Evolution of the Enterprise Has Arrived
Digital transformation continues to be a top priority for today’s enterprise executives. A recent CIO survey of decision makers reveals that digital transformation, AI/Machine learning/process automation and cloud computing continue to dominate the CIO spending priority list for 2019.[1] The percentage of CIOs prioritizing digital transformation has risen steadily over the past four quarters, and even if the economy were to worsen significantly, digital transformation initiatives were ranked as the least likely to get cut by CIOs.[2] More than half of the CIOs surveyed, expect digital transformation initiatives to be funded by savings from other portions of the IT budget.[3] Clearly digital transformation is on the CIO “must implement to survive” list. But is it enough? We think not. Not unless transformation is continuous, evolutionary, not a one-off.
Marketing overuse of the term “digital transformation” or “DX” has left its meaning somewhat hollow. Everyone claims to deliver it, but many businesses do not have a clear understanding of what it is, how to achieve it, why they are doing it, and significantly, how to maintain it, leading 70% of digital transformation initiatives to fail.[4] Digital transformation is viewed differently, and usually depends on with whom you are speaking. Many CIOs struggle with which strategy to deploy. The demand for DX arises out the business reality that for many years corporate enterprise has been burdened by problems associated with traditional business methods and infrastructure. In terms of technology, there is an urgent need to modernize monolithic systems and legacy apps, to access data held hostage in these systems, integrate that data into new business processes, and migrate infrastructures to the cloud.
Digital transformation involves far more than implementing new technology. Digital transformation is about implementing technology to change the way an enterprise does business. Blockbuster Video used technology for business; Netflix used technology to evolve the business model. One thrives, one is no more. When companies think about using technology to transform, it is also often viewed as a singular transaction. Moving to the cloud, for example, is a one time event. Welcome to the cloud! But it doesn’t transform your business. You just moved to the cloud instead of having an on-premises infrastructure. Digital transformation cannot be thought of a one time event because business demands are constantly changing. Customer needs and market demands continually evolve, and enterprise technology must do the same.
Enterprise IT departments find themselves in these difficult situations because they are encumbered with monolithic systems that once addressed a need, but paradoxically now constrain the evolutionary process of technology in the enterprise. Change of technology in the industry is not static. History reveals change is constant. It has become an evolution as the cycles for transformation are getting faster and faster as a direct result of market demand and cultural change. Millennials are looking for different ways of engaging, which is impacting how technology is utilized by all sectors, including enterprise. You can’t take on the digital transformation beast from a static perspective. DX is an organic evolving process driven by the demands on the enterprise itself.
When asked about their IT services spend, the CIOs surveyed reported that application development as well as consulting and systems integration remain top categories where CIOs anticipate increasing spending over the next twelve months, while 27% of respondents expect to decrease spending on offshore/outsourced resources.[5] The survey also revealed that CIOs are most focused on digitally transforming customer service and IT operations. Fortunately for these CIOs, next gen platforms are coming into the forefront, which once impossible, now streamline and automate application development and IT operations. At the same time, next gen platforms are capable of bringing about the key digital transformation must-haves including AI, the cloud, modernization of legacy apps, and the resulting elimination of IT backlog, reduction of cost and elimination of reliance on scarce & outsourced resources.
Crowd Machine GO is designed upon this very premise, from the halls of Skynet, solutions must evolve. Crowd Machine GO is technology that enterprise IT can use to rapidly create complex solutions that meet the immediate and ever changing organization needs and market demands, a technology that delivers immediate and continuous digital evolution. Crowd Machine GO is a solution set that sits over the top of Crowd Machine’s Crowd App Studio, a no-code cloud native environment for the rapid construction of sophisticated enterprise applications. No-code is a means for speed in Crowd App Studio. In the context of the GO solution, Crowd App Studio allows enterprise IT to quickly construct highly functional components or microservices called GO Gadgets. There are an unlimited number of types and use cases for Gadgets. For example, one Gadget could have the capability to pull stock ticker information, pull in AI services, consume the data and yield a result; another Gadget could be a data input that interfaces into Salesforce or other disparate data used by the organization. A GO Gadget can be anything the enterprise needs it to be. The line of business self-assembles the IT constructed GO Gadgets, by snapping them together, to render tailored flexible solutions that are compliant with IT governance.
At the same time, Crowd Machine GO allows enterprise IT departments to decompose those systems, that they have lived with for many years, into functional blocks of logic, or components, again referred to as GO Gadgets, and to express those functional components of those existing systems so the line of business can build their own outcomes to meet a specific requirement at any point in time, while those outcomes are remaining compliant with IT governance. This approach digitally transforms monolithic systems as well as evolves legacy data use. GO transforms IT operations by enabling IT to quickly produce solutions in an iterative manner. The approach reduces IT dependence and backlog, while at the same time allows the business line to engage in the process, to produce their own outcomes as their market and customer service demands evolve.
Crowd Machine’s belief, upon which technology is built, is that digital transformation must be a continuous process, a constant evolution of the enterprise. The GO architecture provides flexibility and freedom to the enterprise so that it can be more adaptive, and stay competitive as market forces change. CIOs looking for the digital transformation magic bullet must embrace and deploy technology, such as Crowd Machine GO, that is not just transformative, but evolutionary.
1. 2Q19 CIO Survey: Still Solid Growth, But Cracks May Be Starting to Show, Morgan Stanley Research Foundation, July 11, 2019.
2. Id.
3. Id.
4. McKinsey & Company, Michael Bucy, Adrian Finlayson, Greg Kelly, and Chris Moye, 2016.
5. Id.
