Announcer: From San Francisco, it's theCUBE covering Accenture Tech Vision 2020, brought to you by Accenture. Hey, welcome back, everybody. Jeff Rick here with theCUBE. We are high atop San Francisco, at the Accenture Innovation Hub, 33rd floor of the Salesforce Tower at the Accenture Technology Vision 2020 party. The party's getting started. Paul, and Mike, and the team are going to present the findings, and we're excited to have, actually, the hostess of this great facility. She's Ashley Miller, managing director of the San Francisco Innovation Hub. Ashley, great to see you. Great to see you again. So, congratulations once again. We were here last year. It was the grand opening of this facility. Ashley: Yes, sure was. You've had it open for a year now. We sure have. It's been a year. We also have a soft launch in September, so a little more than a year under our belt, and as you can see, the place is busy. Right, so you had the hard job, right? So Mike, and Paul, and all the big brains, they put together pretty pictures, and great statements. You're the one that actually has to help customers implement this stuff, so tell us a little bit about how you use the Tech Vision because it's pretty insightful. It's a lot deeper than cloud's going to be big, or mobile's going to be big, but to take some of these things to help you with your customers drive this innovation. Yeah, well, I don't know about having the hard job against theirs. They certainly have the hard job understanding what these technology trends are that are going to have an impact on business three to five years out, but I certainly do have the fun job, and the exciting job. I get to work with our clients every day here in the hub, and work with our 250 dedicated innovation teammates here in the hub to think about the impact of these trends to their business, so clients come in for a day, two days, a week, and we'll sit with technologists. We'll get our hands on some of these emerging technologies, on quantum computing, on artificial intelligence, machine vision, machine learning, natural language processing. You name it, we have it here. We have a smart materials showcase going on upstairs that a lot of these clients have checked out, so they can come here, they can get their hands on these technologies that are driving these trends, and then, they can sit and work with strategists, and others who can think about, what are the application of these technologies to their business? And then, what's really exciting is we have engineers here who can then help build prototypes to actually test these technologies to see what their impacts are for the business, and then, finally, support the rollout of pilots that prove successful, so it's, again, it's a fun job. I love it. And how does it actually work in terms of best practices? Is it starting out as some strategy conversation with the top-level people about trying to integrate say, more AI into their products, or is it maybe more of within a product group, where they're trying to be a little bit more innovative, and it really challenges on the product development path? You talked about the material science that they want to go down, what are some of the ways that people actually work with you, and work with your teams, and leverage this asset here at the hub? Yeah, so ultimately, it's both, and it's at all ends of the spectrum. We are here in the Silicon Valley, where clients are coming from all over the globe to understand what the trends are that are going to shape their business operations in the future, so we have clients that are coming through. Some people call them digital safaris, or innovation safaris. Some people may say that's not valuable. I think it is valuable to come and get firsthand experience, knowledge, touch and feel these things, and really dedicate time to think about the application to your business. On the other end of the spectrum, we'll have clients who are here for days, weeks, and months, and we have ongoing partnerships with clients. We've been open for about a year and a half, for that and longer to actually embed this innovation capabilities into their business, so I think maybe an answer is, what is the most successful model I see? I really get to dig into these clients who are using our services as an innovation engine to help them drive their business, and to help augment their innovation capabilities, and it's those clients I see who are continuously testing, continuously learning, understanding the impact of these technologies, driving proofs of concepts to test them who are able to make progress. Can it happen without top down support? I mean, we talked, unfortunately Clayton Christensen just passed away. Innovator's Dilemma, my favorite business book of all time because he said smart people making sound business decisions based on customers, profitability, and business, logical business priorities, will always miss discontinuous change. Jeff Bezos talks about AWS had a seven-year head start on their public cloud because no one down in Redwood Shores, or Waldorf was paying attention to the bookseller in Seattle, so it's hard for big companies to innovate, so is it really necessary for that top down, that, hey, we are going to invest, and we are going to saddle up, and get our