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BCG – Five Game-Changing Technologies Nearing Their Tipping Point

Synthetic Biology Is Getting Closer to Industrial Scale | promo
NICOLAS GOELDEL

Synthetic Biology Is Getting Closer to Industrial Scale

As a coming generation of large biomanufacturing facilities slashes costs, sustainable materials made from organisms based on nature’s design principles are poised to go mainstream.

CO2 to X Could Help Solve “Sustainability Scarcity” | promo
JOHN PASCHKEWITZ AND SUMIT VERMA

CO2 to X Could Help Solve “Sustainability Scarcity”

A technology revolution in chemicals will enable companies to transform captured CO2  into green compounds that can replace hydrocarbons in everything from plastics to fuels.

Quantum Computing’s “ChatGPT Moment” Could Be Sooner Than You Think | promo
JEAN-FRANCOIS BOBIER

Quantum Computing’s “ChatGPT Moment” Could Be Sooner Than You Think

Machines harnessing quantum mechanics to solve incredibly complex problems could start delivering real value to companies in a few years, triggering a takeoff in investment.

A Fusion Future Is No Longer Wishful Thinking | promo
BENJAMIN VANNIER AND ILSHAT HARIS

A Fusion Future Is No Longer Wishful Thinking

Technological breakthroughs and growing investment are bringing the vision of harnessing the process that powers the sun to meet our energy needs closer to reality.

Direct-Air-Capture_updated.jpg
THOMAS BAKER

Direct Air Capture Is About to Go from Intriguing to Essential

The hard realities of climate change are driving rapid technological progress–and growing market demand—for systems that permanently remove CO2 from the atmosphere.

More: BCG

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Rusza XXI edycja “Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Central Europe”

Ranking Deloitte szansą dla innowacyjnych firm technologicznych na ugruntowanie pozycji rynkowej

Od 21 lat firma doradcza Deloitte promuje innowacyjność, oferując firmom technologicznym z Europy Środkowej platformę do zaprezentowania swojej marki oraz ugruntowania pozycji w branży. Właśnie ruszyła rejestracja do kolejnej, XXI edycji „Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Central Europe”, rankingu najszybciej rozwijających się firm technologicznych w Europie Środkowej. Program jest skierowany zarówno do przedsiębiorstw o mocnej pozycji, jak i tych, które niedawno rozpoczęły działalność. Termin zgłoszeń upływa 14 sierpnia. Zwycięzców poznamy w listopadzie.

„Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Central Europe” to program, który plasuje 50 najszybciej rozwijających się firm technologicznych w Polsce i Europie Środkowej, publicznych lub prywatnych, w oparciu o procentowy wzrost przychodów w ciągu ostatnich czterech lat. W tegorocznym rankingu analizowane będą przychody w latach 2016-2019.

Tegoroczna edycja w pewnym sensie będzie wyjątkowa. Trwająca pandemia to dla wielu innowacyjnych firm duże wyzwanie, ale też okazja, by pokazać firmę i jej możliwości. Było to już widać po pierwszej reakcji rynków, czyli wzrostach sprzedaży technologii umożliwiających pracę zdalną. Wiele innowacyjnych firm zmienia też czy rozszerza swoją działalność po to, by pomagać w walce z COVID-19, mówi Agnieszka Zielińska, Partner w Dziale Doradztwa Finansowego, Lider Programu Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Central Europe

Od kilku lat firmy z Polski dominują w rankingu Deloitte. Na przestrzeni dwóch dekad wysokie miejsca zajmowały, m.in. CD Projekt, home.pl. eCard, Pracuj.pl czy LiveChat. W ubiegłorocznej edycji w głównej kategorii „Fast 50” uplasowało się 11 firm z Polski, z czego 3 trafiły do pierwszej dwudziestki: Semantive (14 miejsce), Polski Standard Płatności (17 miejsce) oraz TestArmy Group (18 miejsce).

Edycja 2020 obejmie dwie kategorie „Fast 50” i „Wschodzące gwiazdy”. Dodatkowo firmy mogą aplikować do nagrody specjalnej „Impact Stars”.

