73% of Execs to Reinvent Business Strategies in Recession: Accenture Survey

In a new survey (PDF) from Accenture, 73% of executives said that if there were a recession, their organizations would accelerate their “total enterprise reinvention” strategies.   Let’s quote ZDNet here:

What does “total enterprise reinvention” translate to in business-speak? “Centered around a strong digital core, it helps drive growth and optimize operations,” the report’s authors, led by Julie Sweet, chair and CEO of Accenture, explains. This means reinventing and bringing together three levels of technical initiatives:

• Infrastructure and security layer: “A modern, cloud-based IT foundation that is automated, agile, and secure by design.”
• Data and AI layer: “AI-enabled applications and platforms generating insights for decision-making.” 
• Applications and platforms layer: “Where new experiences and ways of operating come alive — through modernized and new, custom applications and platforms or replatforming on SaaS.”

Compare that with some data by the market research firm Omdia on behalf of Canonical, which finds that only 6 percent rely on a managed service provider (MSP) to manage cloud infrastructure. The same survey also finds that 83 percent have seen spending on cloud infrastructure expenses increase over the last two years and that 23 percent need visibility into how much they are spending.

One more…. A study by Rackspace confirms that application-driven customer experience is a top priority for executives (cited by 48%), ahead of IT security, compliance, and even IT strategy. At the same time, current IT activity tends to focus more on driving automation efficiencies (63%), and IoT and cloud-native initiatives (51%) versus customer experience technology initiatives focused on real-time data analysis (44%) and customer engagement (30%).  

If I simplify the story of the data down, tough times are when organizations get smart about their investments because each dollar is harder won.     The really successful organizations lean into change during downtimes, and that’s what we see in the data.  And too many aren’t working with providers, particularly regarding their forward investments… like cloud.    I’m taking my virtual highlighter and circling this area as the space to pursue.