"Zoom-out, it all makes sense". Vol.5: big techs are more efficient than you... yet not smarter (#dataMAPs)

Nowadays, everything boils down to synergies. We are living in a digital world whose nature leads to monopolistic pressure. Hence, a tier one priority for organisations is to get their internal platforms right through a range of tech-savvy providers. Only that way can they unlock scalability.

Nice strategy. But, guess what, scalability is also the target of their providers:

1. Big techs create efficient internal platforms that allow them to scale at an unbeatable pace. There is no magic but a couple of key yet subtle tricks behind the scenes that boost their efficiency levels compared to the rest. First, their business and tech teams are naturally aligned. So, they only need to create an optimal internal architecture, package it as user friendly black-boxes (products, services) that are standard, and sell them as-is - i.e. by design, their product is their factory. Second, they are their own technology providers hence, they don't build legacies upon other's black-boxes. This is very important: they export legacies but they do not import them. And thus, they scale non-linearly in relative terms. Note that, even though they have a tremendous marketing, their employees are not necessarily smarter than yours - they are simply solving in a different context. Beware, they are not worse either.
2. And talking about different contexts: a good number of startups are quite an outlier as well. They often solve an organisation's laser-focus pain using themselves above big techs' products - the less they use them, the more deep tech they are. Such laser-focus approach has traditionally been a demand from venture capitalists. They consider it a best practice along with the capacity to sell the very same solution across clients. And thus, selling a black-box upon external black-boxes with a very specific scope, they scale. Beware, the assertion may look bad but it is effective.
3. More controversial is the role of consultancies. They work hard trying to help organisations onboard the technology of the former two groups. And, while doing so, they gradually impose frameworks of one-size-fits-all-solution across clients through a gradual inheritance of power point documents across colleagues. It is optimal for their business as leveraging people is more challenging than leveraging technology. And thus, inheriting projects' solutions, they scale. Beware, consultants have more relevance behind the scenes than the final power point suggests.

The thing is the following: since providers also want to scale, organisations face scalability burdens upon them. Organisations' internal platforms end up being combinations of external legacies. So much that they converge in spite of their nature. There is little-to-none bespoke in their platforms' architecture design and innovation management. And, as such, they are far from optimised.

This, in turn, posses two key risks. First, a peer can directly take over their business if it finally reaches the bespoke alignment between business and technology. Thus, there is a sound urgency to align the two. And second, a new competitor from 1) or 2) can actually be the one that directly takes over, out of the blue, upon a disruptive factory - as it has traditionally happened in the different industries.

As a result, organisations need to recover control of their internal platforms and protocols evolution.

We propose #dataMAPs as a way to unlock organisations' microservices architectures in a way that equilibrates tech and business needs. Note though that #dataMAPs is an open concept that we are pushing to boost efficiency across industries - i.e. our product is its first instance but not necessarily the only one.