Innovation & technology

Do your innovations create value for customers - or just novelty?

Seventy percent of US CEOs are anticipating changes to their innovation capabilities. The definition of innovation has widened to include not only R&D that underpins new technologies, products and services but also business processes and business models. Each aspect of the business is fair game for reinvention, and CEOs are leading innovation on multiple fronts.

For example, some companies are commercializing new technologies on a large scale in fast-growing markets that have “leapfrogged” costly legacy infrastructures; think smart grids and mobile health solutions. Others are leading low-cost innovations for price-conscious consumers overseas and bringing those product and process discoveries back to their home markets.

Featured innovation & technology insights

Technology Forecast: Transforming collaboration with social tools This issue of Technology Forecast explores how to confront communications overload and boost collaboration potential by making best use of the new powerful social tools. Business is inherently social, which is why collaboration and communications that scale are so fundamental.
New Digital Economy: How it will transform business This paper explores the six seismic shifts of the digital economy that are transforming business and how they will affect companies in all industries.
Technology Forecast: Decoding Innovation's DNA This issue of Technology Forecast asks and answers the question, "is innovation the result of inscrutable, opaque genius, or can innvovation be treated as an end-to-end process subject to performance optimization by adopting proven methods?"
Technology Forecast: Unleashing enterprise mobility This issue examines how the current generation of smart handhelds implies more opportunities for enterprises than might be obvious at first glance.
Technology Forecast: 2010 Issue 3 In this issue of the Technology Forecast, we review the techniques behind low-cost distributed computing that have led companies to explore more of their data in new ways.
10Minutes on the cloud Cloud computing has business transformation implications beyond technology. Businesses looking for new strategic options with the potential to spur innovation, time-to-market and organizational flexibility should consider cloud computing.
Smart grid growing pains Utilities and other stakeholders are redefining their roles as players in the rapidly expanding smart grid infrastructure space. This paper explores the early growing pains of managing revolutionary industry shifts now underway—involving technological, operational and behavioral elements.
10Minutes on the CIO CIOs can focus on innovation and advance business goals such as developing new products or winning loyal customers, while making their IT infrastructures and organizations more efficient. From virtual healthcare to mobile commerce, cloud computing and analyzing mountains of data, leading companies are using technology to build their company's next competitive advantage.
The real promise of cloud computing Beyond the latest hype is a brave new world where technology can finally keep pace with business. It starts with Evergreen IT.

Related innovation & technology insights

Dialing up a Storm: How Mobile Payments Will Create the Most Significant Revenue Opportunities of the Decade for Financial Institutions
With more than more than $20 billion in play, who will be the winner in the emerging mobile payment space? PwC discusses the market dynamic.

The future of the CIO: Business strategy and technology innovation
Every Chief Information Officer (CIO) knows that the job has become more complex. The changes of the past 20 years will seem mild compared with those of the next five. CIOs will face unprecedented pressures, and our research shows that many executives expect CIOs to point the way for agile business in today's volatile economy. So how can your CIO help define and execute forward-looking business strategies for your company? Here, we offer some ideas.

Insights on Business process management
The last thing a business wants in its business process management solution is frustration. While it can be a great solution to many challenges, it must be applied effectively. In today's competitive market, businesses need to look at every aspect of their strategy to gain competitive advantage. Here, PwC managing director, Hemant Ramachandra, shares experienced insights on why BPM is more than just a technology issue.

Cleantech revolution: Building smart infrastructures
What role might companies across all industries play in the trend toward government and private investment in clean or smart energy? How will they benefit in the growth of smart infrastructure markets?

Technology Forecast: Summer 09
What are the technology trends in Evergreen IT and cloud computing? Flexibility and lower costs? Automated IT operations? Agile data centers and IT infrastructures? Yes to all of the above. Here we examine these trends with a good dose of insight on how your organization can make the best of the latest technology available.

Evergreening IT at Bechtel
Geir Ramleth, senior vice president and CIO of Bechtel Group, is transforming IT to move away from managing, maintaining, and building legacy solutions to an environment that uses virtualization, standardization, and automation to be flexible and deliver the right services anytime, anyplace, and to any device that has a browser and an Internet connection. What does he know that your organization might not?

Message from the editor
This issue of the Technology Forecast looks at the emerging trends in cloud computing and introduces the Evergreen IT concept and its role in avoiding complexities and cost. Also looked at are the technology domains that are key in delivering Evergreen IT and the five stages companies must accomplish to reach the goal of Evergreen IT.

Technology Forecast: Spring 09
Linked data technology can change the business of enterprise data management. Here, we offer in-depth scenarios that portray just how linked data technology can help you achieve your own business goals.

Realizing ERP value
What’s a core factor in whether a company folds or capitalizes from the current economic downturn? Across most industries, it’s enterprise applications – especially those that are agile, efficient and cost-effective. In fact, this 10Minutes looks at how downturns can be the best time to undertake ERP-related actions.

Technology forecast: Winter 09
The emerging capabilities of business management applications are crucial to closing the gap between strategy and operations in pursuit of agility. What is the future of enterprise applications and what will be their role in creating a foundation for agility in an era of accelerating change?

Technology forecast: Winter 09 - Interviews
A series of interviews from PwC's Technology Forecast, Winter 09.

Technology forecast: Fall 08
In scores of conversations with business and technology executives, it has become evident to PwC that many apparently unrelated initiatives share a common challenge: to manage them in an era of continuous change without tearing the organization apart by lurching from one initiative or crisis to the next. This issue of the Technology Forecast describes how.