesh density that reects the trust and strong senseof community SoFi fosters with its members.

The more trusted a brand is, the more willing users are to share their data. This can transcend

into programmable business models, allowing an organization to be opportunistic, dynamic and

predictive, and enabling it to capture the business moments.

18 “So far, so good,” The Economist, January 16, 2016

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http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21688439-fintech-darling-offers-new-modelone-not-without-risks-so-far-so-goodhttp://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21688439-fintech-darling-offers-new-modelone-not-without-risks-so-far-so-goodhttp://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21688439-fintech-darling-offers-new-modelone-not-without-risks-so-far-so-good


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Modern engineering: Blueprint for the

dual-velocity enterprise

The dual-velocity enterprise is the winning approach in today’s context of digital disruption. But

success demands that businesses relearn and adopt new ways of getting work done and solving

problems; it demands exibility, experimentation and learning as you go. Which is why modern

engineering, and the paradigm shift it entails, is so crucial to unlocking the dual-velocity business.

Culture shock

The deep cultural shift required from today’s traditional enterprises and power structures to make

modern engineering concepts a success should not be underestimated. No longer are decisionsbased purely on seniority or who has the biggest salary in the room. Instead, businesses must

relate directly to the user, giving users the control and nal say. Businesses must also do away with

the traditional delivery cycle, moving toward a fast, iterative approach, delivering “minimal viable

products” while continually learning, adapting and redelivering.

Three pillars comprise modern engineering – Agile, DevOps and Design Thinking. Importantly,

these principles must apply to the entire business, not just IT, if they are to be successful.

Agile and DevOps: ecient processes, providing faster, more eective and higher accountabilityfor end-to-end engineering in the enterprise.

Design Thinking: a human- and outcome-centric approach that is iterative and leads to more

delightful, eective and desirable experiences (see sidebar on design thinking).

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19 “U.S. Department of Defense will bring Windows 10 to 4M computers in a year,” GeekWire, Februar y 17, 2016

Microsoft is a good example of modern engineering in action as it works to turn around its core

engineering and product teams. Windows is one of the largest code bases on the planet, and in

the past a typical release was multiple years in the making with all aspects of the operating system

debated at length. With 20-plus years of backward compatibility, and hundreds of millions of users

and machines, each small decision had a potential far-reaching impact. But this also meant thatWindows was challenged in keeping up in some areas in terms of technology, security and agility.

Today Windows releases average two per year, with Microsoft expecting to speed things up to

one a quarter. This has huge implications on the enterprises that use Windows and requires that

they start thinking more near term when it comes to adoption and installation. Take the example

of the U.S. Department of Defense, which recently announced it was adopting Windows 10 across

4 million computers over a period of 12 to 24 months. This represents a signicant shift for the

department and shows how they are adopting dual velocity; previously the military was likely to

upgrade long after the general public.19

For a business, these pillars of modern engineering form the foundation on which they can build

higher-order functions and areas – such as predictive security, mesh architectures, IoT platforms

and more, which can help them identify, capture and exploit the business moments.

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BE THE MAESTROOrchestrating an augmented workforce

91 percent of executives believe that by 2020 their organization’s workforce will need tochange substantially as smart technologies become more widely used.

The nding above,20 from our recent research, puts into focus an ever-growing quandary for

leaders everywhere. How will we manage a digital workforce that includes a new generation of

smart technologies, in the form of intelligent software, sensors, digital personal assistants, robots,

and automated remote hardware, tools and machines?

For leaders hoping to straddle this intelligence revolution, we want you to consider the metaphor

of the symphony. Envision a “superhuman” augmented workforce that is complemented by smarttechnologies, improved by their presence, making for a beautiful, symphonic delivery of services.

It’s this augmented workforce with a blending of intelligent systems, things and people that will

create magic.

Why now: An enormous decit of understanding

It’s clear that automated, intelligent machines can add enormous value to businesses across all

industries. Novartis is just one example. The healthcare company, in collaboration with Microsoft,

is using Kinect technology to better quantify whether the treatments it is developing for multiplesclerosis are working. “What you don’t want to do with these systems is replace the expert. You

want to bolster the expert,” said Abigail Sellen, a principal researcher in the Human Experience and

Design group at Microsoft’s Cambridge, UK, lab.21

On the consumer side, Microsoft’s Cortana, Amazon Echo and Xiaoice in China22 are all proving

that we’ve only just begun to reveal the potential wonderful user experiences made possible by

intelligent machines. But we have an enormous decit of understanding of how this applies to

20 “Smart technologies are delivering benets to the enterprise – is your business one of them?” Avanade, March 2016

21 “From gaming system to medical breakthrough: How Microsoft and Novartis created Assess MS ,” Microsoft.com, Februar y 8, 201622 “For Sympathetic Ear, More Chinese Turn to Smartphone Program,” The N ew York Times, July 31, 2015

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the enterprise. In our research, a signicant number of executives say they are ill prepared to deal

with the onset of smart technologies in the workforce. Staying ahead of the curve won’t be easy for

any IT department.

