Leading in an Unpredictable World

We are entering a period in which “there will be no long-term predictability” in business, according to Accenture CEO Pierre Nanterme. “Leaders will need to learn to manage chaos and to do it in a highly disciplined way.”

- Paul Michelman

PIERRE NANTERME, chairman and CEO of the global professional services firm Accenture, has his hands full. He has set an ambitious agenda for his $31 billion enterprise to at once undertake its own digital transformation while also bringing a new set of digital capabilities to market in service of the firm’s thousands of clients. As Nanterme describes it, Accenture is its own case study in digitization. The Accenture chief recently sat down with MIT Sloan Management Review editor in chief Paul Michelman for a conversation about the challenges of digital transformation: for Nanterme’s own organization, for leaders of the organizations he counsels, and for society. Edited and condensed highlights of that in-person conversation, as well as subsequent exchanges via email, are captured here.

MIT Sloan Management Review: You’ve written that leaders need to be both business savvy and technology savvy. On its surface, that’s a statement that’s very easy to agree with. But when we’re thinking about senior leaders who may have come up at a time when technology did not loom nearly as large, what do we mean by “technology savvy?” What’s the level of skills, the level of knowledge that a senior executive needs now?

NANTERME: The point is to have the right level of understanding. The future of the organization and the business model will involve combining business and technology opportunities. Digital technologies are becoming absolutely pervasive enablers of any new business model.