Yesterday's Software Won't Solve Tomorrow's Problems

With our Partner, cplace

In a 2019 article, Forbes magazine stated that "Change is the new superpower" and that certainly is no hollow phrase. In this article, the author postulated that companies needed to increase their metabolic rate for change. But what does that even mean?

For years, the word "change" has been running through the international business media like a mantra. Everyone has noticed that the world around them is fundamentally changing. Digitalization, automation, networking, machine intelligence, artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, etc., all create new ways of how entire industries work. At the same time, globalization has intensified competition tremendously.

Wherever there is talk of "change", one often hears the word "transformation" in the same breath: maximum adaptability and flexibility must become second nature to any organization. This places new demands on organizational structure.

In a recent Harvard Business Review study, 90 percent of the surveyed executives said they were struggling with increasing volatility in their markets. But only about one-fifth of them believe they already know the best strategy to become more adaptive or "agile" and innovative.

Only those who can react and adapt most flexibly will survive. According to a McKinsey study, less than ten percent of the companies that were listed in the U.S. S&P 500 stock index in 1983 are still there in 2013. The majority have disappeared from the stock index. In the same study, the consulting firm notes that 82 percent of the companies have restructured in the last three years to adapt their organization and strategy to new challenges. But even though restructuring and realignment now take place with much greater frequency: Only 23 percent of these projects were successful.

Companies are forced to become faster, more agile, and more responsive. However, their answer to this challenge is not yet crowned with success.

What can they do to build the capacity for sustained change? And – speaking of digital transformation – what does that mean for their technological backbone?

Speed

Market requirements and processes change at a rapid pace. No one has time to spend months creating specifications and sometimes years waiting for new software to deliver those new features. No-Code and Low-Code software allows trained key users to adapt business solutions to new requirements whenever this is necessary – new capabilities are available almost instantaneously. Sometimes, these No-Code and Low-Code platforms even offer ready-to-use solution components. Those can be combined to extend a solution ecosystem quickly and efficiently whenever the process requires it. The software platform cplace is a good example of the combination of ready-to-use building blocks with No-Code and Low-Code capabilities.

Strategic alignment

Agile transformation is often a way to respond to volatile and uncertain conditions. But training Scrum masters and installing Kanban boards is not enough. Almost everyone can make a small agile team successful. However, the integration into the company’s bigger picture is often missing. State-of-the-art software allows you to integrate project-related information with higher-level company management processes, all on the same, common platform. As a consequence, these software solutions accelerate internal and inter-company collaboration, for example in strategy and change management projects or joint ventures.

Managed diversity

Diversity is a key characteristic of successful agile enterprises. Consequently, it makes no sense to force different teams into the corset of the same methods and tools. So how can enterprises handle the multitude of preferred methods? The safest bet and the most sustainable option is a platform solution. It can provide a safe, single, common data basis while allowing many different methods and process models. It enables every team or even every user to design their own user interfaces as they see fit. The result? Managed diversity!

So how can enterprises make change their superpower? The short answer: They need to allow maximum degrees of freedom and diversity while offering a common, safely managed platform where collaboration across teams and business units can thrive.?