Information technology has been a game-changer. It encompasses the spectrum of all business activity from grunt record maintenance to innovation. It also contributes to a sustainable environment by saving us over 30% of paper consumption year on year (Source: Oxford Academic)
But why are system projects perpetual – a never-ending drain on expertise, resources, budgets, and frankly peace of mind? Implementing business applications is like adopting a hungry beast… you have to keep feeding it else it turns on you
Information systems are seen as a solution, so we invest large amounts of capital in enabling technology. And then spend inordinate multiples of the original amount and effort in maintaining, enhancing, upgrading, reimplementing, integrating, and replacing these.
These costs are a factor of the technology evolution (advancements, security, obsolescence) and business and regulatory (org structure changes, product changes, geo expansion, M&A, Tax and compliance regulations)
The catch is that – systems are architected to perform for a scope that makes them rigid to changes and extensions. Interoperability is sacrificed at the altar of standardization. A change in your maintenance technology has far-reaching implications on your ERP, SCM, HR and EHS systems and one change can cause a domino effect of cost and schedule impact triggered by point-to-point integration
We have learned to live with the disappointment of perpetual IT roadmaps and never-ending costs
But is there another way to alleviate the pain, the cost, and the incessant demand for our best talent to feed the hungry monster that promises salvation?
There is…
Many of the smartest and most successful enterprises have done this by looking back in time and adopting the learnings that worked well before pre-packaged enterprise applications became the norm.
What has worked well for these companies and how did they solve for –
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- Adopt a slim-core model and reduce dependency on monolithic applications.
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- The slim is a set of best-of-breed applications that are most suited for the functions and move to a SaaS model
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- The core is a data platform – Abstract and harmonize the data from the applications and connect these using an enterprise data model.
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- Layer the surround with microservices applications that draw from and feed to the data core
By doing this not only do we decouple expensive and long-tail projects from business and regulatory changes, but also save substantially on costs and enable the business to be more agile
The only catch is that bespoke building will require expertise and talent.
We at Midoffice Data are innovating by bringing our learnings and have created a plug-and-play data suite that is functionally deep and infinitely extensible without adding to tech debt. We use domain expertise, data lakehouse advancements and artificial intelligence to deliver outcomes at a fraction of cost and effort.
Link for the Oxford article –> https://academic.oup.com/jof/article/114/4/433/4756795