Każda spółka starająca się o udział w programie w kategorii głównej „Fast 50” musi spełniać następujące kryteria:

  • działać na rynku od co najmniej czterech lat, czyli co najmniej od 31 grudnia 2015 r.;
  • osiągać przychody operacyjne nie mniejsze niż 50 tys. euro w roku 2016, 2017, 2018 oraz przychód w roku 2019 nie mniejszy niż 100 tys. euro;
  • posiadać siedzibę w jednym z krajów Europy Środkowej (Albania, Bośnia i Hercegowina, Bułgaria, Chorwacja, Czechy, Estonia, Węgry, Kosowo, Łotwa, Litwa, Macedonia, Mołdawia, Czarnogóra, Polska, Rumunia, Serbia, Słowacja, Słowenia); 
  • być firmą technologiczną, a jej działalność musi zawierać się w jednej z kategorii: komunikacja, ochrona środowiska, fintech, sprzęt komputerowy, ochrona zdrowia i nauki medyczne, media i rozrywka, produkcja oprogramowania;
  • być właścicielem praw własności intelektualnej lub zastrzeżonej technologii sprzedawanych klientom w produktach, generujących większość przychodów operacyjnych spółki; 
  • posiadać strukturę własności, która wyklucza udziały większościowe zagranicznych inwestorów strategicznych.

W kategorii „Wschodzące Gwiazdy” mogą walczyć firmy młodsze, jednak muszą działać na rynku nie krócej niż trzy lata, a także osiągać przychody powyżej 30 tys. euro w każdym rozpatrywanym roku (2017 – 2019).

Firm ubiegających się o nagrodę specjalną „Impact Stars” nie dotyczą kryteria przychodowe oraz długość prowadzonej działalności. Kategoria została wprowadzona z myślą o firmach, które z powodzeniem łączą rozwój innowacyjnych produktów czy usług technologicznych z pozytywnym oddziaływaniem na co najmniej jeden z obszarów: społeczeństwo, biznes, innowacje, środowisko i różnorodność.

Każda edycja Technology Fast 50 Central Europe to wielkie wydarzenie i równie wielkie emocje. Choć to ranking firm z Europy Środkowej jego zasięg jest znacznie większy. Wszystkie firmy biorące udział w programie, mają szansę na wyróżnienie się w naszym rankingu globalnym oraz rankingu Fast 500 dla Europy, Bliskiego Wschodu i Afryki. To w oczywisty sposób zwiększa dotarcie marki do potencjalnych klientów i pomaga ugruntować jej pozycję – mówi Agnieszka Zielińska.

Do rankingu zgłaszać się można do 14 sierpnia 2020 r. poprzez stronę http://www.deloitte.com/fast50ce, gdzie dostępne są również informacje nt. kategorii i kryteriów rankingu oraz najważniejsze dane dotyczące jego poprzednich edycji. Wyniki Deloitte Technology Fast 50 Central Europe zostaną ogłoszone w listopadzie 2020 r.

Agnieszka Zielińska, Partner w Dziale Doradztwa Finansowego; Małgorzata Reif, Menedżer ds. komunikacji

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Seven corporate reporting lessons from Asia’s experience of COVID-19

By  Peter Wollmert, EY Global and EY EMEIA Financial Accounting Advisory Leader

The pandemic presents financial reporting challenges for finance teams, but they can benefit from lessons learned by their peers elsewhere in the world.

CFOs and finance functions around the world are helping their organizations to navigate the COVID-19 crisis. Yet different countries are at different stages of their crisis management journeys; finance functions in some markets are still responding to the challenges of the pandemic itself, while those in other markets are now starting to plan for what happens next.

As Asia experienced the disruption caused by the pandemic first, there is an opportunity for finance professionals in the rest of the world to learn valuable lessons from their peers there. Despite cultural, economic and institutional differences, the ways in which Asian finance teams have mitigated the impact of the crisis on their operations, and how they are communicating that impact through financial reporting, may provide some inspiration.

The finance teams of some multinationals are now studying the position of each of their markets on the COVID-19 curve. This is so they can develop scenarios, based on experiences in the Asian markets, for those that are further down the curve. These scenarios relate to unemployment rates, consumer behaviors, likely demand, the impact of government incentives, the extent of travel restrictions and the ability of employees to return to physical workplaces.

Already we have seen the COVID-19 pandemic weighing heavily on growth in Asia this year. China, for example, suffered a 6.8% contraction in GDP during the first quarter, on the back of declining retail activity and industrial output. Nevertheless, the impact of the pandemic does vary by market and by sector, and certain e-commerce businesses have in fact benefited from it. 

