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Leaders have a deliberate stance toward technology adoption and a clear vision for what their companies’ future systems should look like.

While some leaders are born, others are made: Everyone can emulate the mindset and methods of the top 10%

But it’s not just about collecting new tools; they prioritize and sequence implementations in optimal ways. They cultivate Future Systems, a state in which businesses adopt complex, interconnected systems of technologies, applications and people. As a result, their systems allow for a seamless flow of product and service innovations from one process to another.

Laggards, on the other hand, have faith in a “fast follower” approach, implementing technologies as individual point solutions without a plan for cultivating systems. So, when a potentially game-changing innovation comes along, they fail to scale it.

Let’s take a closer look at why Leaders are building thriving Future Systems, which are boundaryless, adaptable and radically human:

Adaptable

Adaptable systems learn and improve by themselves, eliminating the friction that hinders business growth and helps humans make better decisions, much faster. Powered by advances in data and intelligent technologies, those with adaptable systems aren’t fazed by change.

More than 80% of Leaders agree that decoupling the entire IT stack is a key step toward adaptable systems, compared to less than 40% of Laggards who think so.

Key markers of adaptable organizations include enterprise-wide use of automation and AI, a continuous data supply chain in the cloud to power the AI in the enterprise, and a stable but modular, flexible, and constantly evolving architecture.

Leaders take five key actions consistently to close their innovation achievement gaps and rise above the rest.

1. Adopt technologies that make the organization fast and flexible

   Leaders are moving to decoupled data, infrastructure and applications that enable greater flexibility and a faster-moving IT culture.

   While Leaders opt for flexible, uniform and scalable architectures capable of responding to market demands, like seamless customer payments, Laggards find it difficult to move away from rigid IT architectures which leaves them unable to maximize investments in innovation and vulnerable to system-wide outages.

   97% of Leaders adopt critical technologies such as microservice architectures, containers and Kubernetes that allow decoupling.

2. Get grounded in cloud computing

   Cloud computing is essential to Future Systems because it enables companies to successfully utilize other technologies, including AI and analytics. As such, Leaders treat the cloud as a catalyst for innovation.

   

   95% percent of Leaders have adopted sophisticated cloud services compared to around 30% of Laggards, who tend to see the cloud as a cost-effective “data-center.”

3. Recognize data as being both an asset and a liability

   Leaders ensure data quality, creating security measures that anticipate threats and building ethically responsible frameworks for managing data and AI. This establishes a virtuous cycle of data creation and consumption, because the quality is always improving.

   90% of Leaders ensure data quality, only 40% of Laggards do so. And while 90% of Leaders continue to enrich their data, just 54% of Laggards are doing so.

   Similarly, the AI handling the company data must gain the trust and confidence of the people who use it to avoid the risk of adverse effects on business performance, brand reputation and regulatory compliance.

   94% of Leaders have a systematic way of managing AI in a responsible/ethical manner, compared to 49% of Laggards.

4. Manage technology investments well – across the enterprise

   Leaders have clear visibility into company-wide technology investments.

   

   94% of Leaders systematically track ROIs for investments in automation across the organization, compared to only 47% of Laggards.

   Leaders work toward business alignment by breaking down barriers between IT and other departments. They also establish innovation centers, creating pipelines for innovation transfer. For instance, they might consider how improvements in machine-learning-driven sales and customer relationship technology could be used to predict and preempt employee turnover.

5. Find creative ways to nurture talent

   A workforce immersed in yesterday’s technologies is one of the biggest obstacles to creating the expansive, flexible, human-centric systems necessary for success.

   Our survey respondents believe that without some retraining, 52% of their IT workforce’s skills and almost half (47%) of their non-IT workforce’s skills will be obsolete in three years.

   87% of Leaders are using AI and advanced analytics to personalize learning, predict skills needs and match workers’ skill requirements with appropriate training modules. Only 35% of Laggards are involved in such efforts.

   Leaders also make sure their talent is not afraid to experiment and present non-traditional ideas—important components of learning and growing.