TOPIC: Reshaping client enterprise through SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and

cloud) technologies
Abstract:
The business landscape is changing; we
are entering what many call the post-digital
era, where the confluence of emerging
technologies is leading to new possibilities
for consumers, enterprises and technology
vendors. Multiple technology trends,
including social media, mobility, analytics
and
cloud
computing
are
fusing
relationships between customers boosting
agility within the enterprise and in the
market,
and
leading
to
increased
collaboration among internal and external
stakeholders.
This
paper
explores
the
potential
opportunity from SMAC and suggests ways
in which the IT providers can use it to
enhance the client satisfaction and modify
client enterprise.
INTRODUCTION:
The consumer technology model is now
penetrating, and beginning to transform, the
corporation in a significant way. This new IT
architecture, which we call the SMAC
stack(for social, mobile, analytics and
cloud), is enabling the creation of hyperintelligent software platforms that address
myriad issues, from sales to customer
service to the design of new products to the
management process. In short, the SMAC
stack does not represent the next new
technology to be bolted onto your existing
business model. Instead these technologies
will transform the business model itself.
Let us understand what SMAC is all about.
Social:
Enterprises
are
increasingly
leveraging social media for customer
engagement and brand building, as more
and more individuals are becoming active

Internet users and using social media. The

social network users are expected to reach
1.73 billion this year, an 18 percent increase
from 2012 driven by rising adoption in
emerging countries.
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Foursquare
the new way how businesses and
individuals are connecting with each other,
globally. Social media platforms are not only
restricted to the social networking sites such
as Facebook and LinkedIn, rather extended
to various forms of social media including
YouTube, blogs, social bookmarking, geolocation sites, and daily deals.
Mobility: Mobile devices have changed the
way people access digital content.
Smartphones and tablets have brought rich,
digital content to the fingertips of
consumers. Shoppers are increasingly
using their mobile devices for everything
from browsing to comparing to buying
products. Governments are also reaching
out to their citizens, using mobile devices as
an efficient channel. Enterprises must also
jump on to the mobility bandwagon, and
ensure that their applications are mobile
ready.
Analytics: Companies have always kept
large amounts of information. While its true
that the amount of data in the world keeps
growing, the real change has been in the
ways that we access that data and use it to
create value. Today, you have technologies
like Hadoop, for example, that make it
functionally
practical
to
access
a
tremendous amount of data, and then
extract value from it. The availability of
lower-cost hardware makes it easier and
more feasible to retrieve and process

information, quickly and at lower costs than

ever before.
Cloud: Cloud buzzword in the todays
evolving technology world is increasingly
gaining traction among enterprises for its
known benefits cost effectiveness, agility,
and less capital intensive. With these
benefits cloud computing has not been
restricted for the use of enterprises, its
reach has extended with consumerization
with the launch of various applications from
a host of IT service providers. Moreover,
cloud is considered to be the next
generation solution and would be key in
offering the information technology services
over Internet.
Past and Current Trends in SMAC:
Introduction of SMAC has caused
displacement of entire business models.
Here we will see few examples which
denote the current trend in favor of SMAC
and will also underscore the future potential
of this technology.
Let us summarize the data in form of a table
for better understanding.
Industry

Winner

Losers

Tipping
Point

Book Retailing

Borders

Amazon

Movie Rentals

Blockbuster

Netflix

Borders
Bankrupt
2011;Amazon
market
cap
$99 billion
Blockbuster
bankrupt
2011; Netflix
streaming
volume
exceeds
rentals
in
2012
and
constitutes
one-quarter of
US traffic.
Nokia market
share at 1197
levels,3%of
peak market
cap;
Apple

Mobile Phones

Nokia

Apple,
Google

market
cap
$500
billion
and Google
$215 billion
Online
AOL
Facebook
AOL
value
Communication
955
from
Platforms
peak
;
Facebook
market
cap
$48 billion
Photographs
Kodak
Flicker,
Kodak files for
Shutterfly
bankruptcy in
early 2012.
Source: Company reports; valuations as of mid-November,
2012

In every case, the industrial model (or

widget) winners held significant advantages
in brand awareness, customer relationships,
distribution
channels,
research
and
development capabilities, management
experience, employee depth, balance
sheets and market valuation. Yet, the digit
winners possessed one key advantage:
Their value chains were in harmony with the
realities of todays information-based
markets, because they had mastered the
SMAC stack technologies. By 2012, they
had all triumphed, pushing widget
champions to either bankruptcy or market
valuations 90% off their peaks. In hindsight,
the fight wasnt even fair. Whats going on
today is not the digitization of products, but
the digitization (and resulting virtualization)
of entire business models. In this new
landscape, it doesnt matter how hard your
organization works, how well you manage
or what resources are at your disposal; if
you are competing with an antiquated
business model, you are at risk of facing
your own Kodak moment.
Future possibilities in SMAC:
The possibilities are immense when it
comes to SMAC. It is like a revolution in the
age of information.
The massive leap in computing devices and
data under management will occur in two
steps in the next several years.