So, what are the critical lessons for finance teams from their peers in Asia? From talking to colleagues in China, Singapore and South Korea, I found that there are important takeaways in seven key areas:

1. Cash and liquidity

2. Financial reporting

3. Internal controls

4. Raising capital

5. Employee engagement

6. Engagement with customers and suppliers

7. Communication with shareholders

How EY can help

Accounting and reporting

Finance leaders are under pressure to deliver more reporting more quickly in an environment of technological change, increased regulatory change and increased scrutiny. EY can support clients in this ever-changing landscape.

Read more

Now, next and beyond

It is clear that finance teams around the world will have to continue to manage the impact of COVID-19 on their organizations for the foreseeable future. So, what should they be thinking about now, next and beyond?

Now

  • Focus on the “three Cs” – cash, costs and credit. Perform a comprehensive review of all cash flows, take control of expenses, undertake immediate renegotiations with suppliers, and apply for government loans and aid where these are available and needed.
  • Study the patterns and trends in different markets for both the current and the previous quarters. Use scenario planning to anticipate different future situations and develop a response to them.
  • Use purpose to inform all organizational decision-making at this critical time.
  • Don’t lose sight of the long term. In a crisis, it’s easy to focus on short-term survival, but any decisions taken should also bear the future in mind.

Next

  • Revise the organization’s budgets, strategy and structure for the medium term. Where possible, ask for external benchmarks (e.g., economic reports) that help support the forecasts. Devise a plan that allows it to respond to evolving customer demand and emerging risks while remaining resilient.
  • Explore how the organization can use technology to transform its business. There will be opportunities to drive efficiency by automating processes and using data more effectively.
  • Capture the results of how COVID-19 is impacting the business so they can be used as a reference in the future.
  • Communicate clearly and openly with investors about what the organization is doing to improve liquidity, reduce costs and revise strategy.

Beyond

  • Think strategically about what the new normal will look like – for both your organization and its sector. How can your organization adapt its business model to thrive in a post-COVID world?
  • Explore opportunities for the company to operate differently in future. For example, greater use of remote working may allow it to reduce expensive office space and cut travel budgets.
  • Review your organization’s purpose. Will its current purpose – as it relates to customers, employees and shareholders – still be relevant in future?

Above all, keep in mind the need for agility and flexibility. Circumstances can change quickly, and CFOs will need to be prepared to change course if necessary.

The views reflected in this article are the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the global EY organization or its member firms.

More: EY

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The future of cloud computing: Highly distributed with heterogeneous hardware

With a vastly distributed system (the telco network) already in place, the telecom industry has a significant advantage in the transition toward distributed cloud computing. To deliver best-in-class application performance, however, operators must also have the ability to fully leverage heterogeneous compute and storage capabilities.

Ericsson CTO Erik Ekudden’s view on the future of cloud computing

The growing interest in cloud computing scenarios that incorporate both distributed computing capabilities and heterogeneous hardware presents a significant opportunity for network operators. With a vast distributed system (the telco network) already in place, the telecom industry has a significant advantage in the transition toward distributed cloud computing.

This Ericsson Technology Review article explores the future of cloud computing from the perspective of network operators, examining how they can best manage the complexity of future cloud deployments and overcome the technical challenges. Redefining cloud to expose and optimize the use of heterogeneous resources is not straightforward, but we are confident that our use cases and proof points validate our approach and will gain traction both in the telecommunications community and beyond.

Figure 1: Impact of the four key challenges on the stack (top) and heterogeneity of HW infrastructure (bottom)

The cloud is transforming, both in terms of the extent of distribution and in the diversity of compute and storage capabilities. On-premises and edge data centers (DCs) are emerging, and hardware (HW) accelerators are becoming integral components of formerly software-only services.

One of One of the main drivers into the age of virtualization and cloud was the promise of reducing costs by running all types of workloads on homogeneous, generic, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) HW hosted in dedicated, centralized DCs. Over the years, however, as use cases have matured and new ones have continued to emerge, requirements on latency, energy efficiency, privacy and resiliency have become more stringent, while demand for massive data storage has increased.

