>> Announcer: From San Francisco, it's theCUBE covering Accenture Tech Vision 2020, brought to you by Accenture. >> Hey, welcome back, everybody. Jeff Rick here with theCUBE. We are high atop San Francisco, at the Accenture Innovation Hub, 33rd floor of the Salesforce Tower at the Accenture Technology Vision 2020 party. The party's getting started. Paul, and Mike, and the team are going to present the findings, and we're excited to have, actually, the hostess of this great facility. She's Ashley Miller, managing director of the San Francisco Innovation Hub. Ashley, great to see you. >> Great to see you again. >> So, congratulations once again. We were here last year. It was the grand opening of this facility. >> Ashley: Yes, sure was. >> You've had it open for a year now. >> We sure have. It's been a year. We also have a soft launch in September, so a little more than a year under our belt, and as you can see, the place is busy. >> Right, so you had the hard job, right? So Mike, and Paul, and all the big brains, they put together pretty pictures, and great statements. You're the one that actually has to help customers implement this stuff, so tell us a little bit about how you use the Tech Vision because it's pretty insightful. It's a lot deeper than cloud's going to be big, or mobile's going to be big, but to take some of these things to help you with your customers drive this innovation. >> Yeah, well, I don't know about having the hard job against theirs. They certainly have the hard job understanding what these technology trends are that are going to have an impact on business three to five years out, but I certainly do have the fun job, and the exciting job. I get to work with our clients every day here in the hub, and work with our 250 dedicated innovation teammates here in the hub to think about the impact of these trends to their business, so clients come in for a day, two days, a week, and we'll sit with technologists. We'll get our hands on some of these emerging technologies, on quantum computing, on artificial intelligence, machine vision, machine learning, natural language processing. You name it, we have it here. We have a smart materials showcase going on upstairs that a lot of these clients have checked out, so they can come here, they can get their hands on these technologies that are driving these trends, and then, they can sit and work with strategists, and others who can think about, what are the application of these technologies to their business? And then, what's really exciting is we have engineers here who can then help build prototypes to actually test these technologies to see what their impacts are for the business, and then, finally, support the rollout of pilots that prove successful, so it's, again, it's a fun job. I love it. >> And how does it actually work in terms of best practices? Is it starting out as some strategy conversation with the top-level people about trying to integrate say, more AI into their products, or is it maybe more of within a product group, where they're trying to be a little bit more innovative, and it really challenges on the product development path? You talked about the material science that they want to go down, what are some of the ways that people actually work with you, and work with your teams, and leverage this asset here at the hub? >> Yeah, so ultimately, it's both, and it's at all ends of the spectrum. We are here in the Silicon Valley, where clients are coming from all over the globe to understand what the trends are that are going to shape their business operations in the future, so we have clients that are coming through. Some people call them digital safaris, or innovation safaris. Some people may say that's not valuable. I think it is valuable to come and get firsthand experience, knowledge, touch and feel these things, and really dedicate time to think about the application to your business. On the other end of the spectrum, we'll have clients who are here for days, weeks, and months, and we have ongoing partnerships with clients. We've been open for about a year and a half, for that and longer to actually embed this innovation capabilities into their business, so I think maybe an answer is, what is the most successful model I see? I really get to dig into these clients who are using our services as an innovation engine to help them drive their business, and to help augment their innovation capabilities, and it's those clients I see who are continuously testing, continuously learning, understanding the impact of these technologies, driving proofs of concepts to test them who are able to make progress. >> Can it happen without top down support? I mean, we talked, unfortunately Clayton Christensen just passed away. Innovator's Dilemma, my favorite business book of all time because he said smart people making sound business decisions based on customers, profitability, and business, logical business priorities, will always miss discontinuous change. Jeff Bezos talks about AWS had a seven-year head start on their public cloud because no one down in Redwood Shores, or Waldorf was paying attention to the bookseller in Seattle, so it's hard for big companies to innovate, so is it really necessary for that top down, that, hey, we are going to invest, and we are going to saddle up, and get our hands dirty with some of these technologies for them to be successful, and drive innovation because it's not easy for big enterprises. >> You're exactly right. Innovation is hard. Change is difficult. I was a student of Clayton Christensen, and like you and many others, are mourning his passing. He made a significant impact, this area of research. Change is hard. It's difficult, so we see a lot of clients who are coming in, and are doing interesting things to overcome that inertia to stay put, and I think tops down leadership is a significant piece of that. You need to have leaders who are supporting movement, who are enabling decision making quickly, so they are supporting small decisions they're making frequently so that there's not a massive decision that happens at the end of a pilot, but rather, micro-decisions that help ensure things are being moved along, building pilots and proof of concepts, of course, helped in that movement to get buy-in, to get leaders to see the value, and to also pivot if something isn't working, so innovation is hard. Accenture's Innovation Hub helps to fill some of those gaps because really, we are a sandbox, where you can come in, build the proof of concepts, test these ideas, and then, in an ongoing, continuous way, help understand their impacts to your business. >> Right, and I'm just curious how often, as order of magnitude, this innovation around a particular, existing