With 260 sessions, debates and briefings at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2012, this year’s theme -The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models- reflects the need for a profound overhaul in the face of a fraying global system and lingering economic malaise.
Federal Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel opened the event in Davos with emphasizing the urge for Europe to regain global trust and compete effectively on the world stage by reduce state debt and creating harmoniously functioning political structures. As she stated: “What we don’t want is that we promise something that we can’t deliver”. If there’s one word that sums up the mood at the WEF this week, it’s uncertainty.
In below video Accenture Executive Chairman ‘William D. Green’ discussed insights from several panel discussions on how technology drives growth and opportunity and on the importance of building talent and competitiveness.
Growth in Emerging Markets One of the most discussed topics this year was the search for growth in emerging high-growth markets. The search for growth opportunities in emerging economies is no longer a matter of choice; it has become a necessity. Read more…
What great transformations will the world see in the next decade?
Tomorrow marks the kick-off of the 42nd edition of the World Economic Forum (WEF) Annual Meeting which will take place January 25-29 in Davos, Switzerland under the theme The Great Transformation: Shaping New Models.
Over 2,600 top officials from leading private-sector companies, governments, nonprofit organizations and academic institutions will gather to discuss the increasingly complex, interdependent and fast-paced era we live in whereby leaders return to their core purpose of defining what the future should look like, aligning stakeholders around that vision and inspiring their institutions to realize that vision. Ahead of the event Accenture CEO Pierre Nanterme outlines 3 trends that are driving this global transformation.
Like last year, Accenture Chairman Bill Green was once again invited to share his vision and opinions and will moderate a panel session entitled A Smart Growth Solution that examines how technological advances drive economic growth and employment.
Yesterday it once again became clear that innovation is still alive and well in the Netherlands. With 1250 participating concepts across various industries, over 25000 votes and 700 visitors and innovation enthusiasts, the fifth edition of the Accenture Innovation Awards was a big success. The coverage of the event via Twitter (#AIA11) even made it to the number 1 trending topic with over 550 tweets.
The Innovation Awards honors high performance in the field of innovation, uniting and stimulating innovators in the Netherlands. Accenture Netherlands Banking lead, and moderator of the event, Barend van Doorn welcomed the audience with an introduction of the story behind the ‘Blue Tulip’ and introduced the first of three key note speakers of the day; former CEO of Shell: Jeroen van der Veer. In the inspiring presentation he addressed the need for a society to innovate, stating that governments have to stimulate -not finance- innovation and restore the link of confidence between governments, corporations and citizens. With the keynote titled “Game Changers”, Accenture’s Global Innovation Lead Wouter Koetzier discussed this year’s participating concepts and their potential to have a breakthrough impact through 3 main trends in innovation to lead to Game Changers: Sustainability, Social and Digital. During the presentation he stated that innovation is the driving force for strong competitiveness, long-term profit and growth. Read more…
Only two weeks left and Sustainability 24 will kick-off on Wednesday May 25th 2011.
Sustainability 24 is a unique opportunity to discover how modern sustainable business practices are helping organizations achieve high performance. During this live virtual event, business and local government leaders will demonstrate how sustainability can be embedded throughout an organization to drive efficiencies, cost savings, and differentiation in their markets through innovation.
Throughout the live broadcast you’ll be able to join sessions with a variety of leaders from all over the world as they debate and discuss key themes such as Intelligent Cities, Smart Solutions, Sustainable Operations, Energy Innovation, Sustainable Growth and Renewables all of which are major issues when it comes to tackling key concerns around the sustainability agenda. It’s an exciting and unique format for sharing ideas with a global audience, leveraging the latest in collaborative technology to minimize our carbon footprint and maximize the debate.
Join in the debate during this truly unique live and virtual gathering to discover how modern sustainable business practices can help your organization achieve high performance. Read more…
To promote our Skills to Succeed initiative, Accenture launched a TV spot, which is airing currently in the United States during the Accenture Match Play Championship (February 23-27). The commercial highlights our ‘Skills to Succeed’ commitment by showcasing initiatives in four markets: Brazil (with Conexão); South Africa (with Enablis); India (with Dr. Reddy’s Foundation); and the United States (with Genesys Works). As you’ll see, the documentary-style video features both Accenture and non-Accenture people, including those helped though our initiatives.
The goal of our Skills to Succeed program is to equip 250,000 people around the world with the skills to get a job or build a business by 2015. The Skills to Succeed program has 80 local initiatives, which you can read more about on our global Skills to Succeed section on Accenture.com.
At the recently held 41st edition of the World Economic Forum (WEF) summit in Davos, Accenture chairman Bill Green (as was Management Consulting Group Chief Executive Mark Foster, more on his views in another post) was once again invited to share his vision and opinions on the current economic climate, and the ways in which economies and organizations can foster growht. Mr. Green, who has recently transitioned to his new role as Chairman from his former CEO role at Accenture (note: read the personal interview Forbes’ Mia Saini had with Mr. Green about his transition during his stay in Davos), emphasized the importance of Growth though Innovation. The video below gives an impression of Mr. Green’s views which he shared during te WEF summit.
This year we celebrate 10 years Accenture. On January 1, 2001, we successfully rebranded our company. We take great pride in the fact that only two years after becoming Accenture, we were ranked No. 53 among the world’s top global brands with a brand value of more than US$5 billion—and that today we have a brand value of US$7.5 billion.As a company, we have seen much change over the past 10 years. For example:
We have nearly tripled our workforce—from 75,000 employees in 2001 to more than 211,000 people today.
We have transformed our operating structure—from a group of locally owned idependent partnerships or other entities in 2001 to a public company with net revenues of US$21.6 billion today.
We have expanded our presence in the emerging markets. In 2001, five percent of our employees were based in Brazil, Russia, India, China, Mexico and South Korea. Today 36 percent of our people reside in these markets.
Accenture’s yearly High Performance IT research for this year’s program, involved the assessment by the most senior IT executives in 226 of the world’s largest private- and public-sector organizations.
In an interview with Accenture Netherlands director technology, Bas Telgenkamp, the results were summed up. “Our research inidicates that CIOs of High Performance IT organizations are involved directly with the business output and that they tune their activitites to the current and future business demands of the entire organization. They have succesfully phased out their legacy systems and are embracing new technologies. The push for the right balance between cost optimalization and budget availability, knowledge and resources is an important condition for growth.” For more on the High Performance IT research study, have a look at the video below:
Yesterday the winner of the Communications & High Tech Accenture Innovation Awards was announced during a very interactive event at Pakhuis de Zwijger, in Amsterdam. The big winner of the night was TenPages. Founder Valentine van der Lande was awarded the Blue Tulip and received €50.000 media budget from Emerce and a support package from the Amsterdamse Innovatie Motor.
Her pitch which helped her win the Blue Tulip award this year, and which makes TenPages a worthy successor to last year’s winner, Layar (also say my earlier post of Layar’s success since winning the Innovation Awards), can be viewed below. In case you want to have a look at one of the other pitches of this year’s Innovation Awards (including all those from the category winners), have a look at the IA2010 website.
Continuous innovation and rapid transformation have been themes throughout Accenture’s history. Established in 1989 primarily as a technology consultant and systems integrator, Accenture soon began offering a new breed of business integration solutions to clients—solutions that aligned organizations’ technologies, processes and people with their strategies.
Leslie: I will have to agree with Wouter…Too many companies do take their customer’s loyalty for granted…Hopefully this will change...Read the full comment
Wouter: Nice story, Angela! Unfortunately there are still too many companies that take the loyalty of their customers for granted. I hope Roy’s story...Read the full comment
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