To meet performance, cost and/or legal requirements, cloud resources are moving toward the edge of the network to bridge the gap between resource-constrained devices and distant but powerful cloud DCs. Meanwhile, traditional COTS HW is being augmented by specialized programmable HW resources to satisfy the strict performance requirements of certain applications and limited energy budgets of remote sites.

The result is that cloud computing resources are becoming increasingly heterogeneous, while simultaneously being widely distributed across smaller DCs at multiple locations. Cloud deployments must be rethought to address the complexity and technical challenges that result from this profound transformation.

In the context of telecommunication networks, the key challenges are in the following areas:

  1. Virtualization of specialized HW resources
  2. Exposure of heterogeneous HW capabilities
  3. HW-aware workload placement
  4. Managing increased complexity.

Getting all these pieces right will enable the future network platform to deliver optimal application performance by leveraging emerging HW innovation that is intelligently distributed throughout the network, while continuing to harvest the operational and business benefits of cloud computing models.

Figure 1 positions the four key challenges in relation to the orchestration/operations support systems (OSS) layer, the application layer, run-time and the operating system/hypervisor. The lower part of the figure provides some examples of specialized HW in a telco environment, which includes domain-specific accelerators, next-generation memory and storage, and novel interconnect technologies.

More: Magazine #ericssontechnologyreview

Authors: Wolfgang John, Chandramouli Sargor, Robert Szabo, Ahsan Javed Awan, Chakri Padala, Edvard Drake, Martin Julien, Miljenko Opsenica

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Is Your Technology Ready for the New Digital Reality?

For today’s businesses, the only thing that is certain is uncertainty. COVID-19 has cast a clear and somber spotlight on the urgent need for resilience and digital capabilities. More than ever, businesses must be able to react to sudden and dramatic changes—in their supply chains, in their customer interactions, in how and where their employees work. But many companies simply aren’t there yet.

That’s a problem not only for immediate responses to COVID-19 but also for the longer-term future. Expectations for businesses, employees, and consumers have shifted with remarkable speed. Although the situation is evolving very differently across geographies and industries, one common theme recurs: the need to sense and shape the new reality. What will it take to compete going forward? Three elements are key: a relentless focus on the outcomes that matter; new ways of working; and savvy use of digital and technology.

This isn’t a secret recipe. Digitally mature companies embrace all of these principles, and our research shows that they significantly outperform digital laggards. They’re what we call bionic companies, blending human and technological capabilities to achieve superior outcomes. These companies spark innovation, efficiency, and growth. They have better visibility into their businesses and can more quickly make the radical changes that crises demand. Fundamentally, they are more resilient.

If your goal is to be like them, your aspirations are now table stakes—and you need a better hand. The new reality, which pushes digital channels and remote working to the extreme, has demonstrated the limits of many digital transformations. For all their plans, many companies are still not as data-driven, customer-focused, and agile as they need to be. They haven’t yet fully embraced advanced analytics and AI as critical capabilities for adapting to new trends. They have long-term goals but must now deal with unforeseen and crucial near-term needs.

To help companies prepare for the new reality and develop the necessary resiliency, we have developed an approach that centers on four key imperatives: ensure business continuity, reset the investment portfolio, future-proof the tech function, and build adaptable data and digital platforms. The steps involved in this approach may not seem like transformation as usual—but as COVID-19 has made all too clear, it’s no longer business as usual, either.

Digital and AI Maturity Bring Greater Resilience

In a crisis, businesses must quickly answer and address some critical questions. What’s selling? How do we best interact with customers? Where are the trouble spots in our supply chain? How do we support employees who are working from home? In the COVID-19 crisis, many companies have struggled with their assessments and responses.

Already, we’ve seen that digitally mature companies can reap a performance dividend. In a BCG study of more than 200 companies, digital leaders achieved 1.8x higher earnings growth than digital laggards—and more than double the growth in total enterprise value. (See the exhibit.) We also found that digital leaders channel a larger share of investment to areas such as AI as well as to reskilling, upskilling, and new ways of working. Our findings suggest that these companies are best situated to realize a “resiliency dividend” as well, by leveraging technology and digital capabilities to steer their business in real (or near-real) time, thereby strengthening their position in the midst of a crisis.

More: https://www.bcg.com

By Karalee Close , Michael Grebe , Marc Schuuring , Benjamin Rehberg , and Matthew Leybold

COVID-19Contact the Rapid Response Team