Mind the gap in fast-changing environment

For example, the research shows that 69 percent of high performers are committed to mobile transactions as part of their customer service, compared with 41 percent of Chinese CIOs. This is significant because mobile transactions allow customers to conduct transactions around the clock: Placing orders, booking travel and even transferring cash between bank accounts while they are on the go. And nearly one-third of customer interactions for high performers are already self-service, with seamless interfaces across mobile, social media and Web channels.

For example, a traditional food retailer and supermarket chain in Europe already receives 20 percent of its orders through digital channels.

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Forward-looking organizations are also extending their social networks beyond people to intelligent objects, such as their products. For example, the engines on Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner aircraft are designed to transmit performance data in the form of news feeds to which maintenance teams can subscribe, allowing the engine itself to automatically share its status enables service teams to more easily maintain it, reducing costs and increasing its lifespan.

Coupled with predictive-analytics technology, the performance data helps optimize aircraft maintenance and flight operations, anticipating the need for parts replacement, for instance. In addition, there is a major trend to capitalize on crowd-sourcing in multiple areas of business: To innovate, to finance and kick-start new enterprises and to access scarce talent and skills beyond traditional company borders.

The report also finds that top performers are learning to master a hybrid IT environment. They have adopted a "cloud first" mentality, with one-third of IT leaders replacing their legacy architecture with private and public cloud components. In comparison, none of their counterparts surveyed in China have done that. Meanwhile, one in six manage a fully virtualized, dynamically provisioned hybrid infrastructure, creating an agile platform that promotes the sharing and exchange of data and ideas seamlessly across multiple business units.

Forty percent of high performers have seen a measurable improvement in IT agility as a result of cloud technology, compared with just 9 percent of the others including Chinese organizations.

However, all this aggregated data, cloud technology, mobile connectivity and seamless, across-the-board customer interaction also brings security concerns. The study found that this is one area where many organizations are struggling to keep pace and that there is a general acknowledgement the endpoint security is insufficient to deal with constantly evolving threats.

The author is managing director of Accenture Strategy, Asia Pacific. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.