The first step, which can be called the

mobility movement, will be driven by the
10 billion smart devices in the hands of the
worlds people.
The second step which will take the
numbers to remarkably high levels will be
the Internet of Things movement, driven
by 100 billion devices mostly in the hands
of machines.
Step one: Mobile and Analytics
Mobile: The Smartphone in your pocket
has more computing power than all of
NASA did when it put a man on the moon in
1969.
By now we should assume that any
customer we want to sell to, or any talented
employee we wish to hire, is carrying a
sophisticated smart device at all times.
Whats now important is not who has a
smart device, but what they are doing with
it. Theyre already doing a lot, and this will
only accelerate over time.
Today all the customers want to make their
presence felt on the mobile platforms.
Considering the overwhelming number of
people using internet through their
Smartphone the move is quite rightly
justified. The section of mobility is growing
up to be a big area of revenue collection
and this seems to be growing leaps and
bounds. Considering these factors it only
seems necessary for all the IT companies to
focus on this sector.
Online shopping: Be it Book retailing or
shopping of apparels or furniture or anything
else. This is one very important sector when
we consider this aspect. Mobile banking is
one another sector which is growing
exponentially and is making its presence
felt.
Considering these examples we can see
immense scope to not only improve the
experience of the current customers by

providing them space in mobility section but

also adding new customers. Considering
the motive of Accenture of High
Performance, this sector is definitely to be
looked at.
Analytics: The explosion of data is being
driven by the SMAC stack in two stages.
First, with the growth of mobile devices and
social networks, your systems are
constantly being hit by suppliers, customers
and employees across your entire value
chain, and they are talking openly about our
company and its customers, in an anytime,
anywhere fashion. This alone will lead to a
five-time growth in data. However, as
highlighted in the following section, this
growth will be turbocharged when we reach
the second stage, at which point its not just
humans but also machines that are
persistently connected across your business
and engaged in constant communication.
This growth in data leads to the question:
What we can do with this data?. And the
answer to it is Almost Anything.
Continuously evolving algorithms and codes
have led to possibility of data crunching and
collecting all the useful information
responsible
When used by IT companies it can lead to a
tremendous jump in the efficiency of the
company thus increasing the customer
experience in effect. For example: When
this technique is applied in online shopping
it helps the companies like Flipkart and
Snapdeal to correctly surmise the
preference and choices of their customers.
This helps them to better predict the
products they would like to buy, thus
increasing the satisfaction of the customers.
In similar way it can be used in other fields
as well and improve the overall experience
of the customers.

Step Two (2015-2020): Mobile Machines

and the Internet of Things
In the current instantiation of the market,
each layer of the SMAC stack is
experiencing outsized growth. However, by
the end of 2015, things will get really
interesting as the SMAC stack becomes the
staging area for another (much more
profound) leap in the scale and ubiquity of
computing, the Internet of Things.
What is the Internet of Things? Its the
networked interconnection of everyday
machines to one another, as well as to
humans.
As an example, think of your next car as a
truly connected device, with many of its
systems online at all times. Next generation
GPS systems, the streaming of music to the
dashboard or real-time engine diagnostics,
multiple core systems will be online and
continually transmitting data via the Internet.
In fact, the car may even drive itself.
Additionally, your car will not be in isolation.
It could be connected to your calendaring
system, so that if you are 15 minutes late, it
will automatically notify whomever you are
driving to see. On your way home, the car
will communicate with your home security
and air conditioning systems, so upon your
arrival the house is open, properly lit and at
your desired temperature.
Machine-to-machine-to-human connectivity
will have a profound impact on the
consumer and home experience, as well as
transportation systems, retail, industrial
supply chains, energy grids, security and
public safety. Retailers will be able to
provide precision retailing at minimal cost.
Manufacturers of complex products will
provide predictive maintenance. Doctors,
through remote care, will be in regular
contact with post-surgical patients, remotely
monitoring their key vital signs and
recommending recuperative steps in realtime. The use cases are myriad and

promise to create rapid dislocation in

industry after industry.
All these provide in turn immense possibility
for Accenture to increase its scope and
areas of collaboration and co-operation. The
potential to tap is immense and soon we
might even see a dedicated section for
Internet of Things in Accenture itself.
Looking forward: Embracing the SMAC
stack
In summary, its easy to be confused about,
or even dismissive of, the role of consumer
technologies in the corporation. However,
ignoring the impact that the SMAC stack will
have not only on information technology, but
also on the fundamental nature of business
itself, is a very dangerous path to follow.
The SMAC stack will enable new
organizational models, by which the
creation of economic value and the
foundation of competitive advantage will be
based on winning with key knowledge
processes.
Winning businesses in the coming decade
will:
Master the SMAC stack.
Unchain their business models.
Implement key knowledge processes
.
Companies that ignore this transition may
soon face their own Kodak, Blockbuster or
Borders moments.
References:
1. http://www.capgeminiconsulting.com/resource-fileaccess/resource/pdf/cc_accelerate_
your_transformation.pdf
2. http://www.wipro.com/documents/res
haping-retail-integration.pdf
3. http://www.digitalwarriors.com/social-mobile-

analytics-cloud-smac-equalizersmall-business/
4. http://blogs.nasscom.in/future-of-it/
5. http://www.csiindia.org/c/document_library/get_file
?uuid=8e696af2-9f03-4e24-8ec2727ba0745f8e&groupId=10157
6. http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?i
d=2028315.