Unlock the Industry X.0 advantage: a great growth opportunity for innovative startups

Companies the world over recognise that to drive down costs or forge new revenue streams, digital technologies are imperative. Most, indeed, want to be digital leaders.

Many, however, aren’t getting the value they expect from their digital investments. According to a recent Accenture survey of executives, only 13% of companies are exploiting digital for greater efficiency as well as new growth.

Why? Because most companies are still investing in digital in a piecemeal fashion. They simply aren’t realising the full value impact of taking a combined approach.

The right mix of digital technology

Recent Accenture research report - titled “Combine and Conquer” - reveals that combining five digital technologies, in particular —autonomous vehicles, augmented and virtual reality, big data, machine learning and mobile computing — could help companies achieve additional savings of over US$85,000 per employee on average. And a slightly different mix of autonomous robots, mobile computing, autonomous vehicles, 3D printing and machine learning—could help companies gain additional market capitalisation of just over US$6 billion on average.

How technologies should be combined will of course, vary across industries; but the impact on cost savings will prove significant, regardless of industry. For instance, companies in the industrial-equipment sector could realise additional cost savings of over USD 43,000 per employee if they combined autonomous robots, AI, blockchain, Big Data and 3D printing. Since industrial-equipment companies surveyed have an average employee base of just over 37,000, that could translate into total savings of over USD 1.6 billion on average. Oil & Gas companies, meanwhile, could gain over USD 16 billion in market capitalisation if they combined technologies such as virtual reality, big data and AI.

Industry X.0: the key to successful combinations

Creating value with digital isn’t just a simple game of mixing and matching digital technologies, however. Companies also need to completely reinvent their operating models, production and value chains, becoming what Accenture calls Industry X.0 businesses.

Industry X.0 businesses embrace constant technological change—and profit from it. They move beyond experimenting with IT bundles or SMAC (social, mobile, analytics, cloud) stacks, combining digital technologies to drive both top-line and bottom-line growth. Industry X.0 businesses incorporate Industry 4.0’s core operational efficiencies, but also leverage combinations of advanced digital technologies to continuously create new, hyper-personalised experiences in both a business-to-consumer and business-to-business context.

They also boast four distinct value characteristics. Industry X.0 businesses are:

• Smart: Every product and production process is self-monitoring, data-generating, and aware of its ever-evolving business context.
• Connected: Communications are end-to-end and multi directional, while data sharing among people, products, systems, assets and machines happens in real time.
• Living: There is an enterprise-wide cultural capability to act with speed, focus, and agility, to meet needs and seize opportunities.
• Learning: Adaptive interactions help create increasingly relevant and valuable user experiences over time.

Industry X.0 businesses are best positioned to “Lead in the new” because they are masters at combining digital technologies: the key to new levels of efficiency, new sources of growth, and new customer experiences.

An opportunity for innovative Industry X.0 startups to collaborate with large enterprises

For leading enterprises, becoming an Industry X.0 business is a journey. It starts by taking steps to become smart, connected, living and learning. However, it is difficult, time consuming and costly for large enterprises to build all the required “innovation” enablers - new skills, ideas, talent - in-house.

Innovative startups – who operate at the vanguard of digital technologies – have a great opportunity to tap here. With the agility to build Industry X.0 use cases, the stage is set for collaboration between large companies and startups – to accelerate the pace of innovation.

For large companies, collaboration with entrepreneurs is a means to inject new approaches to technology and talent into their innovation processes. For entrepreneurs, collaboration with large companies holds the promise of accelerated commercialisation of their products and services.

The Accenture Ventures Challenge

Accenture Ventures has launched the Accenture Ventures Challenge - an annual program to recognise and reward B2B startups who have solved some of the most “Innovative & Challenging business problems in the digital space”.

The inaugural edition of the challenge will focus on “Industry X.0” under 4 categories: Supply chain and logistics, R&D and engineering solutions, manufacturing, and support and services. The challenge aims to identify and reward innovative Industry X.0 startups in India.

Who can apply

If you are a startup with operations in India in any of the following Industry X.0 segments, if you have worked on B2B use cases, and have an annual revenue of at least $100,000, then this is the right opportunity for you.

What’s in it for startups

If you win the Accenture Ventures Industry X.0 Challenge 2018, here is what you get to accelerate your entrepreneurial journey:

• The opportunity to collaborate with Accenture and deliver innovative solutions for G2000 enterprises
• Opportunity to pitch to CXOs of Accenture’s Indian and global clients
• Invitation to join a special Industry X.0 cohort program (mentorship & all benefits of Accenture’s Open Innovation Partner program) or co-creation opportunities at Accenture Ventures CoE at the highly talked about Accenture Innovation Hub in Bengaluru
• In addition to this, the winners will get an exclusive presentation opportunity to a group of highly influential industry influencers and business leaders in India.

The process

A jury comprising of Accenture leaders, industry experts (including Accenture clients), and VCs will select the finalists.

Finalists will be chosen on the basis of the uniqueness of their solution, the business benefits it offers and the scalability of the solution. Winners will be chosen by the jury after the final round of deliberations and announced during a grand finale on July 6, 2018.

Apply today!

To enter your startup for the Industry X.0 Challenge, fill out this application form.

Applications close on June 8, 2018, so hurry up and apply today.

Know more about Industry X.0 here.

Know more about Accenture Ventures here.