Outlook Journal June 2011 - Accenture Outlook

United States

Outlook 2011, No. 2

All Articles List Section

Article List

Subcategory Section

Foreword

The Long View: Thinking global, acting local
From the Editor’s Desk: Preserving our cities

Subcategory Section

On the Edge

What price information?
The unit price of information is actually increasing, not decreasing—and definitely not trending toward free.

Subcategory Section

Industry Reports

Healthcare: Prescription for change
A new information value chain—built on evidence-based insights—is emerging that could reconcile the divergent interests within the US healthcare industry. The ultimate beneficiary: the patient.
Chemicals and Energy: Bright ideas
Innovation drives growth in basic industries just as surely as it powers higher-profile high-tech players. However, while many energy and raw materials companies assume they already innovate effectively, only a few have fully mastered the challenge of combining invention and market success.
Insurance: Reinventing a business at risk
Plummeting profitability, tightening regulation, increasingly informed and demanding consumers, and new and nimble competitors—a perfect storm is hammering France’s big insurers. But they’re not alone: Throughout Europe, relevance in this industry will require radical restructuring.

Subcategory Section

Features

High-Performance Business: Strategy at the edge
When companies sense the need to find a new growth business, many turn inward, searching to extend core competencies and relying on centralized planning. High performers, on the other hand, look outward, focusing on the edge of markets and the perimeter of their company for insights and opportunities.
Analytics: The allure of pricing predictively
Pricing activities are getting fresh attention from senior executives. Realizing that analyses of past performance are no longer enough to outrun competitors, more and more business leaders are investing in sophisticated predictive analytics and launching legions of low-cost experiments to drive tomorrow’s pricing models with facts rather than hunches.
Talent & Organization Performance: Different strokes: How to manage a global workforce
As companies stake their growth strategies on global expansion and the pursuit of new markets, their ability to forge a human capital strategy and HR capability that is both globally consistent and locally relevant will be critical to success.
Sustainability: Rise of the Intelligent City
As the world becomes more and more urbanized, the successful city of the future will need to aggressively pursue two goals: managing resources from a sustainable perspective and creating an attractive economic and social environment in which citizens, companies and governments can live, work and interact.
Process Performance: Why operational excellence matters
Relatively small improvements in business processes can put companies significantly ahead of competitors. But first they need to decide which processes really matter—and develop the disciplines to manage and sustain them.
Outsourcing: Deeper in the value chain
Early generations of business process outsourcing services have now matured in terms of the added value they bring to companies. Outsourcing providers are now looking to use their broad industry knowledge and analytics-based insights to help their clients tap deeper levels of innovation and value.
Africa: At the tipping point: African financial services come of age
New Accenture research suggests a promising future for the region’s banking sector. But to succeed, newcomers will need to do much more than replicate traditional business models from developed countries.

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