Welcome to Star Radar

We’re thrilled to bring you monthly practical insights and actionable ideas that empower CTOs and technology leaders to make a more meaningful impact on their organizations and end users—all here on LinkedIn.

Star has grown by continually adapting to market shifts, technological advancements and—most importantly—our clients’ evolving needs. As businesses seek digital solutions to enhance operational excellence and customer experience, we’re here to help navigate the complexities of digital transformation, bridging the gap between strategy and execution to create lasting impact. You can read more about our founders’ perspectives on Star’s next chapter as a global technology consultancy and how to unlock enterprise value in this new digital transformation era.

Now let’s dive into two topics of focus for this month:?North Star metrics - a singular focus for aligning teams, driving strategic decisions and tracking progress toward your organization's digital journey, as well as how businesses can unlock value through platforms.

Kim Sorensen, VP of Strategy, Star & Editor-in-Chief

In the early 1960s, Japan implemented universal health coverage and enacted the Act on Social Welfare for the Elderly. At that time, the country had ~150 centenarians (people over 100 years old). Sixty years later, that number sits at over 95,000, and Japan boasts the world’s highest proportion of centenarians in its population.

This amazing feat made me think about the role of North Star metrics in measuring strategic progress, specifically in the context of transformation. Rather than relying on traditional healthcare metrics, Japan identified a single, powerful demographic indicator that effectively captured the systemic changes taking place in society as a result of their initiatives.

Knowing your endgame is obviously the first step to successful transformation. But a critical step is to articulate a metric that helps you assess whether you’re making progress towards that endgame.

North Star metrics are a familiar concept in product management, where it's used to articulate product success in a single metric, to help keep product teams focused on creating customer value.?

North Star metrics can also be incredibly valuable in transformation journeys, though when applying this concept in a transformation context it needs to take on a different form:

• Avoid traditional business metrics - it’s tempting to measure the impact of transformation in familiar metrics, such as revenue growth. But transformation is not about growing the status quo, it’s about changing the status quo. Challenge yourself to define transformative progress so that operating business as usual doesn’t lead to a false sense of accomplishment.

• Embrace imperfection - transformations are long and messy journeys, and it’s impossible to perfectly capture their progress even with multiple metrics. The aim is to understand directional progress, not absolute outcomes. Accept that you will not find a perfect metric that captures all of the outcomes of your transformation.

• Make it accessible - your North Star metric will help rally your organization around your transformation. If they can’t relate to or easily understand the metric, it loses its value in highlighting what you’re working towards. Define transformative progress in a way that everyone can get behind and so it doesn’t take a degree in financial or data analysis to understand what the metric truly represents.

Transformations are complex, but understanding their progress should be simple. A single, crisply articulated North Star metric can help guide your organization’s focus when the complexity of day-to-day execution makes it hard to see the forest for the trees.

In today’s digital economy, competitive advantage no longer lies solely in having technology but in how effectively that technology is orchestrated to drive business outcomes. Enterprise platforms have evolved far beyond operational support systems—they are now strategic assets that define an organization’s ability to innovate, adapt and grow. For technology leaders navigating digital transformation, the choice between generic solutions and custom enterprise platforms can significantly impact an organization’s future trajectory.

Core requirements of a modern enterprise platform solutions?

Custom enterprise platforms serve as the technological backbone of modern businesses, designed to scale, integrate seamlessly with new technologies and adapt to real-time market demands. Unlike generic platforms, custom solutions are purpose-built to accelerate capability deployment, streamline data flows and provide a resilient infrastructure for continuous growth. Some core components include:

