Table of Contents, 2012, Volume No. 1, Accenture Outlook

United States

Outlook 2012, No. 1

All Articles List Section

Article List

Subcategory Section

Perspective

The Long View: Creative tensions
The key to competing successfully in today’s global business environment, one executive told us recently, is the ability to manage what he calls “creative tensions.”
From the Editor’s Desk: Collaboration (cont.)
For Outlook, collaboration plays an especially important role as we seek to create content that our readers will value.
On the Edge: Toasters, refrigerators and Internet of Things
Devices of various sorts are already communicating and cooperating with IT systems and with one another. Here’s how to reap the benefits.

Subcategory Section

Industry Report

Mobility: Upward mobility
Although the mobile commerce market is a reality today, its promise still eclipses its practicality. The growth of near-field communications technology is certainly one key to realizing that promise. But industry players now have to find the right ways to encourage merchants to participate.

Subcategory Section

Features

Strategy: IT and the strategic growth agenda
A small but growing group of business leaders see IT as a way to spur change that prevents a company from peaking, then fading when its revenue growth stalls. They put IT to work to support strategy—to anticipate and respond to customers’ demands, renew their management teams and strengthen the layers of talent they’ll need if they’re to weather the bad times and grow fast when business is good.
Leadership: Does your global leadership team have what it takes?
As business becomes more global and uncertainty continues to roil markets, the tensions inherent in managing a multinational are unlikely to diminish. Having a clear sense of purpose, the right people in the room and the ability to change ahead of the curve will be the hallmarks of successful, truly global leadership teams.
Mergers and Acquisitions: Who says M&A doesn’t create value?
The conventional wisdom that most acquisitions destroy value might be obsolete. Our latest research shows M&A success rates have climbed, and that top-quartile performers—and often even median ones—can create substantial amounts of shareholder value in any industry or region, at any point in the economic cycle.
Talent and Organization: Making cross-enterprise collaboration work
To drive a new era of growth, companies will increasingly be required to collaborate with enterprises outside their corporate boundaries. Doing so successfully requires coordinated attention to a range of human capital strategy issues covering talent, leadership, culture and organization.
Customer Relationship Management: How to make your company think like a customer
Customers today expect an imaginative, high-quality experience in a multichannel environment. Regard this as an opportunity: Your company can leverage new strategies and technologies to create operations capable of making good on your customer-centric promise and growing your business.
Information Technology: Why big systems are here to stay
It’s hardly an exaggeration to say that large enterprise IT systems help run the world. But that world is changing. Here’s how a new generation of applications and platforms—combining the best of traditional solutions with cloud-based, on-demand services—is taking IT to a new level and teaching big systems how to be more agile.
Finance and Enterprise Performance: Masters of finance
Most CFOs are trying to drive value in today’s turbulent markets, but only a few are succeeding. Here are five advanced capabilities that sustain their achievement.
Supply Chain Management: Preparing for the unpredictable
By adapting their supply chains to flex with the markets, smart organizations are learning to profit from permanent volatility—insulating themselves against downside risk, and moving with speed and agility to take advantage of the upside.
Emerging Markets: Catching the ASEAN wave
Bordered by powerhouses China and India, Southeast Asia is sometimes overlooked by multinational companies. But ignoring the transformation now under way could blind leaders to this increasingly attractive market—and to the arrival of some bold new innovators on the global stage.

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