business, maybe it's the new materials, the new way of thinking about it, versus maybe, is this a way for them to really explore wild ideas, or go out a little bit beyond the edge of what they're going to execute in their normal, day to day, say, product development because which of those do you find is best use of your resources? >> Yeah, so again, it runs the spectrum. I mean, I think the companies who are innovating around the edges, they're spending a lot of money to run pilots, and tests, proof of concepts that may not have significant value to the core of their business, so of course, it's the companies who are really thinking about how they're going to innovate new business models, how they're going to build on these trends to figure out where their company is going in the future, and be ready, and be ahead of the curve, but in order to get there, maybe you do need to get your hands dirty, and run some tests, run some proof of concepts to understand the technology. The key is, in order to ensure that the investment in those activities is actually helping you move the needle. >> Right, so how should people, if somebody's watching this, and they want to get involved, or I'm busting my head. We're not moving as fast as we need to. I'm nervous. I have an imperative. I need to accelerate this stuff. How do they get involved, and how do they end up here getting their hands dirty with some of your team? >> Yeah, thanks for that, appreciate that. Accenture works with the largest organizations around the globe, and there's typically a client account leader, partner, from Accenture embedded into the biggest organizations, and so, for those who are existing clients, they can reach out to their client account lead, and we would be delighted to welcome them in, and do some, either, exploratory research into these technologies, or actually, do some longer-term innovation engine work, where we're helping to augment their capabilities. For those who, maybe, aren't an Accenture client, then, we do have open houses. We do quarterly open events, not only for potential new clients, but also, for people in the community for partners, for schools. We're really committed to helping to be an asset for San Francisco, for this community, so keep your eyes peeled for opportunities to come in. >> Yeah, that's great because last time when we were here when we opened there was a lot of conversation about being a very active participant in the community. You guys are sponsors with the Warriors at the Chase Center, but no, I think we had a number of people from the city and county of San Francisco in talking about the opportunities, and being an active, engaged member of the community beyond just a for-profit company. >> Absolutely, and the undercurrent of this year's Tech Vision, which is about to launch is all about thinking beyond the edges of your organization, and understanding the choices that you make, how they impact the communities you serve, so it's really important to us to be a good steward of that here at Accenture, and we have teammates accessible within the hub. For example, data enthesis, who can help you understand the decisions you're making around artificial intelligence. Are you using data securely? Are you using it in a way that makes people feel comfortable? So we have teammates here who can help clients consider the impact of these decisions that goes beyond the four walls, to really be a good steward for the next generation. >> Okay, well, next time I come, I'm wearing a white coat, so we can go get our hands dirty. >> I like it. >> All right, Ashley, well, again, congratulations to you and the team, and have a great evening. >> Thank you so much. >> All right, she's Ashley, I'm Jeff. You're watching theCUBE. We're at the Accenture Innovation Hub for the Technology Vision 2020. Thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time. (funky electronic music)

>> From the Sales Force tower in downtown San Francisco. It's the cube covering a censure Tech vision twenty nineteen brought to you by Silicon Angle media. >> Hey, welcome back. You're ready, Jeff. Freak >> here with the cue. We're >> in the center. Innovation hub, downtown San Francisco Salesforce >> Tower. The party is just getting started and you can see >> behind us. Had a ribboned coat ribbon cutting ceremony this morning. We're excited here for the Century Technology Vision awards given later today. But we're excited of our next cast. First >> time on the Cube. Ashley Miller. She's the director of Innovation West Region for centuries, actually. Welcome. >> Thank you so much. Glad to be here. >> So all these toys are for you to play with. >> They they are there so many interesting things to play with your so many incredible people. It's an incredible place to be. >> So it's a great aggregation of kind of a bunch of satellite offices. You've got three stories of really kind of active, engaging labs. I wonder if you could say I guess she had a soft opening a little while ago. Tonight was the heart opening. What are some of the ways that customers actually come in and use this facility? >> Yeah, way actually have five floors. We have the thirty first through thirty fifth floor. Five entire floors with several of those floors dedicated solely Teo, innovating with our clients and collaborating and co creating with our clients. So this is the official launch The Big Party, opening us officially with the ribbon cutting. But Way did have a soft launch over the summer, and in fact, we've been hosting many clients >> each week. >> It's it's really incredible that demand is quite high. People are very eager to come in and explore and learn as well as define strategies and actually co create solutions here with the experts. So it's it's exciting, >> so help. So they come in small teams, big teams. They come for a day a week. What are some of, you know, kind of the standard offerings? If you will t come and learn about invasion >> all of the above. We host clients as well as, you know, partners in the community, uh, students and educational groups. People who want to come in and learn about emerging technologies and their potential impact to business to society. A cz well as multiday and multiweek sessions where we're actually rode mapping solutions, building new ideas together and actually co creating prototypes and solutions to solve those those challenges >> right. So Paul, talk bitterly about your innovation, architecture's so everybody wants to know how to innovate, especially in a big company. It's it's not necessarily easy, and you guys have a bunch of assets in play. And then, as I understand it, the hub is the location where you bring all those assets under one roof. >> That's