Tecniológica and Accenture Digital want to boost business models with Liquid IT

The acquisition by the consulting firm's digital division seems to have suited this Spanish developer well., that preserves its identity and its brand PosterDigital, and reinforces both its international projection, talent and business, as well as innovation to put into projects and methodologies under the Liquid concept in the new digital environment.

All positive and no negative, seems to be the maximum so far after the acquisition of Technological on the part of Accenture Digital at the end of last July, and since then “we lived a honeymoon in which Accenture has contributed and given more, although obviously we have adapted management issues and others, but maintaining the freshness and dynamics of carrying out technological projects in a different way”, explains Jorge Gutierrez, general director of Technology part of Accenture Digital, the new name of the company.

Precisely from this business differential arises the interest and purchase of the consulting firm's digital division., which now takes more shape with the implementation of a new common model between both: Liquid IT.

This is how José Luis Sancho explains it, managing director of Accenture Digital for Iberia and Israel: “From our unit, the traditional way of doing business and offering services was not suitable for us in a rapidly changing environment and in which we were missing a specific piece to help companies in their digital transformation., which we have called Liquid IT, as well as having the necessary talent to carry it out. Now we have taken a leap with the purchase of Tecniológica, which joins the ecosystem of Accenture Digital companies to meet the demand for a new, faster IT business, innovative and based on open source”.

More specifically, Liquid IT is a software development strategy that involves the use of modular architectures, reusable components, open source and third party API, as well as Agile and DevOps methodologies to significantly reduce time and costs in creating solutions adapted to the dynamic change of business and user expectations., as defined by both responsible parties.

This business model presents a more than promising and profitable future in digital transformation, “since he 18% of companies' investment will be in this environment, according to Gartner data, and expects this total budget to reach 28% in 2018”, Sancho points out, while pointing out the positive expectations in the adoption of Liquid IT: “between the 15 y 20% of the projects currently being developed in the market already obey this paradigm , and the 100% “Of those that are considered innovative and disruptive, they are already carried out under these parameters”.

But the challenges of this digital transformation are neither simple nor quick., mainly in sectors with very consolidated and conservative processes, like banking, insurance,…in which the gradual internal cultural change, the adaptation of methodologies and new products must lead the way.

As Ángel Barbero points out, business development manager at Tecniológica, “digital transformation is not easy at all, because both the technology and the methodology are very complex and innovation sets the pace, although in more traditional sectors there are two speeds, a more traditional one that is adapting very little by little and the implementation of small pilot projects, which is where we value our Liquid IT model”.

Precisely, the acquisition made by Accenture Digital, “it not only consolidates our company, but it opens the doors to sectors that were very difficult to access and explain this proposal., In addition to being very expensive because we did not have the very specialized talent pool that we do have now”, Gutierrez adds..

Digital signage as added value

In the current Tecniológica part of Accenture Digital “another fundamental business element when making the acquisition decision has been the digital signage area and its PosterDigital system -explains Sancho-, to improve the customer experience in the physical space, since at Accenture we did not have these systems, but it does produce content from a company that we bought, and now we can offer complete services”.

One of the issues that are still pending to be defined after the acquisition is Tecnilógica's alliances with wholesalers and distributors, mainly from the audiovisual environment, and how to adapt it to the new business strategy as part of Accenture Digital.

One of the proposals that have already been shown together to promote this omnichannel digital experience, during the third edition of Accenture Digital Conference (ADC3), recently held in Madrid with the presence of about three hundred executives and fifty CEOs from Spain, has been called the Technological Travel Cube.

It is a digital information station that allows the user to know in advance and in real time the temperature of various tourist destinations.. The color of the cubes indicates what thermal sensation there is in each city, and when stamping the passport leaning on the cube, the client receives additional information about the destination (flight fares, etc.).

For this technical development, the Tecniológica team has used Raspberrys Pi, pressure sensors, Instagram images of cities tagged for screens and connections to the API of an online weather service.

Expansion and organic growth

Another of the highlights of the integration of Tecniológica into Accenture Digital is the international expansion, since although this company opened an office in London a few months ago and has developed digital projects in other European countries (more data in Digital AV Magazine), “Now they have put it on a plate for us and it is reinforced,” says Gutiérrez., and we will be there wherever they ask us for a project”.

To face all of this, The company will also grow in professional talent focused on developing the Liquid IT model. “We have increased the workforce by 25%, and at the end of 2016 there will be some more people, and the idea is to have about two hundred more people over the next three years”.