hands dirty with some of these technologies for them to be successful, and drive innovation because it's not easy for big enterprises. You're exactly right. Innovation is hard. Change is difficult. I was a student of Clayton Christensen, and like you and many others, are mourning his passing. He made a significant impact, this area of research. Change is hard. It's difficult, so we see a lot of clients who are coming in, and are doing interesting things to overcome that inertia to stay put, and I think tops down leadership is a significant piece of that. You need to have leaders who are supporting movement, who are enabling decision making quickly, so they are supporting small decisions they're making frequently so that there's not a massive decision that happens at the end of a pilot, but rather, micro-decisions that help ensure things are being moved along, building pilots and proof of concepts, of course, helped in that movement to get buy-in, to get leaders to see the value, and to also pivot if something isn't working, so innovation is hard. Accenture's Innovation Hub helps to fill some of those gaps because really, we are a sandbox, where you can come in, build the proof of concepts, test these ideas, and then, in an ongoing, continuous way, help understand their impacts to your business. Right, and I'm just curious how often, as order of magnitude, this innovation around a particular, existing business, maybe it's the new materials, the new way of thinking about it, versus maybe, is this a way for them to really explore wild ideas, or go out a little bit beyond the edge of what they're going to execute in their normal, day to day, say, product development because which of those do you find is best use of your resources? Yeah, so again, it runs the spectrum. I mean, I think the companies who are innovating around the edges, they're spending a lot of money to run pilots, and tests, proof of concepts that may not have significant value to the core of their business, so of course, it's the companies who are really thinking about how they're going to innovate new business models, how they're going to build on these trends to figure out where their company is going in the future, and be ready, and be ahead of the curve, but in order to get there, maybe you do need to get your hands dirty, and run some tests, run some proof of concepts to understand the technology. The key is, in order to ensure that the investment in those activities is actually helping you move the needle. Right, so how should people, if somebody's watching this, and they want to get involved, or I'm busting my head. We're not moving as fast as we need to. I'm nervous. I have an imperative. I need to accelerate this stuff. How do they get involved, and how do they end up here getting their hands dirty with some of your team? Yeah, thanks for that, appreciate that. Accenture works with the largest organizations around the globe, and there's typically a client account leader, partner, from Accenture embedded into the biggest organizations, and so, for those who are existing clients, they can reach out to their client account lead, and we would be delighted to welcome them in, and do some, either, exploratory research into these technologies, or actually, do some longer-term innovation engine work, where we're helping to augment their capabilities. For those who, maybe, aren't an Accenture client, then, we do have open houses. We do quarterly open events, not only for potential new clients, but also, for people in the community for partners, for schools. We're really committed to helping to be an asset for San Francisco, for this community, so keep your eyes peeled for opportunities to come in. Yeah, that's great because last time when we were here when we opened there was a lot of conversation about being a very active participant in the community. You guys are sponsors with the Warriors at the Chase Center, but no, I think we had a number of people from the city and county of San Francisco in talking about the opportunities, and being an active, engaged member of the community beyond just a for-profit company. Absolutely, and the undercurrent of this year's Tech Vision, which is about to launch is all about thinking beyond the edges of your organization, and understanding the choices that you make, how they impact the communities you serve, so it's really important to us to be a good steward of that here at Accenture, and we have teammates accessible within the hub. For example, data enthesis, who can help you understand the decisions you're making around artificial intelligence. Are you using data securely? Are you using it in a way that makes people feel comfortable? So we have teammates here who can help clients consider the impact of these decisions that goes beyond the four walls, to really be a good steward for the next generation. Okay, well, next time I come, I'm wearing a white coat, so we can go get our hands dirty. I like it. All right, Ashley, well, again, congratulations to you and the team, and have a great evening. Thank you so much. All right, she's Ashley, I'm Jeff. You're watching theCUBE. We're at the Accenture Innovation Hub for the Technology Vision 2020. Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time. (funky electronic music)