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Accelerating through digital turbulence

OVERVIEW

The aerospace and defense industry is now well into a new era of powerful market forces and disruptive technologies. These present entirely new mandates for building, operating and maintaining commercial, military and space products. These forces are reshaping the future of aerospace and defense. Some offer exciting opportunities. Others present clear threats and challenges. All require a decisive response.

IMPORTANT TECHNOLOGY TRENDS

Key Digital Enablers


78% of of aerospace and defense executives agree that the industry is facing complete or moderate disruption.
of aerospace and defense executives agree that the industry is facing complete or moderate disruption.


78% of of aerospace and defense executives agree that the industry is facing complete or moderate disruption.
of aerospace and defense executives agree that their organisations must innovate at an increasingly rapid pace just to keep a competitive edge.

THE DIGITAL INTERSECTION

Aerospace and defense companies have been relentlessly developing digital capabilities for many years. But the urgency to fully embrace these emerging technology trends is increasing.

While today aerospace and defense companies often achieve differentiation through their products, both Digital and Big Data will play a much larger role in differentiating operations. Digital will increasingly secure its place at the heart of the industry value chain, reshaping people’s activities from design to operations and all the way through to the passenger experience.

Accordingly, aerospace and defense companies are focused on how digital can help them leverage people and technology to reduce cost, manage product lifecycles, deliver on time, become more efficient and improve customer service

IMPLICATIONS AND ACTIONS

Digital strategies offer new and improved ways to optimize the supply chain, reduce time to market and increase revenue. Thus, many aerospace and defense companies are considering how they use digital to generate and sustain business results. Simply being able to perform endless analytics or simulations is not the answer.  Investments in digital capabilities must count and should be carefully considered to ensure that they can simultaneously deliver both operational savings and revenue gains.

Accenture suggests that companies evaluate their digital investments and adopt a comprehensive digital strategy based on the answers to three key questions:

1
What are the most important touch points and the “moments that matter” with your customers, suppliers and employees and how can digital help maximize value at each?
2
How can you use digital to drive higher customer value, lower cost, improve quality, shorten delivery time and avoid delays?
3
How can digital and the Internet of Things (IoT) help you improve your products, better understand customers and capture new business? How can it help secure a bigger share of business by doing more with the same product, leveraging untapped expertise or extending an existing process?