Do you know of companies that you see leading the way in digital transformations?

Clearly, the advisory firms have all got the religion. In many cases, they see that as the next destination for revenue. The large consultancies, similarly, have moved forward very quickly in order to be able to help their clients do that. But when you dig down deeper and you look at the components that you need to bring together to deliver those kinds of solutions, that marketplace is still immature … for two reasons. Number one: A lot of the technologies are being sourced out of academia. The core, core, core innovations occurred in academia. So, by definition, they're fairly new. The second problem is not only are they new, but they're all very different. And so the industry is … inundated by vendors that have a solution. … The tools all do different things and they are fit for different use cases. …

Bringing those together requires a very elevated level of knowledge and skill, and expertise in these technologies. So … does industry need to depend on service providers at this stage? The answer is yes, because of the confusion, because of the immaturity.