How Do They Know Their Customers So Well? Lessons from the Leaders in Customer Knowledge Management
The management of customer knowledge is critical to many contemporary business initiatives involving customers and customer-relationships. Firms are investing billions of dollars in technologies to manage customer information and turn it into knowledge. Yet few organizations have developed outstanding levels of customer insight, and most concentrate only on the customer data that are easiest to address. In the research for this article, we investigated the … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Ajay K. Kohli, Jeanne G. Harris, Thomas H. Davenport | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Best Practices, Customer Related
Defining Intangible Assets
Metrics and Incentives In Outsourcing: Driving Peak Performance
Metrics and Incentives are an important component of outsourcing relationships, but as executives use outsourcing more strategically, these become more critical than ever.
In this research study, we found that each type of outsourcing relationship calls for different metrics and incentives to some extent. More importantly, executives also use the same metrics and incentives in different ways to shape the outsourcing relationship they need. Tapping new … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Alice Hartley, Jane C. Linder, Joseph Sawyer | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Best Practices, Outsourcing / BPO
Liberating the Entrepreneurial Spirit
All over the globe, executives in the private, public and non-profit sectors think entrepreneurial behavior is key to the overall success of their organization and the competitiveness of their countries. Yet the entrepreneurial spirit is proving elusive. Only four in ten executives think their organizations are very entrepreneurial today. Why?
We conducted interviews with 880 senior executives in 22 countries to identify barriers to entrepreneurial … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Source: Accenture | Subject: Entrepreneurship
Types of Strategic Alliances
Thomas A. Stewart
Intelligence becomes an asset when some useful order is created out of free flowing brain power-that is, when it is given coherent form (a mailing list, a database, an agenda for a meeting, a description of process); when it is captured in a way that allows it to be described, shared and exploited; and when it can be deployed to do something that could not … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Intelligence, Knowledge
High-performance business attributes and strategy execution
High Performance Outsourcing: Gaining Control through Outsourcing in the Manufacturing and Consumer Industries
Businesses that outsource gain powerful new control over business performance according to a multinational survey conducted by Accenture. A full 86 percent of executives realize control gains over business results-most within the first year of outsourcing.
Content: Article | Authors: Adam Johnson, John D. Rollins | Source: Accenture | Subject: Outsourcing / BPO
Gary A. Curtis, Richard M. Melnicoff and Tor Mesoy
Industry leaders are smart about their use of technology. They understand that IT is an enabler, a means to a business end that is always measured in market position, operating results and earnings. If such a company happens to become a technology innovator as a by-product of these objectives, fine. Otherwise, they are willing to let competitors absorb the cost and risk of technology experimentation … [ Read more ]
Content: Quotation | Source: Accenture | Subject: IT / Technology / E-Business
The Innovator’s Advantage
This report draws on interviews with 581 senior executives across industries in 18 countries, as well as Accenture’s experience in helping companies to deliver innovation.
The study demonstrates how innovative companies have shown themselves to be genuinely open-minded, unafraid of new ideas; ready even to change their most fundamental strategies if that is needed. The study found that the approach of innovators is essentially collaborative, … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Source: Accenture | Subject: Innovation
Justin Jenk, Patricia Anslinger and John J. Ballow
Earnings have proven to be a poor tool for valuing companies, and not just because they are subjectively determined. Earnings also ignore the crucial consideration of the cost of capital.
Content: Quotation | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Finance, Investing
Auto-ID Across the Value Chain: From Dramatic Potential to Greater Efficiency & Profit
Next generation Auto-ID technologies promise a range of business benefits in many industries. This paper from the Accenture Institute for Strategic Change discusses the potential benefits across the value chain, and business models for deploying Auto-ID.
Content: Article | Authors: Ajit Kambil, Jeffrey D. Brooks | Source: Accenture | Subject: IT / Technology / E-Business
Articulating A Business Model
A Global Study of Supply Chain Leadership and Its Impact on Business Performance
Transforming supply chain operations can have a substantial impact on a company’s ability to grow and prosper, new research from Accenture, INSEAD and Stanford University has found.
The three organizations undertook the multifaceted research project to understand how companies derive competitive advantage from their supply chains. The research demonstrates a correlation between the quality of a company’s supply chain and its financial performance. It also … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Author: Jeffrey D. Brooks | Sources: Accenture, INSEAD, Stanford University | Subjects: Best Practices, Operations
Data to Knowledge to Results: Building an Analytic Capability
Data remains one of our most abundant yet under-utilized resources. “Data to Knowledge to Results: Building an Analytic Capability” provides a holistic framework that will help companies maximize this resource. By outlining all the elements necessary to transform data into knowledge and then into business results, the paper helps managers understand that human performance elements must be attended to in addition to technology. The experience … [ Read more ]
Content: Article | Authors: Alvin L. Jacobson, David W. De Long, Jeanne G. Harris, Thomas H. Davenport | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Knowledge Management, Management
Why IT Still Matters
While some aspects of IT are becoming commoditized, other types of IT can still create competitive advantage, according to an Accenture Institute for Strategic Change study. The authors point out three ways in which IT can still make a strategic difference, and present a set of rules for managing IT that distinguish commodity from value-creating IT.
Content: Article | Authors: Jeanne G. Harris, Jeffrey D. Brooks | Source: Accenture | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Strategy
Alastair G. Robertson and Cathy L. Walt
Classic entrepreneurs are likely to score high on achievement and autonomy but low on affiliation. They might rank somewhere in the middle on the need for power. Consequently, many entrepreneurs get bored and frustrated and often leave the confines of corporate life-or are moved aside-when their tiny ventures grow into big, bureaucratic businesses.
Content: Quotation | Source: Accenture | Subjects: Entrepreneurship, Personality / Behavior
Systems Development and Systems Managment Map
So what is a business model?
Yes, You can Take the Guesswork out of Evaluating Outsourcing Capabilities and Performance
While thus far objective quality measurements for outsourcing have been elusive, Accenture believes the eSourcing Capability Model will benefit both buyers and outsourcing providers who understand the value of a standardized approach to evaluate outsourcing capabilities. This paper from Accenture Outsourcing and Infrastructure Delivery describes the model, its potential benefits and promising pilot results.
Content: Article | Authors: Keith M. Heston, Shari L. Dove | Source: Accenture | Subjects: IT / Technology / E-Business, Outsourcing / BPO