The Executive Newsletter of TheOfficialBoard

By Mark Spelman, Accenture

A combination of intensified globalization brought on by recent turbulence in the global economy and the acceleration of new information technologies is driving companies and governments to look for new business models.

Growth in size and reach of new emerging market players combined with technological advances—such as cloud computing, mobile communications and collaborative computing —are accelerating the need for companies to master new consumers, talent, innovation, capital, and resources.

The intertwining of IT with the multi-polar world has made a number of new economic relationships possible for the first time. This sets the stage for doing business in completely new ways:

1. Co-production between companies and their customers or suppliers: Companies are finding more opportunities to engage with customers and suppliers in such areas as co-producing products and sourcing ideas as a part of the innovation process.

2. New forms of B2B commerce: New forms of B2B activity are becoming technologically possible, advancing the promise of “e-markets” first discussed a decade ago.

3. Consumer-to-consumer content sharing: Technology is enabling like-minded consumers to form clusters of cooperative structures that span multiple countries and regions in order to share information, evaluate products and services and conduct purchases.

4. Peer-to-peer markets operating outside the traditional value chain: Individuals can form groups that provide products and services to reduce the market power of existing suppliers or to exert greater control over the way a product or service is produced or consumed.

5. Cooperative consumption by groups of end consumers: The growth of social networking and digitization enables consumers to form clusters that boost their bargaining power.

On top, we have found that two key capabilities help to thrive in the changed ecosystem:

• Harnessing external networks— develop deep and wide networks with customers, entrepreneurs and other businesses.
• Seeking data-driven insight—data collection, analytics as well as insight generation and insight application.

Responding to the newly complex and competitive ecosystem requires each business to re-evaluate the roles it has played and the sources of its value.

However, each organization has a great opportunity to harness these new market forces to its advantage to optimize, extend and transform its business models.

Mark Spelman leads Accenture’s Global Strategy practice and runs Accenture’s global macro economic and political think-tank called the Accenture Institute for High Performance.  Mark is also a regular participant to World Economic Forum at Davos.

Learn more with “From Global Connection to Global Orchestration: Future Business Models for High Performance Where Technology and the Multi-polar World Meet,” at www.accenture.com/mpw