Cass Comerford

Convergence is a global marketplace dynamic in which different companies and sectors are being brought together, both as competitors and collaborators, across traditional boundaries of industry, geography, technology and customer channels. In a world dominated by convergence, many traditional products, services and types of companies will become obsolete, but a stunning array of new ones are possible. With convergence, automobiles become as much about mobile services as about transportation; mobile phones become the means to do everything from making payments to watching videos to operating an intelligent home; media companies sound like telcos and vice versa; retailers sound like financial services companies; cosmetics companies work with pharmaceutical companies; chemicals companies work with agribusiness; and much, much more. An array of technology developments act as accelerators of convergence, including mobility, analytics, cloud, broadband and social networks. As a disruptive force, convergence is a threat to the unprepared, but a tremendous growth opportunity for companies that can out-innovate and out-execute their ever-expanding list of competitors under dramatically new marketplace rules. As defined by Accenture