• Cloud-based infrastructure: A cloud-based infrastructure provides a flexible and scalable environment where the enterprise platform can operate. Unlike traditional on-premises systems, cloud infrastructure allows resources to be scaled up or down based on demand, offering agility and cost efficiency. This flexibility and scalability enable organizations to adapt quickly to changes, as well as empower the workforce to leverage real-time data to collaborate and make decisions more effectively.
• API-first approach for seamless integration: An API-first approach is the principle of designing the platform with integration in mind from the outset, making it easy to connect with other applications and systems. APIs are essential connectors between the platform and various internal and third-party applications in a modern enterprise platform as businesses rely on a wide range of tools from different sources to function effectively. By using an API-first approach, the enterprise platform can seamlessly connect with these systems, enhancing data flow, improving user experience and reducing the need for redundant data entry. Prioritizing API integration and interoperability ensures a flexible foundation for digital innovation and ecosystem growth.
• Microservices architecture enabling modular development: A microservices architecture breaks down the platform into independent, modular services that can be scaled and updated separately, supporting faster deployment and development cycles. This modular setup is invaluable for agile development and rapid iteration, allowing organizations to quickly introduce new features and bug fixes without impacting the entire system.?

Business impact of a platform-enabled value creation?

The global spend on digital transformation is estimated to reach $4 trillion USD in 2027 according to the International Data Corporation. With the widespread adoption of AI and generative AI, businesses are investing more in building cloud infrastructure while modernizing legacy systems and fixing technological debts to enable the integration of AI. The goal is clear: to harness the full power of data-driven insights, automation and personalized customer experiences at an unprecedented scale.

Custom enterprise platforms are central to digital transformation, providing a unified, data-driven ecosystem that enables organizations to make swift, informed decisions and optimize performance across all areas of operation. For instance, in a retail setting, an enterprise platform can seamlessly connect data from sales, inventory, customer behavior, marketing and operations in real-time. This integration allows for immediate responses to market trends, automated inventory management, dynamic pricing adjustments and personalized customer interactions—all of which provide leadership with both actionable insights and a foundation for long-term strategic planning.

Additionally, by consolidating data from diverse sources—such as purchasing behavior, customer service interactions and feedback loops—custom platforms create a comprehensive 360-degree view of each customer’s preferences and needs. This holistic insight enables businesses to proactively address customer needs which directly increase brand loyalty and trust. Real-time data capabilities further enhance responsiveness, enabling companies to adapt dynamically to changing customer expectations and deliver timely, relevant incentives based on individual needs. In a competitive landscape, these tailored engagements not only boost customer retention but also set the brand apart.

Custom platforms also play a critical role in transforming employee experience. By streamlining workflows, enhancing cross-functional transparency and integrating digital tools, these platforms provide employees with a flexible, responsive environment that fosters productivity and engagement.

Additionally, custom enterprise platforms significantly reduce the total cost of ownership by minimizing reliance on outdated systems and third-party applications. Built on future-proof, scalable architectures, these platforms reduce maintenance and upgrade costs over time, freeing resources that can be redirected toward innovation. For example, Klarna recently shifted from using multiple SaaS providers to building a custom AI system, enabling the fintech company to streamline operations, reduce expenses and improve customer service through tailored AI capabilities. Similarly, Breville consolidated its operations by building a unified, custom platform that replaced various SaaS tools, enabling global consistency, enhancing efficiency and lowering costs. This kind of cost efficiency and streamlined scalability is essential for businesses striving to stay competitive in today’s fast-paced market.

From technology leaders to transformation makers?

In the digital era, today’s Chief Technology Officers are tomorrow’s Chief Transformation Officers. As the architects of an organization’s digital landscape, CTOs play an integral role in driving growth, innovation, and operational resilience. By championing custom enterprise platforms, CTOs build more than just digital infrastructure—they establish a dynamic foundation that drives real-time decision-making, operational efficiency, and workforce agility. These tailored platforms enable organizations to integrate seamlessly with emerging technologies, streamline processes, and adapt to market changes, creating a continuous cycle of value creation and competitive advantage. With custom enterprise platforms as a catalyst, CTOs can empower their organizations to not only keep pace but to lead by securing sustainable growth and relevance in an ever-evolving market.

Learn more about driving transformation and growth with Star's custom enterprise platform solutions.