How do the best companies sustain high levels of growth? By continuously developing new products and services and by seeking efficiencies through new ways of working. In other words, they grow through innovation.
According to a study by Fortune magazine, innovation is the best predictor of shareholder value. But for many companies it is an elusive quality, an abstraction that is often no more clearly defined than “new ideas.” This can make it difficult to instill innovation in an organizational culture and to transform innovation, particularly in the realm of technology, into business opportunities.
Meeting such challenges amounts to a full-time job for Glover Ferguson, Accenture’s chief scientist. Ferguson oversees our technology research and development organization, which includes the Accenture Technology Labs in the United States and France. From their vantage point at the Tech Labs, Ferguson and his colleagues are able to identify and monitor emerging technology trends and, through their R&D work, help shape new business applications.
“Our research goes beyond the ‘what’ to the ‘so what,’” Ferguson once told me. We asked Ferguson to share some of these “so what” insights in a new column for Outlook, called On the Edge, which debuts in this issue. His advice to would-be corporate innovators: The best strategic approach to pioneering technologies is watchful waiting. We also tapped Ferguson to contribute a feature article on “silent commerce,” which explores extraordinary new developments in the use of microprocessing and sensor technology in business.
Successfully innovative companies do more than underwrite R&D, of course. They create an environment in which innovation can flourish throughout the entire organization. An article by Reinhard Ziegler, who heads eLearning and knowledge management in the Accenture Human Performance service line, demystifies innovation and explores a number of ways that companies can encourage their employees to come up with new ideas that will produce bottom-line benefits.
Clearly, the company that combines the efforts of an innovative work-force with the smart, strategic use of technology can meet the toughest business challenges.
David Cudaback
Editor-in-Chief
Back to Contents
To Top