Advisors provide a continuous flow of information on the topics covered by each practice, including consultant insights and reports from the front lines, analyses of trends, and breaking new ideas. Advisors are delivered directly to your email inbox, and are also available in the resource library.
CCUS: Creating Business Opportunities Across the Value Chain
Martin Dix, Oliver Golly
CCUS is widely accepted as a viable technology approach for decarbonization and an essential part of the transition to net zero. As we explore in this Advisor, it also creates a range of transformative opportunities for businesses across the value chain.
Benefits of Blockchain-Enabled Microgrids
Ali Arabnya, Amin Khodaei
This Advisor takes a closer look at interoperable energy microgrids enabled by blockchain, which can offer more choices to consumers, improve market efficiency by eliminating middlemen, increase resilience by decentralizing the network topology, and enable new marketplaces.
Driving DAO Governance Innovation with Web3 Social Media
Johannes Rude Jensen, Omri Ross
Although the still-abstract concept of Web3 social media may not immediately appear relevant for the current generation of DAOs, we believe this tooling will emerge as a force multiplier for the growth of token-powered organizations. As we explore in this Advisor, Web3 social media will: promote accessibility in the decentralized technology stack, bring commercial incentives for value capture to the forefront, and create a new standard for identity on the blockchain.
Architecting in the Extreme Digital Age
Myles Suer
As we move into an era of “hyper-enterprise connectivity,” most businesses will need to manage an ecosystem — a complex web of interdependent relationships aimed at creating and allocating business value. In this Advisor, Myles Suer offers his thoughts on a new book that can help enterprise architects and digital business strategists tackle these complex ecosystems with AI to build enterprises of the future.
Modeling & Predicting Sea Level Rise with AI & Data Visualization
Curt Hall
Organizations are developing new AI and data visualization tools that can potentially transform the way we address the challenges of sea level rise. The goal is to make more accurate predictions about future climate conditions that can affect sea levels, project how sea level change will impact the environment and society, and present the findings in ways that can be easily interpreted and shared among stakeholders. This Advisor takes a look at some of these tools.
Project NN2NZ: Using Digital Twin Technology to Achieve Net Zero
David McKee, Tim O'Callaghan
The world’s chances of avoiding the worst effects of climate change are rapidly decreasing due to our failure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. We can only reach the emissions levels necessary if every business, city, and region moves rapidly toward its net zero obligations. Digital twins can become a key tool in this mission. This Advisor introduces a project by a UK town that is utilizing digital twin technology to facilitate its transition to net zero.
From Command-Control to Agile-Adaptive
Jim Highsmith
Modern management emphasizes empowerment, flexibility, collaboration, and innovation. But what should we call it? While there are a number of labels thrown around for modern management, none have stuck as much as “command-control” (used to describe traditional management practices). In this Advisor, Cutter Fellow Emeritus Jim Highsmith offers a new label for today’s emerging management practices: agile-adaptive leadership.
Leveraging Supply Chain Emissions Data to Achieve a Circular Economy
Alex Saric
To achieve a circular economy, companies must first develop a comprehensive view of emissions data across their extended supply chain. Developing such a baseline at the supplier and category level is essential to identifying the greatest opportunities and developing an effective action plan.
Understanding Blockchain for Sustainability
Horst Treiblmaier
Blockchain, a complex technology, and sustainability, an abstract concept, have two things in common: they are (1) fairly comprehensive, and (2) vaguely defined. To understand how the former can impact the latter, core terms and existing trade-offs must be properly explained, and all positive or negative blockchain sustainability implications must be carefully evaluated.
The Role of IT in Good Decision-Making
Paul Clermont
People made decisions for many millennia without the benefit of IT, and it’s not self-evident that we make our really big decisions in the computer age consistently better than before. Smaller decisions in relatively information-rich situations are another matter. As this Advisor explores, IT has been and will continue to be important to decision makers in critical ways.
The Carbon Footprint of Large Language Models
Greg Smith, Michael Bateman, Remy Gillet, Eystein Thanisch
Modern large language models (LLMs) require huge amounts of computing power to churn through huge amounts of data. In this Advisor, we analyze the carbon footprint of these LLMs and its impact on the environment.
GenAI: 1 Year In
Curt Hall
In a recent survey, we asked organizations about the primary challenges hindering them from carrying out their GenAI plans. This Advisor explores some of their major concerns.
Creating Intersections Between Corporate Ambition & Nature Action
Sara Cook
In this Advisor, Sara Cook of the Wildlife Habitat Council offers imperatives for aligning corporate ambitions with place-based action that is both stakeholder-informed and fully resourced.
