Enterprises will need to look beyond the much-in-vogue idea of “digital transformation” if they want to maintain a competitive advantage and differentiate themselves from their competitors, according to a new report from information technology consultancy Accenture Plc.

Digital transformation refers to the idea of integrating digital technology into all areas of a business, in order to transform the way that business operates and how it delivers value to its customers. It has been a key focus of forward-thinking enterprises for years already — and their technology spending, about $1.1 trillion in 2018 alone — but those companies now need to look at ways in which those technologies can be used to help set them apart.

In its newly published Technology Vision 2019 report focused on emerging technology trends, Accenture says enterprises are rapidly entering what it terms the “post-digital era,” when business success will be determined by an organization’s ability to “deliver personalized realities and experiences for customers, employees and business partners.”

Accenture’s report, “The Post-Digital Era is Upon Us – Are You Ready for What’s Next?”, was released late Wednesday as the company opened a new Innovation Hub in San Francisco that pulls together a range of its operations, including its lab, into five floors of the new Salesforce.com Inc. tower. The hub includes some 2,000 people, including 1,400 researchers, with plans to hire 500 more tech experts in the next 18 months.

Accenture says that digital transformation is essentially done or at least a universal discipline and that enterprises are now reaching a turning point. It notes that almost four in five of the 6,600 companies it surveyed for the report believe that digital technologies are now a core aspect of their technology foundation. But that also means they’re no longer a differentiating advantage but now simply the price of admission.

So what’s next following digital transformation? It all comes down to how organizations use the digital technologies they’ve adopted, which include analytics, cloud, mobile and social, to innovate and deliver more personalized experiences and services to their customers, Accenture says.

“The post-digital era is upon us,” Paul Daugherty, Accenture’s chief technology and innovation officer, told a press gathering Wednesday in San Francisco. That doesn’t mean digital is over, though. “On the contrary, we’re posing a new question: As all organizations develop their digital competency, what will set you apart?”

Accenture says that enterprises will need to answer that question themselves, but that they would do well to address a number of emerging technology trends if they’re to succeed.

These trends include what Accenture calls “DARQ Power,” which relates to new technologies such as distributed ledgers, artificial intelligence, extended reality and quantum computing. These are all still nascent technologies, but understanding and knowing how to use them will be key because they have the potential to deliver “extraordinary new capabilities” for businesses, Accenture’s report says.

Of course, these technologies will only be useful if businesses understand their customers’ needs. That’s why Accenture has identified a second important trend it calls “Get To Know Me” that entails businesses getting to know their customers via technology-driven interactions.

“This living foundation of knowledge will be key to understanding the next generation of consumers and for delivering rich, individualized, experience-based relationships,” the report notes.

Some companies are already making progress when it comes to individualization and customization, Accenture said. In its report it cites the example of Zozotown, a Japanese e-commerce site operated by Start Today Co. Ltd., which offers a mobile app paired with “skintight spandex Zozosuits” that are used to take consumer’s body measurements so they can purchase tailor-made clothes online.

Another important trend relates to companies’ employees. The idea of “Human+ Worker” relates to the evolution of skilled workers, whose knowledge and skills are rapidly being enhanced by the way they use digital technologies. The only problem with this is that organizations are largely failing to keep up with their workers, with 71 percent of firms saying that they believe their employees are “more digitally mature” than the organization itself.

Security is another issue that needs to be addressed. The “Secure Us to Secure Me” trend relates to ecosystem-driven businesses that collaborate with others. These businesses are becoming increasingly “interconnected,” and as such they’ll need to work to address new attack vectors that these collaborations expose. According to Accenture, just 29 percent of business executives feel their ecosystem partners can be trusted to ensure they’re compliant with regard to security.

The last trend in Accenture’s report, called “MyMarkets,” involves meeting consumer’s needs in real-time in order to secure a competitive advantage. Accenture says that digital technologies have created a world where consumers are demanding customized and on-demand experiences, and that its down to organizations to figure out a way to “shape the world around people and pick the right time to offer their products and services.”

One company that’s already doing so is China’s JD.com Inc., which is partnering with physical stores in the city of Shenzhen and using a combination of robotics and drone deliveries to offer more than 8,000 products to shoppers that are either available in store, or can be shipped to their home within 30 minutes.

Accenture says each of these trends will be critical in shaping the post-digital era, since they will help enterprises not only to differentiate themselves, but also to change the way in which the markets they operate in actually work. It says that the most successful businesses will be those that can adopt these trends and move on from a single market to “numerous custom markets,” which will exist “on-demand and in the moment.”

Looming over all these trends, Daugherty said, is the need for companies to engender much more trust with consumers so they’re willing to engage more fully to enable these individualized services and relationships.

“We believe that companies are fundamentally going to be operating on trust,” said Michael Biltz, the Accenture managing director who drives the firm’s annual technology vision. He cited the need for Wal-Mart Stores Inc., for instance, to command enough trust to enter people’s home and refrigerators to make its food delivery business possible. “None of this will work if you haven’t built that layer of trust.”

SiliconANGLE’s video studio theCUBE, which covered the Innovation Hub’s opening, interviewed a number of Accenture executives. The conversations will run over the next few days on SiliconANGLE and theCube.

With reporting from Robert Hof

Image: geralt/Pixabay