Enterprises taking back digital lead from start-ups

Technology-focused start-ups have typically been more nimble, disruptive and fast-growing than their more established rivals, but larger companies may start seizing back the initiative.

Management consulting and technology services company Accenture predicts that many large companies will start taking advantage of their scale and the skills at their disposal to transform into truly digital businesses in 2014.

In a new report, Accenture argues that large companies are embracing technologies including mobility, data analytics and the cloud to transform the way they work and manage data.

“We’re seeing large enterprises - armed with the resources, scale and drive to reinvent themselves through digital transformation - reasserting leadership in their markets,” Accenture CTO Paul Daugherty said.

“Leading companies are adopting digital to drive their processes more effectively and transform how they go to market, collaborate with partners, engage with customers and manage transactions ... They are poised to become the digital power brokers of tomorrow.”

Key IT trends such as the emergence of wearable and connected devices, the rise of the borderless enterprise and evolutions in data management technologies are driving the digital power shift towards large enterprises, the report argues.

Advances in computer hardware in areas including power consumption, processors and solid-state memory are meanwhile giving enterprises new opportunities to take advantage of economies of scale.

Large companies are also rapidly adopting apps to improve operational agility, with Accenure research indicating that 54% of the highest-performing IT teams have already deployed enterprise app stores.

“These key trends build on those we have seen over the past couple of years,” Daugherty said. “Last year, we declared that every business is a digital business, whether its leaders acknowledged that or not. Now, we see that digital technologies run through every facet of the highest-performing businesses.”

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