The bottom line: Keep people front and centerOur advice for business leaders is to change the conversation from “what if” machines enter the

workforce, to “how to use” these technologies to enhance humans and human judgment and

action in the physical world. It’s all about orchestrating the new superhuman augmented workforce.

The human workforce will need to learn new skills (such as natural language processing and

machine learning), which not only complement smart machines but also extract and enhance the

eciencies from the machines. Even a large and seemingly traditional business like AT&T, with $147

billion in revenue, $400 billion in assets and 280,000 employees, sees the need to retool itself in

order to survive against new competitors like Amazon and Google. This recognition has led thecompany to embark on a corporate-wide training and education program to modernize skills.23

Keeping people front and center will be a key to success. Humans – not machines – will need to

apply compassion, empathy and sheer common sense as smart technologies take on a bigger role

in the workplace.

The changing workforce encompasses more than just smart machines, however. Businesses also

need to consider the emergence of a new digital-enabled workforce that includes a growing

number of millennials, who expect dierent interactions and ways of working.

23 “Gearing Up for the Cloud, AT&T Tells Its Workers: Adapt, or Else,” The New York Times, Februar y 13, 2016

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CONCLUSION Time to relearn your way to digital success

The modern digital leaders have already unlearned the biases of the past to secure the positionthey are in today. However, dropping outdated ways of thinking is only part of the puzzle. You must

also relearn, in short, everything about your customers, your colleagues and your services. It’s time

to put that new mindset into practice.

We’ve shared four approaches where this action of relearning is more critical than ever.

• Digital ethics must be embraced, and it must be central to every decision and service your

business undertakes. The old assumptions and value systems cannot apply in the new world.

Those businesses that adopt a digital humanistic and ethical point of view and oer mechanismsthat build and maintain trust will be the winners.

• Borders must be torn down, or at the very least redrawn, in order to deliver collaborative

services. Doing so is the only way to benet from an ever-denser mesh of interactive

connections, creating surprising, delightful and valuable experiences for your users, your industry

and a wider ecosystem.

• As big data, analytics and the IoT become increasingly important in the coming years,

organizations will need to place more value on the information that data contains and the

insight they can gain from it. This notion may be well understood, but in practice has not beenwidely applied. Going forward, it will be more critical than ever because today you have the least

amount of data you will ever have.

• Finally, smart machines of all sizes, shapes and purposes are entering the workforce and

eventually will be our cognitive equals. Do not fret: This is good news for the modern digital

business, which will orchestrate a superhuman augmented workforce in the same way a

symphony leverages a group of uniquely valuable individuals to create a magical collective.

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To win in the modern digital economy, businesses must start now to relearn in order to create

better, more sustainable and exible outcome-based approaches. Those that embrace the cultural

and business process changes while implementing a dual-velocity strategy and building on the

concepts of modern engineering will thrive in the coming years. With business life and death at

stake, organizations that unlearn and then relearn will create a massive uptick for their company,drive customer loyalty and dierentiate their brand.

For more on Avanade’s Technology Vision 2016, please visit:

www.avanade.com/techvision.

About Avanade

Avanade leads in providing innovative digital services,

business solutions and design-led experiences for its

clients, delivered through the power of people and

the Microsoft ecosystem. Our professionals combine

technology, business and industry expertise to build

and deploy solutions to realize results for clients and

their customers. Avanade has 27,000 digitally connected

people across 23 countries, bringing clients the best

thinking through a collaborative culture that honors

diversity and refects the communities in which we

operate. Majority owned by Accenture, Avanade was

founded in 2000 by Accenture LLP and MicrosoftCorporation. Learn more at www.avanade.com

©2016 Avanade Inc. All rights reserved. The Avanade

name and logo are registered trademarks in the U.S.

and other countries. Other brand and product namesare trademarks of their respective owners.

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