exactly right. This hub is a flagship hub where we have every element of our innovation architecture represented. So it's center has this architecture to help both ourselves innovate as well as our clients and our partners. So clients and partners can come here and access the incredible breadth of our experts, designers, engineers, builders. So here in our flagship hub, we have teammates from our research organization that's offering points of view and helping others understand. What does the future look like? We have teammates from our labs are R and D organization that's actually looking at these cutting edge technologies, quantum computing, connected devices, artificial intelligence and understanding, and using these technologies, developing prototypes to test and learn and understand their potential value. Then we have teammates who can actually build prototypes and solutions. Both connected digital devices as well as physical devices way have teammates in our ventures group who are partnering with the ecosystem of universities as well start ups as well as big ecosystem platform partners and bringing those teammates in and using their solutions to help procreate and ninety eight new opportunities for our clients. And then, of course, within our innovation architecture, we also have our delivery centers. So once you identify really game changing opportunity on, you've tested it and you understand, and it's a viable solution. Well, then you can scale it more cost efficiently through our delivery centers, >> right? So I know it might be asking you like to pick your favorite kid, but but but share. I mean, what is a Woody one or two of your kind of favorite things? That that is here in this innovation hub, that you just think it's just cool beyond compare. >> It is asking me to pick my favorite kid. There's so many incredible things here, but I can tell you what we have on display tonight. We have Mary Hamilton, the head of our labs organization, along with Theresa Tongue is a managing director within our labs and room on Chowdhry, who leads a practice of ethical, eh? I talking about the future of human and robot interaction. What does that mean for teams when they're augmented by robots? How do you do that in a fair way and in an ethical way, so that you're using the humans potential as well as the robot's potential. We have Mike Reading the head of our ventures team. We have him here, along with some of our teammates, from research Justin hers egg. And they're They're talking about the power of Blockchain to create transparency and accountability within supply chains. A CZ well is talking about some of the power of of some of the startups we're working with, like one Cuban quantum computing start up, which we partnered with Bio Gen. The healthcare company. Toe Actually use quantum computing. Teo. Increase the speed of drug discovery. It's really incredible. It takes on average in the industry. It takes ten years and a billion dollars to bring an average drug to market, and they're hoping they can speed this up significantly with with quantum computing. So way have stations on display where you can actually go inside a quantum computer where we'll use immersive technologies. And walking inside, you can actually understand and see what are the powers of quantum mechanics that enable quantum computing? Let's >> see, we >> have way have incredible leaders. So those were those >> were just going long >> so I could keep down. >> I love it. And we keep hearing about the incredible technologists that you have here that something like, I don't remember fifteen hundred out of the six thousand patents you've you've had are coming out of the people that work in this facility. >> It's it's unparalleled the talent that is in this building. Um, sometimes when I walk around, I can almost see the, you know, quantum physics coming out of their brains. They're just incredible. The talent that is here and the talent that we have accessible to our partners about TTO learn from a CZ Wells to partner with and build because these teammates, they're they're working on cutting edge things. And they're looking for partners to explore the validity of these new concepts. So a lot of times we're partnering with clients were both putting some skin in the game to test these ideas on DH. It's It's a really exciting place to be at the intersection of business and technology ideation and building solutions. >> Right? And you're not just doing it just for your clients to he had city and county San Francisco represented this morning at the ribbon cutting and really she talked about and John talked about earlier, you know, being an active participant in the community, and that's a really important piece of the >> puzzle. It is an important piece of the puzzle, and we're really passionate about being a part of the San Francisco community and helping to give back in our community as well as globally. So globally, we run a tech for good program. Where were you applying these emerging technologies to help benefit societies using things like Blockchain to make logistics distribution better and more trustworthy For companies that are delivering food? Teo indeed Populations things like using artificial intelligence built on top of Microsoft cognitive services help the blind to see doing these things. They're actually giving back to the world's population as well as our local population. Just in the last week, we hosted a group of young elementary school students coming in tow learn coding basics we're hosting. Last week we hosted one hundred students from an MBA program abroad. So we're often hosting students, clients, partners, startups. A few weeks back, we hosted a large healthtech challenge, which was really exciting. We had sea levels from some of our health companies. Come in tow, actually judge start ups from the Bay Area and to explore how those startups could tweak and refine their value statement and then explore opportunities to use those startups within the judge's organizations. So So it's a really exciting way that we're finding that being professionally generous, it pays it, tees up opportunities for centuries for our partners, way learn, they learn. And this hub is a powerful place of collaboration, >> right? What a great asset that you have to bring to bear. It's a It's a terrific story. Well, actually, thank you for taking a few minutes of your time. His party is a big part for you in the team, so I will let you get back to it. And again, Thanks for sitting down. Thank you so much. Alright, she's >> asking. Jeff, if you're watching the Cube, we're downtown San Francisco. Salesforce Tower at Thehe Century Innovation Hub. Grand opening. Thanks for watching. See you next time.