The software-defined enterprise concept describes the changing role of software in organizations today. Every business is a software business. Customer experience and product development are not just supported by software, but are now defined by software. Explore the challenges presented by this shift and learn what industry leaders like Jeff Immelt of GE, Paul Muller of HP, and Damon Edwards of DTO Solutions recommend for using the shift to power your organization's future success.
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Business leaders increasingly realize that customer experience and the way the enterprise builds its products and services, is not simply supported by software, it is defined by software.
Software is not just for software companies anymore
“Ultimately, every enterprise will be a software enterprise. Regardless of the industry you’re in, your company will be disrupted and ultimately transformed by software, and the sooner you act on it, the greater the opportunity to be the disrupter, versus the disrupted.”
The software-defined enterprise is a statement of intent being made by the business around what is acceptable when it comes to time-to-market, quality, and agility. It’s a strong signal to the technology organization as to what the business now expects.
“There is a massive business opportunity in using software to anticipate industrial equipment maintenance needs. Take the jet engine. It has about 20 sensors that capture real-time continuous data — temperature, engine performance, etc. If I can take that data and use it to model a consumer outcome — say, more time on the wing or less fuel burn — that’s worth an awful lot of money to my customers. A 1 percent change in fuel burn for an airline is worth hundreds of millions of dollars.” —Jeff Immelt, General Electric CEO
“I’m going back to school on big data and software.”
Jeff Immelt General Electric CEO
Immelt invested $1 billion in 50,000 developers & data scientists.
• Make IT not just a procurement place, but a broker of shared services to the business. This gives rising importance to “business engineers” who truly understand the business processes and application needs.
• Embody flexibility. The biggest change for software-defined businesses will be the nature of change itself. There will be much more of it.
• Adjust IT around the idea of a large number of small changes instead of—or perhaps as well as—a small number of large changes.
How can IT embrace the software-defined enterprise?
"We’re going to lose if we cannot move quicker. We’re going to lose if we cannot respond to the needs of the market and find that right product-market fit. If we don’t learn quicker as an organization.“
How: Let employees, customers, and partners “self-serve” and combine the capabilities of the entire organization—information, products, services, and platforms—directly. With some creativity and a good developer, you can redefine your organization for a new era in which your software is the face, and often the heart, of your business.
"Once your business is defined by software, the software has to be impeccable, the availability of the services needs to be unmatched, and your ability to control unmanaged change is absolutely critical. "
—Paul Muller
The CIO must:
• Learn how to balance the shift between maintenance and innovation
• Be more responsive to change
• Maintain stability while also being responsive to rapid changes