From Looking Digital to Being Digital: The Impact of Technology on the Future of Work The power of data access comes from the their software industry counterparts as they and more of the work of data collection opportunity it provides for people to make try to identify and explore new products embedded in sensors and intelligent tools, timely and more intelligent and impactful using models, simulations and digital the demand in the years ahead will be for business decisions. The challenge, however, exchanges with customers and suppliers employees who are capable of working comes from making the inner workings of before committing to build anything. And, with data and who are motivated to use the enterprise more visible—to workers, once the decision to build is made, they data to improve products and practices. managers and ecosystem partners—and are using advanced procedures (like limited Based on observations drawn from a therefore to enable more people to ask releases and collaboration with advanced disparate set of cases, we believe that four more questions about why things work user communities) to pressure-test and core talents will prove critical: the way they do and what might be refine those designs, to explore their accomplished by making a change. implications for downstream processes like First, the ability to experiment. This might manufacturing and distribution, and to seem obvious, but the virtual flood of In a growing number of software and move much more quickly to market. data generated by digital tools can easily services companies, access to digital overwhelm any effort at experimentation. assets—in those cases, access to code—is However, making these changes requires a Think of what the first generations of considered an absolute must in order to more open approach to data distribution, enterprise resource systems did to decision- accomplish business objectives. Not so in a much higher level of comfort with making. The dictum of “garbage in/garbage many companies where access to data is ambiguity (such as a willingness to go out” comes to mind. The ability to arrive at still considered to be a source of privilege. with something that’s 80 percent right or testable propositions is crucial even in an The message is clear: if data is the raw directionally correct versus 100 percent era of smart machines. asset, it must be available to those who locked down) and a willingness to move in can turn it into information, knowledge the absence of complete agreement. Whether those propositions are arrived at and value. inductively (through careful observation of events and a search for patterns) or The power of experimentation is evident in Developing and deploying deductively (driven by hypotheses of cause the results that companies like Audi and GE the right talent and effect) matters less than the ability have gotten from high-speed refinement to ask questions of the data that lead and improvement of products and services. Fredrick Taylor, progenitor of scientific to productive answers. This assumes a But the challenge comes in mustering the management a century ago, famously heightened level of numeracy on the part courage to wiggle free from a dominant remarked that all an employer really wants of front-line employees and managers. paradigm of fixed and final designs as the in a worker is a pair of hands and a strong Case in point: store personnel at 7-Eleven only way to move from idea to outcome. back; unfortunately, he argued, the hands engage in experiments on a virtually That explains why companies in the also came with a head. Thinking and daily basis with their inventory choices. automotive and pharmaceutical industries interpreting human beings were anathema The availability of a massive data base, are starting to look more and more like to scientific management. Today, managers smart planning tools and internal business in the digital enterprise need to recognize advisors enables them to test their ideas, that the right heads are essential to being see what works and communicate the digital. Tools are not enough. With more results immediately. The message is clear: if data is the raw asset, it must be available to those who can turn it into information, knowledge and value. 34 | Accenture | Copyright 2014 Accenture. All rights reserved. ©