Building Adaptable Organizations
Myles Suer
How do organizations create business adaptability? How can CIOs guide their CEOs and other business leaders to build truly adaptable organizations? We asked a group of CIOs these questions; this Advisor shares their responses.
In the Navy Now: New Project Highlights Digital Twin Potential
Jason Radel
To demonstrate the degree to which digital twins are becoming a powerful tool, this Advisor examines a digital twin framework that was used to create, adjust, and deploy a digital twin of a NATO member’s naval ship. The tool can be used for training, engineering, and operational activities.
What Does the SCOTUS Affirmative Action Decision Mean for Corporate DEI?
Rohini Anand
The US Supreme Court decision regarding affirmative action has prompted concern among DEI leaders. In this Advisor, I address several of these issues and offer some thoughts based on my experience leading DEI transformation efforts.
Monetary Impact Accounts: A Proactive Currency for Better ESG Reporting
Robert Zochowski, Ryan Daulton
Proactive measurement and management of consumer product impacts can minimize the risks of running afoul of social expectations and enable analysis and decision-making alongside financial metrics by translating those impacts into units of currency we call “monetary impact accounts.” This Advisor takes a closer look at this new way of capturing a more complete view of corporate ESG activities.
Are Enterprises Addressing GAI’s Privacy, Security & Ethical Concerns?
Curt Hall
Make no bones about it, data privacy/security and the ethical/responsible use of generative AI (GAI) are hot-button issues. But to what extent are enterprises actually taking steps to address these concerns as they rapidly adopt GAI? In a recent Cutter survey, we asked organizations this key question.
Looking for Talent? It’s Time to Adjust Your Lens
Linda Patterson
As a woman of color, it is important that when I consider employment with your organization, I see representations of myself in roles across the spectrum — including at the senior level. I’m not suggesting that job qualifications are irrelevant, of course, but I’m asking you to adjust your lens to look past gender and color for talent. Better still, look at women of color and recognize that your organization is in need of their talent.
Understanding the Climate-Related Information Disclosure Landscape
Cynthia Clark
How a company handles environmental concerns — or crises — is central to what it stands for, and it’s becoming increasingly divisive. Not surprisingly, it seems every major country is focused on how environmental information should be disclosed to stakeholders, with a focus on climate-related information. For many years, companies have been presented with a patchwork of conflicting rules and requirements, making it hard to compare them, even within an industry. Executives and boards have been calling for the multiple prevailing standard-setters to not only consolidate but to do so on a global scale. This Advisor examines the landscape of climate-related information disclosure.
Healthcare’s Transformation Requires a Shift from “Digital” to “Data-Driven”
Mario Nico, Dario Garante, Katia Valtorta, Ulrica Sehlstedt, Vikas Kharbanda
During the next decade, the healthcare industry will undergo a profound transformation as many important technologies, including AI, reach mainstream adoption. Clinical workflow will become more agile by virtue of AI and advanced analytics that automate decision-making processes. The emergence of these technologies requires a transformation from mere digital health to data-driven healthcare given the fundamental role of data in automated decision-making.
How One Company Emerged from Crisis Stronger Than Ever
Yuriy Adamchuk
In this Advisor, Avenga CEO Yuriy Adamchuk delves into repercussions from an actual, ongoing war — in Ukraine. Avenga has 11 offices and 1,300 professionals in the country, and, knowing the risks of an attack (based on the 2014 invasion and subsequent expert predictions of escalation), the company developed its Service Endurance Plan.
Transparent Disclosure: Americans Want More of It from Companies
Rachael Doubledee, Matthew Nestler, KelleyFrances Fenelon
Last year, we conducted six focus groups, each containing seven participants and a moderator, to discuss topics related to just business behavior by the largest public corporations in America. Participants said that honest, transparent disclosures affect how positively or negatively consumers and shareholders value the company. This Advisor takes a closer look at the issue of corporate transparency.
3 Strategies to Help Tech Firms Navigate Geopolitical Storms
Douglas Fuller
This Advisor explores three strategies tech companies can employ to avoid being damaged in the current atmosphere of treacherous geopolitics: lobbying, bandwagoning, and corporate de-risking. While some policymakers and pundits may view these strategies as violating the ideals of economic efficiency, new geopolitical realities dictate more corporate flexibility in pursuing healthy bottom lines.
Exit Strategy Management: The First Decision Is a Financial One
Klaus Meyer, Saul Estrin
A leader’s decision to leave a foreign country requires complex financial, operational, and ethical considerations. First, the financial analysis of the operation under scrutiny must be adjusted to account for losses incurred elsewhere in the global organization. This Advisor takes a closer look at this initial step in an exit strategy decision tree.