Accenture report ; freelancers are the future
Accenture Tech Vision Report on Workforce Marketplaces: Why Enterprises Built for Change Will Dominate
Digital-born companies are disrupting the establishment with an agile and dynamic approach to doing business. And, according to a new report from Accenture, incumbent enterprises who want to stay competitive are prepared to follow suit.
According to the 2017 Accenture Technology Vision report on Workforce Marketplaces:
“Businesses are transforming their organizational models and the way they manage their people to take advantage of an increasingly digital and on-demand workforce.”
These organizations are what Accenture describes as “built-for-change companies,” willing to explore new workforce technologies.
Citing one Fortune 50 CPG company as an example, Accenture highlights the results of a pilot program that used Upwork Enterprise, a solution that combines technology and services, to find and contract freelancers who helped deliver products faster and at a lower cost than with conventional methods. For many executives, results like these make a good case for shifting the status quo.
Digital-born companies are disrupting the establishment with an agile and dynamic approach to doing business. And, according to a new report from Accenture, incumbent enterprises who want to stay competitive are prepared to follow suit.
According to the 2017 Accenture Technology Vision report on Workforce Marketplaces:
“Businesses are transforming their organizational models and the way they manage their people to take advantage of an increasingly digital and on-demand workforce.”
These organizations are what Accenture describes as “built-for-change companies,” willing to explore new workforce technologies.
Citing one Fortune 50 CPG company as an example, Accenture highlights the results of a pilot program that used Upwork Enterprise, a solution that combines technology and services, to find and contract freelancers who helped deliver products faster and at a lower cost than with conventional methods. For many executives, results like these make a good case for shifting the status quo.
WHY OLD BUSINESS MODELS CAN’T KEEP UP
Seventy-three percent of business executives surveyed by Accenture feel “corporate bureaucracies are stifling productivity and innovation.” In fact, a report from The Management Lab estimates as many as 21 million members of the U.S. workforce could be stuck in positions with “little or no economic value,” leaving $3 trillion in limbo.
That stagnation comes with a cost digital-born companies have managed to avoid. They’re built to use new technology to their advantage, working with talent remotely and turning to online labor platforms to efficiently match supply with demand.
“Digital leaders can easily use these technologies to more quickly fill talent needs, jump-start new projects, and respond to market changes,” Accenture noted. “In doing so, the digital leaders are setting a path incumbents can follow to being their own workforce innovations.”
Innovative enterprises are already taking action, using platforms like Upwork to fill talent gaps with the skills and experience of freelancers. In fact, 100 of the Fortune 500 are using Upwork to test the impact of independent talent before making larger transformations.
ADAPTING TO THE NEW WORKFORCE MARKETPLACE
We increasingly coordinate work online—from anywhere in the world—with easy access to tools such as mobile technology, as well as platforms for communication, collaboration, sharing, and brainstorming.
At the same time, the freelance labor force has grown, including 55 million people in the U.S. alone.
Combined, this transformation of labor gives companies new capabilities—if they’re poised to leverage them—by moving toward a corporate marketplace. Accenture describes this model as a way to leverage both the freelance talent pool and the internal workforce.
“Instead of a traditional structure where individuals are hired for a single position and engaged in fixed business functions, a marketplace-like approach will support people being dynamically teamed together on-demand from project to project, based on skills, knowledge, and staffing needs.”
The potential benefits of such an approach? Speed, agility, and value.
According to Accenture, a workforce marketplace can translate into:
- A leaner team with “markedly higher market capitalization per employee — more than two times that of incumbent companies.”
- The rapid launch of new designs and programs, created in “weeks if not days, compared to the traditional model that takes months of planning, budgeting, sourcing, and launching.”
- Results for both IT and non-IT projects, “giving businesses the opportunity to blend their workforce across the enterprise.”
THE NEXT FIVE YEARS
Accenture predicts that in the next five years, all industries will face disruption. Industrial-era business models will be replaced. Online labor platforms will become primary drivers of economic growth, and perceptions of full-time employees and freelancers will shift—even flip completely.
Adapting to the new reality takes a champion willing to take the leads. Accenture includes strategies you can use to spark change this quarter and over the coming year, including pilot projects with clearly defined metrics that can be used to test policies, capture lessons, and discover best practices.
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