The power of collaboration and collective action

Recently I had the great pleasure of speaking at the St. Gallen Symposium, the world’s leading student initiative for intergenerational debates on economic, political, and social developments. Given its rich history of bringing together leaders from all over the world to inspire current decision-makers with the next generation in mind, I was honoured to participate. This year’s theme of collaborative advantage set the stage for an engaging conversation on how collaboration is the cornerstone of a more connected, efficient, and cost-effective world.

In today’s truly remarkable times, we are seeing challenges and opportunities that are common to many industries. Top of mind for many of us is the war in Ukraine. But we are also dealing with the lasting effects of the pandemic and supply chain interruptions, rising concerns about sustainability, changing consumer behaviours and skills, and worker shortages and dislocations. Additionally, there is also unprecedented industry disruption, led by technology advancements—such as AI, VR, XR and 3D printing; more productive and human-friendly automation and employee enablement; and cloud advantages. Add in rapid infrastructure scaling and speed to technology adoption, with agile platforms and ecosystems—the pace of change is unprecedented.?

The need for global collaboration is therefore accelerating, as with many other shifts in our society today. Collaboration is needed within organizations, by removing silos and working more closely together. Collaboration is also needed across broader ecosystems and by forming new partnerships to address society’s largest challenges. In fact, cross-industry collaboration—and collaboration among competitors—was addressed during a #WEF22 panel discussion by some of today’s top business leaders, including Accenture CEO Julie Sweet, and leaders from Google, IBM, Nokia, and Hewlett Packard.

For industry leaders, there are many benefits of taking collaborative action:

1. More innovative ideas, yielding better solutions. If a problem is complex, it can benefit from a diverse group of collaborators. Some of the big problems of the world today cannot be solved by one organization alone. For example, most, if not all scientists will agree, that collaboration between countries, early warning systems, and rapid intervention teams are vital to dealing with a pandemic. And we saw firsthand that efforts on the ground to distribute COVID-19 vaccines demanded strong collaboration across the public sector, business, and community organizations alike to rapidly vaccinate populations at speed and scale.
2. Greater engagement and buy-in from all stakeholders. When people contribute to solving a problem, they are more inclined to accept and champion the outcome. We can see an example of this in the eight private-sector organizations currently collaborating on the key topic of decarbonization. These organizations share a common goal: achieving carbon neutrality by 2040 in the Humber Industrial Cluster, the largest CO2-emitting industrial cluster in the United Kingdom.
3. Greater ROI. Siloed functions hamper digital transformation and hinder an organization’s ability to drive growth. Functions that compete lead to lost revenue growth and experience a 6% increase in costs through redundant investments. Those that collaborate are better positioned to grow.

Collaboration is in Accenture’s DNA… it’s who we are and how we work. Our purpose—to deliver on the promise of technology and human ingenuity—depends on collaborating with clients, our partners and within Accenture. Collaborating with clients to analyse challenges, overcome them and capitalise on opportunities. Collaborating with our ecosystem partners and with institutions such as MIT and WEF to tackle problems facing multiple industries today. And collaborating within Accenture to bring together expertise from across markets, services and networks to offer the best cross-industry solutions to our clients.

Over the past two years, the pace and scale of change is unprecedented. The ground is transforming under our feet. It took 15 years to go from the launch of the first iPhone to a world where 6.6 billion people, or 83% of the global population, are using a smartphone. It took only a few years for the Oculus app to become the top mobile app in the US and a top five app in 14 countries. Based on our research, by 2030, the lives of human beings will stretch across several worlds — that’s the backdrop of our Metaverse Continuum. We will exist not just in the reality we all know, but also across numerous digital, virtual, and “virt-real” worlds — a combination of physical and digital worlds. How we collaborate will change. By embracing new technologies and taking collective action, we can think big and scale fast for the benefit of all.