business
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TALKING
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Technology in itself does not solve the
challenges facing business today. Moving
to a software-centric world means changing
ways of working and adapting to new rules
of development that are very different to
how software was developed 20 years ago.
To get started, businesses should tailor
strategies around teams of people that have
been involved in similar processes before and
are comfortable working in a ‘product’ rather
than a ‘project’ environment. By doing
so, the transition is easier for traditional
companies looking to get organised
around software. While this may seem like
a significant leap, the goal is ultimately to
work smarter and more effectively to create
new products and services more quickly,
which can only be beneficial to keeping a
business relevant.
Operate and iterate at speed
One of the biggest challenges for large
organisations when embracing a software
culture is transitioning to a model that
helps them operate with both agility and
at speed – factors that have taken on fresh
importance given the plethora of nimble
start-ups eating away at larger businesses’
market share. Whether it is developing
software quickly and being able to release
it in days rather than months, or making
decisions faster, it is clear that companies
with shorter development cycles are able to
respond more swiftly to market changes and
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INTELLIGENTCIO
work more efficiently. If your competitors are
increasingly smaller more agile companies,
then you need to adapt and become more
agile and work at speed.
This is the main difference when examining
digital native companies that have
emerged in recent years. They famously
run on very few lines of code on a very
flexible architecture and run agile software
development rather than adopting a
waterfall approach, allowing products
and services to be delivered very quickly.
That sounds enticing, so why aren’t all
organisations doing it? The answer is
that newer businesses do not have as
many assets as more traditional firms.
Companies in the Fortune 1000 have years
of investment in people, processes, systems,
relationships, technology, regulatory
“
understanding, privacy practices and more
that have fared them well over decades, or in
some cases, more than a century.
Although it may seem alien for a company
with such defined processes in place, terms
like ‘agile development’, ‘continuous
integration’, ‘continuous delivery’ and ‘cloud
native applications’ need to become more
commonplace. The software revolution is
here and those who do not adapt will likely
fall by wayside. This will require a significant
shift in attitude from a project-based to a
product-based way of working, something
that faster software development allows.
Fundamentally, this means a transition
from measuring success on the delivery of
software, to measuring success on business or
user outcomes, which looks more holistically
at software as part of a business. n
THE GOAL IS ULTIMATELY
TO WORK SMARTER AND MORE
EFFECTIVELY TO CREATE NEW
PRODUCTS AND SERVICES MORE
QUICKLY, WHICH CAN ONLY
BE BENEFICIAL TO KEEPING A
BUSINESS RELEVANT.
www.intelligentcio.com