Apple’s gadgets win adulation, but research shows the sector needs a jolt if it wants to grow

By Wouter Koetzier, global managing director-Accenture’s Innovation Performance Group, and Adi Alon, North American managing director-Accenture’s Innovation Performance Group

Large consumer technology companies are underperforming in the global innovation battle.

The culprit: Widespread flaws in how they manage and invest in innovation.

If tech companies want to grow, they need to invest in breakthrough, high-impact innovations and more systematically and rigorously manage their innovation processes.

This conclusion is based on our daily interactions with clients and recent Accenture research in which we interviewed research and development decision-makers at leading consumer technology companies in North America, Europe and Asia. Collectively, the executives represent companies that generate almost two-thirds of global industry revenue.

The data revealed that innovation is a top priority for companies seeking to grow. But shortcomings in managing innovation, such as not having uniformity of command, are resulting in poor returns on innovation investments.

Accenture believes these poor returns can be turned into profitable, sustainable growth by systematically managing innovation end-to-end — with the same rigor and discipline as other major business processes. More

Device testing needs to drastically improve or carriers and manufacturers face big risks to their reputations.

By Abhijit Kabra, senior executive, Accenture

Kabra: How well has your mobile device been tested? Photo: Accenture

Cell phones have come a long way in the last five years: We can surf the web, listen to music, watch TV, and make payments on our phones. So why is the process of testing these devices stuck in the 1990s?

Leading mobile handset makers around the world spend millions of dollars testing these products from the onset of product development until they deliver them to market.  Yet according to a new Accenture survey of executives from the electronics and high-tech industries, 88 percent of respondents revealed that they do not do a good job of testing these handsets.

It’s disappointing and surprising that so many manufacturers are lax in their testing approaches. Testing may seem like a straightforward exercise. But without stringent testing of these phones, the entire mobile ecosystem—from manufacturers to wireless carriers to retailers—risk putting out poor quality products that dissatisfy consumers, lower sales, and damage corporate brands.

Given this predicament, manufacturers are under mounting pressure to revamp their testing methods. And they should, particularly during these tough economic times when cost savings and process improvements are so crucial.

The goal to revamp should be systemic, aimed at creating a new, well-coordinated and compre­hensive testing strategy—the opposite of a piecemeal and incomplete approach. This new, more consistent and industrialized method, will reduce product development costs, deliver expected quality levels faster, and defend brand reputations. More

Remember how cloud computing was supposed to kill client/server? Turns out it’s more of a wedding than a funeral.

First, some background: The hype surrounding cloud computing in recent years has been nothing short of wild. If you believed the popular wisdom, the traditional computing model was toast. Businesses were going to stop loading specialized programs onto workers’ PCs and buying expensive software and servers for data centers.

Instead, we’d have the cloud. Service providers like Salesforce.com (CRM) and Amazon (AMZN) would own the hardware and software, and let companies plug in over the Internet and use it on demand. More

As cloud computing spreads, so does your company’s data.

Tobolski: The cloud also has a dark side. Photo: Accenture

By Joseph F. Tobolski, director of development, Accenture Technology Labs

It often starts off innocently, say with a twentysomething employee seeking additional servers to do a data analysis project.  Studies show, after all, that it’s these “millennials” who expect to use their own preferred technologies for work rather than those supplied by their employer.

Anyway, he can’t get this from IT, so he goes and loads data on a server he rents from a "cloud" service provider.  He later completes the project, but neglects to delete the data.  When he leaves the company the following year, the corporate data he has in the cloud has been long forgotten and it’s now impossible for his employer to corral.

Meanwhile he tells his colleagues how easy it was to procure servers and storage from the cloud.  Pretty soon, his associates follow suit and build applications in the cloud, several of which go viral within the company. More